Like practically all of Virginia’s Community Colleges, Tidewater Community College is experiencing a significant increase in its enrollment, which is up over 20% from what it was this time last year.

“I have not seen anything like this,” said [TCC President Deborah] DiCroce, who came to lead TCC in 1998 and has seen record enrollment each year. “There’s no way that it is not a result of the economy.”

The Virginian Pilot wrote a story about the increase today.

Perhaps the most impressive thing in the story is the mention that nearly half of the area’s college students are attending Tidewater Community College.

About 46 percent of all South Hampton Roads residents who were enrolled as undergraduates in a Virginia college or university last fall were TCC students, DiCroce said.

Tomorrow, we are all going to get a sense of how deep the next round of state spending cuts will be. But that isn’t slowing down the demand for the opportunities that community colleges are helping to create, nor the obligations the colleges have to serve those individuals.

“We’re committed to responding to that demand,” DiCroce said. “We want to be part of the solution…. A strong, skilled, educated work force is a critical component of the solution.”

Posted by Jeffrey Kraus.