Iowa鈥檚 community colleges are seeing returns on recruiting efforts and partnerships with schools and businesses in the form of rising enrollment in 2023.

Enrollment in community colleges grew by 3.8% from last year, according to the Iowa Department of Education , with a total of 85,362 students spread across the state. Part-time student numbers reached an all-time high, making up two-thirds of total enrollment.

While enrollment isn鈥檛 back to where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic began, with more than 88,000 students attending community colleges in 2019, the report stated this is the second year of increased enrollment in the state.

鈥淚 think that despite challenges facing higher (education) nationally, we鈥檙e faring well,鈥� Community Colleges for Iowa Executive Director Emily Shields said.

Out of the state鈥檚 15 community colleges, nine saw increased enrollment. Des Moines Area Community College saw the highest number of enrolled students at 24,418 and the largest over-year increase of almost 13%. Indian Hills Community College saw the largest decrease in enrollment, dropping by 3.7% to 3,236 students.

Iowa falls behind the national average with its enrollment trends, according to the report. National enrollment in two-year institutions increased by 4.4%, helped by a 9% increase in part-time students. In Iowa, part-time student enrollment increased by 0.8%.

Full-time enrollment also dropped in both Iowa and across the country, with the state reporting a 0.8% decrease and the U.S. seeing a 0.2% drop.

Joint enrollment, in which students are simultaneously taking high school and college credit classes, increased in Iowa by 7.9%, while the national average increased by 8.8%. Shields said she doesn鈥檛 like to compare the state and national numbers with joint enrollment, as she believes Iowa has been ahead of other states with tapping that market and has already seen major growth.

The biggest issue four-year universities and community colleges alike are up against is predicted drops in enrollment, Shields said, and it is a two-pronged problem. The first factor is that there will be fewer students graduating high school in the coming years, making the pool of applicants to colleges smaller. The other challenge is that fewer high school graduates are choosing to seek any post-secondary education, despite the majority of careers requiring a certification or degree of some kind.

鈥淲e鈥檙e facing a lot of pressures that are kind of driving down enrollment nationally, that we鈥檙e trying to address locally in different ways, but they are making it more challenging to kind of keep enrollment where it needs to be and keep college affordable and continue to attract students,鈥� Shields said.

Efforts on the national level to expand financial aid for certain programs could help bolster enrollment in certification and other non-degree training programs, Shields said. The , which has passed out of the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, would extend Pell Grant eligibility to some short-term workforce programs like those implemented by Iowa鈥檚 community colleges.

With the looming enrollment cliff and fewer students interested in pursuing an education after high school, Community Colleges for Iowa and the institutions it works with are trying to spread recruitment programs to a variety of areas.

Shields said community colleges don鈥檛 have the luxury of trying to target specific types of students, whether they be just out of high school or working adults, and thus are using career and college transition counselors embedded in high schools and partnerships with businesses to try and reach traditional and nontraditional students.

Judging by the 7.9% increase in joint enrollment and 3.1% jump in Iowa Career and Technical Education enrollment, Shields said these strides seem to be paying off.

鈥淚 think that really reflects where we鈥檝e made a lot of efforts to align with the state鈥檚 workforce to partner even more with high schools and just to offer lots of different options for Iowans to start and continue their education,鈥� Shields said.

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Eighty-nine Connecticut school districts will receive thousands of dollars of additional funding to expand their dual credit programs, which offer students both high school and college credit, state officials announced Tuesday morning.

鈥淚 think what we鈥檙e trying to do with these dual [credit programs], or trying to do with internships, and what we鈥檙e trying to do with apprentice programs 鈥� is we鈥檙e trying to make education real and give it a sense of purpose for young people,鈥� Gov. Ned Lamont said. 鈥淸These courses can] give a sneak preview of what happens next, in terms of confidence and sense of direction.鈥�

About $3.8 million  among the chosen districts, with most of the funding designated to those that serve high percentages of students of color, including Bridgeport, Danbury, East Hartford, Hartford, New Haven, Norwalk, Waterbury and CREC Magnet Schools, which received $90,000 grants each.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really about increasing access for all students. I think there are clearly disproportionalities in terms of students of color and students from low-income families, so our grant program that we have launched now is focused explicitly on not just increasing participation but losing those disparities as well,鈥� said Ajit Gopalakrishnan, the chief performance officer for the state鈥檚 Department of Education. 鈥淭he grant program helps with defraying district planning costs and works with institutional direct partners to make the work happen. 鈥� Long term, we do need to think about, as a state, supporting the costs involved, even though the costs are minimal for some families.鈥�

Earlier this year, the CT Mirror reported how students of color were being , another type of class that offers college credit if students pass a test at the end of the year. Experts, who said the disparities are often exacerbated in the same classroom or school because of school climate or systemic structures, also said college-level classes could become more equitable by shifting from AP into more dual-credit classes.

Three students interviewed at the time, all recent graduates of Wilby High School in Waterbury, said they weren鈥檛 offered dual credit courses at their school.

On Tuesday, Gopalakrishnan said 鈥渁lmost all鈥� high schools 鈥渉ave some availability鈥� of dual-credit courses through partnerships among the education department, individual high schools and UConn and CT State, but was unable to immediately answer how many didn鈥檛 offer these classes. 

At least 17 schools have suppressed data on the number of students who earned at least three college credits through dual enrollment during the 2022-23 school year, according to state data. Data is typically suppressed for confidentiality reasons because the number of students participating is low. 

Wilby was one of those schools. 

Other high schools like New Milford High only had seven of 602 upperclassmen, or 1.2%, obtaining at least three college credits through dual-enrollment.

Some schools in districts that are expected to receive funding like Danbury High School, Hartford Public High School and Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk reported under 10% of students were receiving college credit through dual-enrollment. 

Meanwhile, in other districts, like Colchester, Weston and Westport, the rate is around 82%.

In Ansonia, where about 40% of the high school鈥檚 upperclassmen earned three college credits or more, Superintendent Joseph DiBacco attested to the impact of those courses.

鈥淛ust last year, the senior class at Ansonia High School had 900 university credits they acquired,鈥� DiBacco said at the state鈥檚 press conference Tuesday.

DiBacco was joined by two students, both of whom said they began taking these courses when they were underclassmen.

鈥淚 feel really prepared for college, and I really think that gave me a step forward,鈥� said Paul Palmer, a senior at the high school. 鈥淚t also saves a lot of money, and that鈥檚 my main focus. 鈥� I wouldn鈥檛 be able to do that without all of these partnerships.鈥�

The state said grant funds are expected to be used mainly for:

• Stipends for high school teachers and college faculty to create course work that lines up with college expectations;

• Tuition reimbursement for high school teachers who need to complete additional training to teach these courses;

• Purchasing additional equipment for fields like health care, technology, etc.;

• Developing strategies to engage more students and explain 鈥渢he benefits of earning college credit,鈥� including saving money and skipping general education courses.

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Advanced coursework can include International Baccalaureate, dual high school-college enrollment, or Advanced Placement (AP) courses, with AP being the most popular and widely available mechanism. Taking such courses helps students gain college credits while still in high school, earn admission to top colleges, and flourish in the work world.

Yet a recently released report from the Center for American Progress  that Black, Indigenous, and rural students were far more likely to attend schools offering fewer AP courses than schools attended by their White, Asian, and suburban counterparts.

And even when students have similar access to AP courses, lower percentages of Black, Indigenous, and rural students enroll in the courses and pass them. In high schools offering 18 or more AP courses, White students taking at least one AP exam had an average passing rate of 72 percent. For Black students in these circumstances, the average passing rate was 42 percent. Latino students are not experiencing the same gaps in access as other ethnic and racial groups, but they do have lower enrollment and pass rates.

This speaks to what many educators and advocates already understand: Equitable access and success in advanced coursework requires more than availability and there are policy investments that schools and districts can leverage to help students succeed in advanced courses.

The first is creating a national database on student participation and performance in advanced coursework (including dual-enrollment courses offered at local universities), disaggregated by race. Currently, no comprehensive national dataset exists for multiple dual enrollment options, and individual state report cards vary greatly in what is publicly reported.

Much of the research on advanced coursework, by default, is limited to AP participation and performance because that is the only data that is easily aggregated, transparent, and comparable among all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Future iterations of the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 Civil Rights Data Collection should also report on IB and dual-enrollment participation and performance.

Another crucial investment is to remove entry barriers to AP and other advanced courses.  and subjective gatekeeping measures have a way of creeping into the enrollment process for advanced courses through overreliance on teacher referrals or counselor recommendations. This often results in students being overlooked for enrollment in  at the elementary school level or  at the high school level.

Districts have succeeded in combating this through the use of universal screening for gifted-and-talented programs and automatic-enrollment or academic-acceleration policies for AP courses. Automatic-enrollment policies,  in several states, require that students who meet benchmark proficiency levels on statewide examinations be automatically enrolled in the next highest available class, including advanced courses, though they can opt out.

In addition to making sure students are properly identified for enrollment in advanced courses, it is important to ensure students are prepared to handle the content and demands of the coursework. That takes regular communication and lesson planning among elementary, middle, and high school educators to map out common instructional vocabulary and concepts, known as .

Moreover, supporting students and teachers during their experiences in advanced courses is critical. One strategy that many states and districts embrace is to  associated with taking an AP or IB exam. Additionally, some schools are experiencing success through creating , where junior and senior AP students advise and tutor younger high school students to make sure they are setting themselves up for success.

Finally, both teachers and students benefit immensely from the creation of regional and statewide . This can take different forms, but usually involve time outside the regular school day when students and teachers can refine their skills, learn from experts, and get real-time feedback on teaching and learning.

None of these strategies alone can surmount the stubborn and persistent inequities in participation and success in AP courses. But when done in concert and with dedicated leadership, they can help broaden access to and success in advanced coursework.

This article originally appeared .