Enrollment has been on the decline in all five of Coahoma Community College’s counties for the past five years.
CCC president Dr. Valmadge Towner provided data showing the decline from the fall of 2016 to the fall of 2020 during the board meeting last week.
“Enrollment is in a skid,” Towner said. “The enrollment has subdued for all of our counties.”
Coahoma, Quitman, Tunica, Tallahatchie and Bolivar are CCC’s counties. Towner said there has been a population decline in all of those counties.
“That doesn’t make an excuse,” Towner said. “That’s just the way it is.”
That was not the only issue Towner mentioned.
“There’s a lot of apathy out there,” he said. “People are not wanting to go to school.”
Towner said members of the community have provided him with honest opinions about other issues.
“Now, there may be other issues,” Towner said. “It depends who you ask. Some people say it’s me. Some people say Coahoma is not doing a good job.”
Towner said he would revisit areas where the school could improve, but acknowledged the main problem was population decline.
He showed the enrollment in Coahoma County went from 901 students in the fall of 2016 to 574 in the fall of 2020. Bolivar County’s enrollment dropped from 428 to 279 in the same time period.
Towner said Tallahatchie County’s enrollment decreased by 43 students in the past five years and Tunica County went from 130 to 93 in those five years.
“We just shared that with our Board of Supervisors and asked them to partner with us and help them get their constituents to be aware of our offerings and to become more inclined to enroll at Coahoma,” Towner said.
He did say summer school enrollment went well in 2021 because students were able to take classes for free thanks to CARES Act money. The first session’s enrollment went from 504 students in 2020 to 950 in 2021. The second session increased from 281 students in 2020 to 680 in 2021.
“A lot of these students are just going to be one-timers that are coming to get this free money,” Towner said. “I wish I could take credit for that, but I cannot.”
Towner said the tax revenue in all five counties has been pretty consistent. He said Coahoma County generated almost $1.3 million in tax revenue the past year.
“Obviously, this is our home county and they do a great job of supporting us,” Towner said.
Towner said he hopes 2,000 students enroll at CCC for the upcoming fall semester, but that is not on track to happen.
“We’re down from this time last year, which is quite frankly a little scary,” Towner said. “You know why I say that? Because last year we were in the middle of COVID with no vaccine in place at all and we had a higher enrollment.”
However, Towner said the school has not focused on the fall because a lot of emphasis was placed on summer enrollment where things went very well. He acknowledged there were challenges in recruiting students for the fall, but he is hopeful the school can reach its goal as in-person learning will be in effect.
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