PUBLIC CHOOSES MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC COLLEGES

Preliminary fall enrollment figures from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education show large enrollment increases – led by community colleges - at the Commonwealth’s public higher education institutions. Community college students now make up over half of all public higher education enrollments as the chart below shows:

	Fall 2009 Estimate	Change from Fall 2008	Percent Change
Community Colleges	98,531	9,595	10.8%
State Colleges	39,546	946	2.5%
UMass	50,491	1,786	3.7%
System	188,568	12,327	7.0%

Where are the students who are flooding into community colleges coming from? An analysis shows that transfers have increased at all segments, but especially among community colleges:

	Fall 2009 Estimate	Change from Fall 2008	Percent Change
Community Colleges	6,726	1,666	32.1%
State Colleges	3,667	199	5.7%
State University	4506	124	2.8%
System	14,899	1,989	15.4%

Large transfers into community colleges are counter-intuitive as one would expect students to transfer from them into baccalaureate institutions. This seems to indicate that students are choosing community colleges after trying other alternatives.