For LI's community colleges, steep challenges ahead

New leaders at Long Island’s community colleges are developing strategies to turn around declining enrollments and attract more students by freezing tuition and reaching out to nontraditional learners.

The challenges are steep: They include strained budgets, a declining high school-age population on Long Island, and dramatic changes in how students receive instruction, which, fueled by the pandemic, appear to be here to stay.

Both Nassau and Suffolk community colleges are approaching the hurdles with new leadership in place. In May, Nassau Community College named Maria Conzatti interim president, while at Suffolk County Community College, President Edward Bonahue took office last June. 

“Since the number of high school students is decreasing, we know the future of Suffolk lies in attracting nontraditional students," Bonahue said. "That’s our pathway to future growth.”

According to U.S. Census estimates, the number of Long Islanders ages 15-19 fell 9.2% from 2010 to 2020. 

At NCC, Conzatti spoke of recognizing the changing ways that students receive instruction, and adapting. “It’s about flexibility, to let students take programing when they want and how they want it,” she said.

Community colleges traditionally have attracted a diverse student body and served as a gateway to higher education for lower-income students.

Tuition has been frozen at both schools, for the third year at Suffolk and the second at Nassau. Resident full-time tuition per semester at SCCC is $2,735 plus fees. At NCC, it's $2,900 plus fees.

But enrollment has plummeted. At SCCC from fall 2011 to fall 2021, it declined 23%, from 26,789 to 20,570. At NCC in that time span, it fell 46%, from 23,550 to 12,631. 

The institutions are not alone in experiencing enrollment losses. Statewide, SUNY community colleges have seen a 34% decrease in enrollment from 2011 to 2021, according to Mark Harris, vice president of Financial Affairs at SCCC.

SUNY's state operated four-year school enrollment also dropped, but by less: about 5% over the same decade, according to SUNY data.

While the state budget approved this spring hiked funding for scholarship aid and hiring at public universities and colleges, advocates were disappointed it didn't do more for college affordability.

In addition, county funding has been stagnant in Nassau, according to its trustees, while in Suffolk, the county raised its contribution to SCCC by 3% for the past academic year.

With the new leaders in charge, assessments are underway on how to retain students and entice new ones; who and what will be taught in the future; and how that teaching will take place.

Suffolk County Community College

Bonahue came to Long Island after several decades of community college experience in Florida as a professor and administrator. A native of Long Island, he holds a PhD in English Literature.

When he arrived last June, he resumed a strategic planning process interrupted by the pandemic.

Top priority is a search for new students for SCCC's three campuses, in Brentwood, Selden and Riverhead. SCCC is SUNY's largest community college and has a budget for the coming school year of $212.2 million, an increase of 13%. Operating budgets are funded with student tuition and county and state funds, plus some federal aid.

Adult students with job or family responsibilities, growing immigrant populations and job-seekers have always been part of community college missions, but now they are seen as an undertapped resource for whom remote coursework — a necessity during the pandemic — is an attraction.

“We know we can serve students best when they are on campus, but long-term we know that online education is here to stay,” Bonahue said. “Many of our students simply need that flexibility.”

Bonahue has asked the college’s distance education committee to come up with new guidelines for evaluating online courses. However, some faculty express unease about the diminished role of in-person teaching, especially for more academically vulnerable students. 

“We’re in the thick of it,” said Cynthia Eaton, an English professor and longtime member of the committee working on assessing online courses. “It used to be only 10 percent of courses [online], and now we have many, many more courses, and faculty involved who need support. It’s a heavy lift.”

New federal regulations now require college administrations to prove that all faculty are consistently and reliably engaging with online students, she said. “If we have a professor who wants a class to teach itself, a faculty member not doing the right thing, now we can point to these federal regulations and say 'You have to do this.'”  

International student Jasmin Martins Abade, a commencement speaker who just graduated with a 4.0 GPA, thrived despite the pandemic-imposed remote education.

She returned to Germany when campuses closed in spring 2020, and said while it wasn't easy with the six-hour time difference, she made the most of her opportunities: "Honor society, peer mentor, foreign language tutor ... student leadership and teamwork were more important than what I experienced in Germany," she said.

Now in Sayville, she will pursue a bachelor's degree in international business at St. John's University in Queens. 

Faculty association president Dante Morelli said students needed to have clear expectations for what would be required of them in an online class. 

A readiness test is offered on the SCC website, said communications professor and department chair Virginia Horan, who added, “This is especially important post-COVID, because what they may have experienced as remote learning in high school is quite different from online courses at the college level.” 

She added, “It’s essential that we get the word out that students should come back to campus. Community college students often benefit from the structure and connection that face-to-face classes provide, and we are here, ready to teach.”

But students who have grown accustomed to the convenience of online classes are opting to continue. 

Philosophy professor Marc Fellenz at SCCC's Michael J. Grant campus in Brentwood said his in-person classes this session were “about half full because so many students are opting for continuing to learn online … even though students overwhelmingly didn’t find the online experience as effective or rewarding.”

He added, “We’re still seeing the ripple effects of students who fell behind or used up their financial aid, or students who because of the stress of the pandemic haven’t recovered the focus or attention span needed for higher-education-level learning.” 

Hunter Dillon, 19, a freshman communications major from Shoreham, said that while some classmates found it easier to learn online, that wasn’t the case for him, despite earning good grades in his prerequisites.

“It seemed very detached,” he said. “I thought it was super difficult to pay attention.”

But the "grand experiment" in online education is here to stay, said Tom Brock, president of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, citing improvements over the last two years and ongoing research to upgrade it.

“Some of the complaints are absolutely valid, but it’s also true we’re not going to go back to an environment where we can expect all students to come back to campus. If we do, we’re going to continue to lose students.”

Harris, of SCCC Financial Affairs, said if enrollment continues to decline, costs will continue to outpace revenue.

While the county has allocated increases of 3% last year and 2.5% this year, "the decreases in enrollment [and tuition income] always outpace the increases we've gotten," he said. "The issue is state funding: Last year they gave us 98% of what they gave us the prior year, and this year the coming budget, fiscal 2023, it's the same as last year, no decrease but no increase."

With inflation, he added, SCCC is spending more for the same or fewer services and goods.

The college plans to focus resources on student services and supports such as tutoring and advising “to stem the slide in retention and enrollment,” said Harris, who added that to save money, the campuses make due with older equipment and cuts in faculty numbers, largely through attrition. 

Nassau Community College

Conzatti, a longtime administrator at NCC, was recently named interim president after the departure of the previous president, Jermaine Williams, who left suddenly for the presidency at a Maryland community college. Faculty had been critical of his leadership during the pandemic. 

A search process is in early stages, with the intention of installing a new president by July 2023, according to Kathy Weiss, vice chair of the NCC board of trustees.

Garden City-based NCC, like SCCC, is among hundreds of community colleges nationally adopting reforms to improve student retention by creating clearer routes to degrees and certificates. Both are participating in SUNY’s Guided Pathways project, which aims to help students find and stay on paths to academic and career goals, while minimizing wasted credits.

“It’s now the sole goal of this institution to align ourselves with Guided Pathways,” Conzatti said.

She pointed to the potential of “tapping into the adult population and workforce training,” with step- or micro-credentials that allow students to take three to five courses for a certificate that can be applied toward an associate degree while offering interim credentials.

Brock, of the Community College Research Center, said community colleges had been "lax in letting students meander their way through" without giving enough guidance on how to efficiently finish programs.

“We’re putting too many students into courses where they don’t see where it’s leading," he said, adding that many take years to get a two-year degree. “Find out what they are interested in and help light their fire.” 

Nassau astronomy professor Thomas Bruckner, however, said many young students don't yet know what they want. "One student took eight years to get a degree, taking one class a semester, then got a good job running a planetarium with a 4.0 GPA," he said. "They say she’s not a success but she certainly was." 

Tzivia Miller, 27, of Hewlett, just graduated from NCC as its 2022 valedictorian, with a nursing degree and a job in a hospital, after attending part time for five years.

“And I have no loans, and I think that’s a huge gift,” she said.

But NCC, like SCCC, is operating under budget constraints because of falling enrollment and public funding that has failed to keep up with inflation, according to administrators, forcing choices between student services, equipment and hiring.

NCC trustees last month approved a 2022-23 budget of about $184 million, a slight increase over the previous year's.

The number of full-time staff has fallen through attrition. Weiss said faculty positions have been refilled on a “case-by-case basis.”

The NCC Federation of teachers, the local union branch of the NYS United Teachers, recently announced a campaign to get more county funding for the 2023 budget and blames the college administration for not pushing vigorously enough.

"We believe that a great county deserves a great community college, and with the assistance of the county legislature and the county executive, we know this college can shine again," said Faren Siminoff, NCC history professor and president of the faculty union.

NCC spokesman Lindsey Angioletti said the college has pushed for more funding from the state and county.

County spokesperson Mary Studdert said the county can only vote on the budget proposed by the college administration, while the administration, according to Weiss, has asked unsuccessfully for more county funding over the last decade and a half. 

The county contributes about 27% of the college's operating budget.

“We continue as we do every year to ask the county for a higher amount,” said Weiss, a board trustee since 2013. “It has not increased in the time I’ve been here. We are concerned about that piece: We made a resolution to not raise tuition so students can continue to attend … if you don’t increase tuition and get more money, then you have to balance the budget elsewhere.”

By Carol Polsky

Carol.Polsky@newsday.com

Carol Polsky writes news and features on wide-ranging topics, from superstorm Sandy, 9/11 and presidential elections to health care and the economy.