Fresno State, Central Valley community colleges with record-setting incoming students

FRESNO, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – This semester, Central Valley community colleges and Fresno State achieved record-setting new student enrollment.

Administrators believe student services, community partnerships, and affordable education are the leading factors for this semester’s increase.

“It’s a collaborative effort at the university level, enrollment goes up, but we also have to be able to accommodate them, and I think our university does a wonderful job in doing everything possible to making sure that we have seats for our students,” said Phong Yang, Associate Vice President for Strategic Enrollment, Fresno State.

This fall Fresno State welcomed over 6,500 new undergrad students and transfer students.

“It’s also putting our university overall headcount to above 24,300, which is surpassing last year, we were at 23,830,” Yang added.

But they are not alone.

“State Center Community College District; so Reedly, Madera, Clovis, as well as Fresno City, are up, that’s important because that’s not the same case across every community college,” said Dr. Kim Armstrong, Fresno City College’s Interim President.

Dr. Armstrong said this semester, the total student population sits at little more than 39,007.

But they believe that number will grow, “We’re still counting, we have a second nine-week class semester,” Armstrong shared.

This exceeds their pre-pandemic numbers, which was 38,593.

“We do quite a few things to make sure that when students are here, they have everything that they need to be successful, an outstanding counseling department, mental health, as well as health services on campus,” Armstrong exclaimed.

In recent years, both FCC and Clovis Community College have launched initiatives to make transportation more accessible.

“City of Fresno FAX, route number three bus is now free for our students with a student body card, which is also free to obtain, and that route has only been in existence for about two years, we did not previously have any public transportation coming up to the college,” said Dr. Monica Chahal, Clovis Community College’s Interim President.

Clovis Community College also saw a record-breaking enrollment of students, serving 9,954 students this fall. Nearly 1,500 of those students are incoming students.

“I think even more exciting is that more students are opting to come back in person,” Dr. Chahal added.

Many students who graduate from a two-year community college in the valley will seek higher education by transferring to Fresno State.

This semester, Fresno State saw more than 2,800 transfer students.

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