Why Saddleback College enrollment numbers have spiked this fall

Saddleback College campus. Lila Mukasa/ Lariat

Forty-two-year-old Farnaz Farshidpour became discouraged when she attended college immediately after high school graduation and couldn’t pass all her classes, prompting her to stop attending.  After years of working in the retail and food service industries, she began attending Saddleback, taking one class per semester.   

“There’s a lot of talk about how college is not that important anymore, and working is more important, but I would have to disagree,” she said. “I think that going to college is actually pretty important.”  

The college is walking distance from her home. That paired with the affordability were main factors in her decision to attend, she said.   

Similarly, first-year Saddleback student Noe Alvarez chose to come to Saddleback after graduating high school in part because of its affordability.  

Saddleback enrollment numbers saw a spike during the fall 2024 semester compared to the previous fall 2023 semester, going from 58,053 enrollments in fall of 2023 to 63,001 enrollments in fall of 2024, according to research from the Saddleback College office of planning, research and accreditation.  

 The enrollment spike is partly due to efforts to increase dual enrollment numbers in collaboration with local districts Capistrano Valley Unified and Saddleback Valley Unified, said Tram Vo-Kumamoto, Vice President of Instruction at Saddleback College. 

These efforts have led to an increase in dual enrollment of high school students, which has partially contributed to the overall increase in enrollment. 

Affordability and availability of online classes since the pandemic are other possible contributing factors to the spike. 

Capistrano Valley high school career counselor Heidi Davila believes affordability is a large part of Saddleback College’s appeal.  

“In my opinion, because of the two-year free tuition, that does make it a lot more enticing to want to go to community college,” she said regarding Saddleback’s appeal to Capistrano Valley high school students.  

Davila has noticed a recent shift in the perception of community college, she said. Saddleback College is viewed more positively compared to a more negative perception of community college she noticed when she worked as a part-time counselor at Sacramento City College and Napa City College. 

The majority of Capistrano Valley high school students who want to go to community college decide to go to Saddleback because of the proximity, Davila said. Capistrano Valley is the closest high school to Saddleback College, at a 0.8 mile distance. 

Davila, along with other Capistrano Valley high school counselors, encourage students who plan to apply to four-year universities to enroll at Saddleback while still in high school. 

“When we talk about preparing students for four-year college, we also let them know that four-year colleges do like to see that students complete college courses, because it does show that they can handle that level of rigor, that they have that college credit already under their belt.” 

These efforts have led to an increase in dual enrollment of high school students, which has partially contributed to the overall increase in enrollment. 

Capistrano Valley High school partners with Saddleback College in a variety of ways. Collaborations include the presence of a Saddleback counselor on campus weekly to help students with college applications and course planning, events at the high school during which the Saddleback outreach team presents information to students and parents, and presentations on campus from cosmetology, culinary and business program representatives, said Davila. 

“The district does have a College at Capo program where we offer community college courses, Saddleback courses, here on campus, that students can take advantage of,” Davila said. “And then we also encourage students to start taking courses while in high school at Saddleback College.” 

The program is noticeably popular among Capistrano Valley high school students, she said, adding that many students are interested in the program’s business classes. 

In SVUSD, high school students can take counseling 100, a Saddleback course. 

“That’s a semester course that our seniors can take during their spring semester, and this course prepares them to register for classes at Saddleback college and it builds a two-year plan for them, and it gives them priority registration at Saddleback,” said SVUSD college and career readiness district coordinator Kimberly Thomason. 

The program had over 160 student participants last school year, she said. 

These efforts could lead to even higher numbers in fall of 2025, said Shouka Torabi, director of planning, research and accreditation at Saddleback College. 

Between 2020 and 2023, the enrollment numbers saw a downward trend, with the largest decrease being between the years of 2021 and 2022, when fall enrollment numbers dropped from 66,014 to 60,331, with the COVID-19 pandemic being a main factor. 

Greater availability of online classes resulted from the pandemic, which affected enrollment numbers. Before the pandemic, online classes made up about a quarter of all Saddleback College classes, and they now account for about half. This means that the classes students need are more accessible to them, which is another contributing factor to enrollment numbers, said Vo-Kumamoto. 

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