In hard times, college enrollment programs can experience great times — particularly those that teach specific job skills.
While Colorado residents suffered wage cuts and job losses during a national recession, the number of them paying to go to college grew, according to census survey data released Tuesday.
In Denver, enrollment in college and graduate schools jumped by nearly 10,000 students in one year, to about 47,000 citywide, the 2009 American Community Survey estimated.
Leading the boom was Community College of Denver, a job-oriented school whose student population nearly doubled in two years.
“Community colleges have always been countercyclical. When the economy goes down, enrollment goes up,” college president Karen Bleeker said. But this year, 50 percent more students have shown up than last year, “which I have to tell you is a little scary.”
The rush to retrain in Colorado was among the notable features of a survey that found that median income, median property values and work hours all declined nationwide.
The 2009 survey estimates, based on responses collected through the calendar year, will be followed by the 2010 census, which attempts a complete count of the U.S. population.
According to the survey, the population of Colorado edged past 5 million people last year and Denver grew to about 610,000 people.
Such increases occurred while the numbers of foreign-born residents in Colorado who are not American citizens declined sharply, according to the survey.
Illegal immigration remains a hot political issue, and the census survey estimates that about 325,000 foreign-born Colorado residents in 2009 were not U.S. citizens — a drop of more than 15,000 from 2008.
The survey does not ask whether foreign-born residents are in the country legally.
In Colorado, the survey results also suggested that:
• Denver and most other Front Range counties are getting younger. Denver’s median age dropped from 35.5 years old to 33 years old, largely because many young adults — ages 25-34 — moved into the city. On a percentage basis, the city’s black population grew slightly and Latino population declined slightly. Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder and Jefferson counties also grew younger over the year.
• A growing segment of the foreign-born population comes from Asia.
• In the Denver metro area, the city alone showed a decrease in the percentage of residents 65 and older. Douglas, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties had the largest growth in retirement-age residents. The numbers of foreign-born residents increased in Arapahoe County but decreased in the metro area.
• The number of unmarried Denver residents living with an partner grew by about 4,000.
In Colorado, enrollment is growing at colleges statewide as high school graduates and adults seek skills that could provide job security in a changing economy.
But the growth has been phenomenal at Community College of Denver, which offers certificates in everything from bookkeeping to welding; courses in nursing and information technology; and two-year degree programs for students looking to avoid the cost of four years in college.
Last year, amid a 35 percent jump in enrollment, the Denver college held some classes in a campus theater. Also, it put students in conference rooms, in employee lunchrooms and empty offices. The college provost roamed the hallways with a clipboard, compiling a list of unused spaces.
“We have always been an innovative college,” Bleeker said. “This has really pushed us.”
This year, she said, the campus population has soared again, from 8,369 to 12,625 students.
To prepare for the onslaught, the college bought a dozen modular buildings and set them on campus.
Elizabeth Garner, the state demographer, cautioned that population estimates produced by the American Census Survey can be flawed.
But she also saw “a silver lining” in the economic downturn. “More people will get educated,” she said.
On the immigrant-population trends, “one of the big things that’s occurred in the last couple of years is a huge decline in the housing industry,” she said. Also, workers from Latin American “held a disproportionate share of construction jobs.”
She suggested the increase in Asian immigrants might be attributable to people coming for college and high-tech jobs, but “I don’t have any perfect data to support that.”
Patty Limerick, faculty director at the Center of the American West in Boulder, said “impoverished regions of Asia undergoing great social change” also could account for some of the immigration to Colorado.
Ultimately, she said, “I’m hoping for evidence-based conclusions about who’s here and what’s the appropriate response.”
