After Destroying Community College Education for Generations, What Will Bring the Students Back? Men, Adult Learners, Trades, Football, and a Changing Definition of “College” …Part 2 of – What Will Bring Them Back?Following the decision to end State funding of the Maricopa and Pima County Community College Districts, along with the (a) later fallout from the Pandemic lockdowns and closing of schools, (b) the unprecedented change in the youth/young adult job market from both illegal and legal immigration programs, and (c) the unknown impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on education as well as future job market opportunities, Community Colleges have been searching for their educational identity.At the end of Part I in this series, I was left with a question I could not quite shake: What kind of education are today’s students actually asking us for? Maybe we have been asking the wrong question.For years, when community-college enrollment declined, we asked why students were no longer going to college. But what if some of them never stopped wanting an education? What if they stopped wanting education delivered the way we had always delivered it? That distinction matters.That question took me back to my three-hour lunch with John Crow, Ryan Caracciolo and Susan Winder. Football was certainly part of our conversation. But the longer we talked, the less this sounded like a story about football. It sounded like a story about students — and whether the education we are offering still fits the lives they are actually living. And something else changed that I had not fully appreciated when I began researching this series. Even the meaning of “community college” has changed.For generations, most of us thought we knew what a community college was: a two-year school. You could earn an associate degree, learn a trade, or complete your first two years before transferring to a university. That is still part of its mission. But it is no longer the whole mission.Maricopa Community Colleges now offer bachelor’s degrees. The system has surpassed 10,000 students enrolled in those programs and is expanding toward 26 bachelor’s programs by 2032 with the expansion of four-year, workforce-related degrees.Think about what that means.A student may now walk through the doors of a Maricopa Community College looking for a short-term workforce credential.Another may want welding, electrical, healthcare or advanced technical training.Another may begin an associate degree and transfer.And another may now walk into that same community-college system and remain there long enough to earn a four-year bachelor’s degree.Suddenly, “community college” can mean six weeks, two years, four years — or something in between. That was one of the questions I had put directly to John Crow before our lunch: How far should community colleges go into four-year degrees?Crow told me he supports carefully targeted bachelor’s programs when they meet a documented Arizona workforce need, can be delivered affordably, and provide students with a local pathway that might not otherwise be available. But he also said the traditional community-college mission — open access, associate degrees, certificates, skilled trades, workforce training and transfer opportunities — should remain at its core.His answer raised an even larger question for me. Maybe the choice is not between shorter education and longer education. Maybe it is finding the right amount of education for the person sitting in the chair.And the definition of education is changing in another way…Artificial Intelligence is no longer simply something students may encounter after graduation. It is already changing what colleges teach — and how students learn while they are there.Maricopa Community Colleges now offers AI certificates, associate-degree pathways, and even a bachelor’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. At the same time, students are being told to check individual professors’ rules about when and how generative AI may be used in their coursework. So, the question facing a community college is not simply how long a student should stay in school. It is whether the education being offered can keep pace with the world that student will enter when he leaves.And suddenly the question was no longer simply: How do we bring students back? It became:WHAT KIND OF EDUCATION WILL BRING THEM BACK — AND KEEP THEM THERE?MAYBE THEY DIDN’T QUIT LEARNING — MAYBE COLLEGE QUIT TEACHING THEMThat distinction matters.A student who needs to support a family may not have four years to find out whether a degree will eventually lead to a job. A 35-year-old trying to change careers may not be looking for the same educational experience as an 18-year-old leaving high school. A young man interested in welding, electrical work, advanced manufacturing or another skilled trade may measure the value of college very differently from someone preparing to transfer to a university.In Part I, we also uncovered another important clue: women dominate traditional credit enrollment, while men become a majority in noncredit workforce programs. That reversal raised another question: Are men really walking away from education — or are they choosing a different kind of education? Maybe the missing men were telling us something. Maybe some of them did not reject education. Maybe they rejected the pathway we expected them to take. And perhaps they need help discovering which educational pathway best fits where they want to go.Researchers examining workforce programs point to two possible advantages: they are often shorter, and shorter-term credentials are more widely accepted in several traditionally male-dominated occupations. This Does Not Explain Every Missing Student. But It Changes the Conversation on the Role of Community Colleges. WHAT IF “COLLEGE” DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN FOUR — OR EVEN TWO — YEARS?Other states are already experimenting with that question.Virginia’s FastForward program offers workforce credentials that commonly take only six to twelve weeks. The programs are designed so adults can continue working while training, and they lead into fields tied to employment demand. Virginia reports that more than 95 percent of enrollees in the program complete their training, although that is the program’s own reported completion measure and should not be confused with a traditional college graduation rate.Texas has gone considerably further. Beginning with legislation enacted in 2023 and subsequently updated, Texas redesigned much of its community-college funding so that state dollars follow measurable student outcomes rather than primarily time spent sitting in a classroom. Its formula rewards colleges for credentials – including those connected with high-demand occupations – successful transfer to four-year institutions and dual-credit achievement. Texas also gives additional funding weight when those outcomes are achieved by economically disadvantaged students, academically underprepared students and adult learners age 25 and older.Think about what that means. Texas is essentially asking its community colleges: Did the student merely enroll – or did something useful happen because that student enrolled?Did he earn a credential?Did she transfer successfully?Did the credential lead toward an occupation Texas actually needs?Did an adult learner who came back to school make measurable progress?That is a very different way of defining success.And suddenly, parts of my three-hour lunch came rushing back. John Crow kept returning to the connection between education and Arizona’s workforce needs. Ryan Caracciolo kept returning to the business-growth side — not simply marketing, but the larger process of attracting people, converting interest into action and building sustainable growth. Susan Winder kept returning to what happens educationally after the student gets there.They were approaching the same student from three different directions. Get the student through the door. Give the student an education worth staying for. Make sure there is opportunity waiting on the other side. Maybe that is where the three “lanes” they described begin to intersect.SO, WHO ARE WE TRYING TO BRING BACK?That question cannot be answered simply by saying “more students.” Black men deserve particular attention because the decline has been unusually severe. Nationally, Black community-college enrollment fell 18 percent between fall 2019 and fall 2021. Among Black men, the decline was approximately 24 percent, compared with 15 percent among Black women. Researchers identified concerns about college cost, food and housing insecurity and employment pressures among the possible barriers facing these students.That gives us important context for the figure John raised during our interview – the campaign’s analysis claiming an average decline greater than 31 percent in Black male enrollment across Arizona community colleges. We still need to independently reconstruct that Arizona calculation before drawing conclusions from it. But now we know something important:Whatever happened in Arizona was occurring against the backdrop of a serious national decline in Black male community-college enrollment.The next question is where Arizona differed.Was it affordability?Was it the pandemic?Was it the need to work while in school, but having limited work opportunities?Were students wanting shorter, skilled workforce programs that traditional enrollment statistics do not capture well?Did eliminating JUCO football remove one avenue that had previously attracted some young men to college?Or was it some combination of all of them, or something else?So, our next question is: Can Community Colleges Deliver the Education Today’s Students Actually Need and Are Asking Us For? That Is the Investigation Now.Coming Next…PART 3 —– THE PRICE OF COMING BACKPART 4 —IT WAS NEVER JUST ABOUT FOOTBALLBy Linda Brickman©2026 Linda Brickman. All Rights Reserved.The post After Destroying Community College Education for Generations, What Will Bring the Students Back? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.