When Ebba Eisner, a second-year international student at Santa Barbara City College, moved to the United States, it took a lot of courage.
“It’s a big step,” said the political science major seeking an associate’s degree, who was unable to add a class last year because it was full.
But this year was different. Enrolling was simpler because the classes she needed to enroll in were open.
That’s good new for Eisner. However, school officials said this week that the number of enrollees has dropped by 4% since last year, with an estimated 15% of seats in any given class currently empty.
“There’ so much movement,” said Jordan Killebrew, City College spokesperson, noting the numbers were expected to shift and settle as the current semester gets underway.
In a bid to increase enrollment, administrators are adding shorter classes to the schedule, where students attend for either eight or 12 week sessions.
The hope, Magenau said, is the shorter classes will appeal to part-time students in particular. They make up 64% of the student body, and are often looking for easier ways to juggle work, family—and school.
The decline in enrollment follows a trend.
Overall headcount has continued to decline over the last three years, said Keller Magenau, City College executive director of institutional research and planning.
The drop comes as colleges around the country recover from lower student turnout in the wake of COVID-19. As of Wednesday, 11,086 students were either attending the Cliff Drive campus in person or logging in to learn online, according to a City College daily enrollment report.
Around this time last year, as many as 11,600 students were enrolled. And the year before that, 12,000.
“Like every college around us, we’ve not come back from pandemic numbers,” Magenau said.
Before the pandemic, 14,400 students enrolled for the Fall 2020 semester, according to a 2023 report to the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees.
The latest count does not include students enrolled in shorter, late-start classes or dual-enrollment high school students. Those numbers are added toward the end of the semester, Magenau said.
This year, enrollment is down among specific student body demographics tracked by administrators.
Local enrollee numbers are down about 4% from last year, school officials say, and the number of international students like Eisner, who’s from Sweden, declined by 11%, continuing a three-year trend.
The international student decrease could be due to the rising cost of living in Santa Barbara and a reluctance among some foreign students to come to a country experiencing immigration uncertainty, Magenau said.
Ryan Risdall, a third-year kinesiology major, is taking core classes like chemistry but had no problem enrolling for the class with seats still available.
His friend and fellow third-year student Daniel Montiel said some of his classes last year were harder to get into, with more people requesting add codes to enroll during the first week.
But there is still time for students to enroll, Magenau said.
“There’s definitely still opportunity for students to enroll,” Magenau said. “They can find a class that’s still open.”
