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Community college presidents tell House panel enrollment surge and waitlists strain capacity

3411936 · February 3, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Presidents from Idaho’s four community colleges told the House Committee on Education on Feb. 3 that surging enrollment and workforce demand have produced wait lists, instructor shortages and space constraints across multiple programs.

BOISE — Presidents from Idaho’s four community colleges told the House Committee on Education on Feb. 3 that surging enrollment and higher workforce demand are producing wait lists, instructor shortages and space constraints across multiple programs.

"At our community colleges, we are, I believe, workhorses for our economy and for our communities," Gordon Jones, president of the College of Western Idaho, told the committee. He described CWI’s mix of more than 100 programs — about 50 career and technical — and said the college serves roughly 31,000 unique learners per year. Jones said the college has not raised tuition in eight years and cited wait lists exceeding 100 students for nursing and other high-demand programs.

Dean Fisher, president of the College of Southern Idaho, told…

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