From early in the morning to late at night, it’s full of students clad in coveralls, hair tied up in bandanas, practicing with equipment reaching temperatures as hot as 10,000 degrees.
But some won’t ever finish the program.
It’s not that college is too difficult for them. Rather, they’re in such great demand outside college, many end up accepting lucrative job offers before graduation.
A booming economy and the subsequent demand for workers, especially those with trade skills, have contributed to a sharp decline in enrollment at South Carolina’s technical colleges. After steady growth since the system’s founding in 1961, full-time enrollment has fallen nearly 25 percent since 2013, including more than 50 percent at some schools.
For welding students like Riley O’Neal, 18, who began taking classes at Midlands Technical College before he had even graduated high school, job offers have already poured in. His instructor, Griffin Sturkie, is used to students being scooped up by employers well before they’ve finished their programs, tempted by a growing blue-collar job market and the potential for six-figure salaries.
It’s not just the demand for workers. Technical school enrollment has been hurt by the booming growth at USC and Clemson, educators and others say. Programs that boost enrollment at those schools have taken students who might otherwise attend technical schools, educators say.
A LYNCHPIN IN SOUTH CAROLINA'S ECONOMY
At their inception, community colleges were a “distinctively American creation,” historians have said. In the early twentieth century, many — especially businesses — wanted cheap, local schools that could prepare students for more advanced blue collar jobs.
South Carolina was once defined by its agriculture and textiles, with an economy built on cash crops like cotton and tobacco. But following the Depression and World War II, things changed rapidly.
As the farming industry shrunk and the unskilled workforce grew, the South Carolina Technical College System was created in 1961 under the leadership of former Gov. Ernest F. Hollings. Initially, the colleges offered short-term training for high school graduates in a rapidly changing, increasingly industrial job market. About a decade later, seven of the 16 schools that had been established were authorized to offer associate degrees too. Soon enough, they were all comprehensive institutions.
It was a big deal. These schools offered traditional academic courses, but they also provided vocational programs that kept factories, cars and homes running.
Even in South Carolina’s rural communities, the schools are accessible. More than 90 percent of South Carolinians live within 25 miles of a technical college or a satellite campus, which is usually less than a 30-minute drive.
Now, the state’s technical colleges are allies to companies and manufacturers — like Giti, Michelin and soon Scout Motors — that make South Carolina their home, bringing with them hundreds of jobs. The colleges create courses that meet the companies’ specific needs.
CONSISTENT ENROLLMENT GROWTH, THEN A DECLINE
Nearly every technical college in South Carolina has seen a decline in full-time enrollment since 2012. Meanwhile, the state’s most prominent colleges — the University of South Carolina and Clemson University — are quickly growing.
Over the last 10 years, enrollment at nearly all of the 16 technical schools has waned.
About a decade ago, more than 95,000 students attended the two-year schools. But in the fall of 2022, some 77,000 students were enrolled in the state’s technical colleges, the Commission on Higher Education’s latest statistical abstract reported, and enrollment dipped as low as 70,000 in 2021.
Officials say that the colleges saw slight growth for the fall 2023 semester, which keeps them cautiously optimistic about the future. Still, two-year technical schools are far from recovering from a more than 22 percent drop in full-time enrollment since 2013, the commission’s data shows. The drop doesn’t include corporate and continuing education, which are short-term programs for career certification rather than academic credit. These programs are stable, if not growing.
Enrollment at Midlands Technical College, which serves Richland, Lexington and Fairfield counties, fell by 24.4 percent in the last 10 years. Technical College of the Lowcountry in Beaufort County and York Technical College each lost nearly 12 percent of their students.
And enrollment in Denmark Technical College, one of the only two public, historically Black colleges in South Carolina, has declined by 66 percent.
Only Horry-Georgetown Technical College and Spartanburg Community College have seen growth, by 9.3 percent and 5 percent respectively.
This downswing is not unique.
Across the United States, two-year colleges — community and technical colleges — lost 2.5 million students between 2010 and 2022, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Most growth, the center said, can be attributed to high school students taking dual enrollment courses.
Some reports have attributed the widespread downturn to laissez faire instructors, poor advising and bad experiences. But in South Carolina, there may be other factors.
THE ECONOMY AND UNEMPLOYMENT
Tim Hardee, president of the South Carolina Technical College System, said the popularity of community colleges can depend on the health of the economy.
When the economy is good and when unemployment is low, two-year colleges tend to fall out of favor, Hardee said. Other experts agree.
South Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states in the nation. Its economy has grown by nearly $50 billion since 2021, according to the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, and many expect an additional 20,000 local jobs by 2030. And in 2023 and so far in 2024, South Carolina has seen some of its lowest rates of unemployment in the last decade, hovering around 3 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, interest in technical and community colleges surged. In South Carolina, enrollment increased by about 25 percent between 2007 and 2010. But it was already part of a trend upward.
Enrollment at the technical colleges had been growing since at least the late 1990s, according to available data. Between 1997 and 2007, the system’s enrollment grew by more than 35 percent. Growth peaked in the fall of 2011, when more than 98,000 students were enrolled.
THE STATE'S FOUR-YEAR SCHOOLS
Anne Burley has been a high school guidance counselor for 38 years, including 12 at Ridge View High School with Richland School District 2.
Some students start at a technical college to save money, she said. Some start there to improve their grades, then they transfer. But most of her students want to go to a four-year college. If they don’t, they’ll usually jump straight into a job.
“Part of it could be the misconception (of technical colleges),” Burley said. Technical colleges don’t hold the same allure as the bigger universities, she said.
It’s always been a challenge for these kinds of schools.
According to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, career and technical education programs sometimes suffer from the reputation that they are solely for students who who under-perform academically. Many don’t know the earning potential for technical and industrial jobs, or that working in places like factories is no longer what it used to be.
Earlier this year, when Gov. Henry McMaster announced his state budget requests for the new fiscal year, he theorized that students who traditionally attended the state’s smaller schools are now attending USC and Clemson. Hardee agrees.
During the 10-year decline at the technical colleges, the state’s research institutions grew. Full-time enrollment at those schools has ballooned by about 20 percent.
Even before its newest incentives, about half of USC’s 1,000 yearly transfers came from the state’s technical college system, usually before students earn associate degrees.
New incentives may also soon divert some students to USC who may have attended a technical college.
Automatic admission and free tuition, for example, are offered to some of South Carolina’s top performing high school students to apply to and enroll at USC, in hopes of scooping up more students and drawing those from all corners of the state. Students from rural areas, university officials have said, traditionally attend trade schools, or don’t get a post-secondary education at all.
Additional money from the state legislature has also allowed Clemson and USC, among others, to hold the line on in-state tuition to stay as affordable as possible. The legislature set aside $124 million last year to help South Carolina’s public colleges and universities hold the line on inflation, and $69.3 million has been set aside for the upcoming year.
While tuition for out-of-state students has increased, USC’s in-state students have paid $12,688 per year for the last six years, and Clemson’s in-state students have paid $15,558 for the last five.
Transferring from local technical colleges to USC and Clemson is now easier than ever. In a new deal announced in January, technical college students are now guaranteed the ability to transfer 30 or more credits — about two semesters worth of classes — from the tech colleges to USC and Clemson. Hardee estimates that it could save some up to $30,000 per year for things like tuition, housing and other fees.
The technical college system already had transfer agreements with the state’s 10 other public, four-year colleges.
HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Some students, especially those from low-income families with few resources to attend college, begin looking for a job right out of high school.
Along with their close relationships with technical colleges to offer dual enrollment classes for credit, many public K-12 school districts offer vocational training and career education as electives.
For example, Lexington School District 1’s Technology Center offers courses on automotive collision repair, cosmetology, firefighting and more, which prepares students for their next venture. Richland School District 1’s Heyward Career and Technology Center has classes in culinary arts, cybersecurity and welding. Opportunities like earning a commercial driver’s license or learning about diesel and automotive technology are increasingly in-demand, Richland 1 said.
Many decide to further their training through Midlands Technical College, Bryce Myers, director of Lexington Technology Center said. But many walk away with a certification and a job or apprenticeship already in hand, no degree required.
By the end of the 2023-2024 school year, more than 90 percent of Heyward’s graduates were equipped to enter the workforce with industry certifications, said Ilyssa Weiner, a Richland School District 1 spokesperson.
WHAT IS BEING DONE?
Technical schools are widely regarded as a symbol of social mobility, key players in filling workforce needs and an accessible avenue to better opportunities.
“Community and technical colleges are vital,” said Christian Anderson, a professor of higher education at USC. “They’re an entry point to higher education for a lot of people, they’re an affordable option for a lot of people, they’re a way to fill a skill gap that someone has. They serve all these functions.”
South Carolina’s blue collar jobs are already experiencing the “silver tsunami” — baby boomers retiring en masse. Conveniently, young adults are ready to work and the South Carolina Technical College System is ready to fill the pipeline, with student job placement of 93 percent.
“People are trying to get into the job market as fast as possible,” Hardee said.
Programs like the South Carolina Workforce Industry Needs Scholarship have been established in recent years to attract more students to technical colleges to meet workforce needs. More than $94 million in recurring funds has been set aside in the state budget for these scholarships this year. The scholarship covers tuition, fees and other course-related expenses up to $5,000 per year for in-state students pursuing a certification or degree in an eligible program.
As such, the system expects steady enrollment in the coming years, if not growth.
McMaster has made it clear that keeping public secondary education economical and easily attainable for South Carolinians is a priority. When he revealed his latest budget proposal in January, McMaster asked for $3 million for a study of the state’s higher education system.
“We want to be sure that we are providing the right instruction to our students and we’re not overlapping, we’re not wasting time or money,” McMaster said in January. “Some of our schools are not getting as many students as they would like and we just want to do the best we can.”
Because of a decline in the birth rate following the Great Recession in 2008, higher education experts have long expected a perceived “enrollment cliff” in the next few years. But that is less of a concern for technical colleges. Along with traditional college students, they also attract non-traditional students. The average age of students at the South Carolina system is 27.
Despite any changes and challenges that South Carolina’s technical colleges face, Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, chair of the House Education and Public Works Committee, isn’t worried.
She called technical colleges reactionary. Resilient, even. Where four-year schools can be measured by retention and graduation rates, the breadth of offerings these schools make them hard to judge.
“They’re pretty adaptive,” Erickson said. “They are workforce driven, and they are nimble, and they are effective because they listen to the market.”
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