About 21% of Orange County residents who seek career-oriented education are not getting it because there aren’t enough seats at community colleges, according to a recent study funded by Santa Ana-based for-profit education company Corinthian Colleges Inc.
That amounts to 30,811 would-be students, said the report, done by Sacramento-based economist group Encina Advisors LLC and titled Left Out, Left Behind: California’s Widening Workforce Training Gap.
“We asked Encina to quantify the number of students who are looking for vocational training and the capability of schools to support the demand,” with a breakdown by county, said Steven Lindauer, national director of education and workforce development at Corinthian.
OC is just a piece of Corinthian’s business.
The company operates 113 schools throughout the U.S. and in Canada under the Everest, Heald and WyoTech brands. It counts about 88,700 students total.
“As the economy is turning around, employers are looking for more skilled workers to fill the needs of the recovering economy,” Lindauer said. “We were looking at the available capacity of the traditional school systems—public schools and community colleges—to fill those needs. And we’ve identified a gap for each of the next 10 years.”
The gap is expected to narrow over time, according to Encina Advisors.
Orange County’s community colleges will have space to house about 145,000 students in the 2021 academic year, dropping the gap between demand and capacity to 6%.
The numbers for Orange County are better than statewide. The current total of California students seeking vocational education—1.8 million—exceeds the number of enrolled students—1.2 million—by nearly 33%. The spread is expected to drop to 20% for the 2021 school year.
“Figures [for 2021 to 2022] assume that [the] California economy recovers enough so that California increases its community college capacity by 2.5% every year for the next 10 years,” said Justin Adams, president and chief economist at Encina Advisors. “Gaps would be larger if this assumption does not hold.”
A lack of vocational education could lead to unfilled jobs, which then “will result in a projected loss of personal income of $52.2 billion statewide over the next decade,” the report said.
The projection includes about $2.44 billion in foregone income for Orange County residents as a result of a lack of access to employment creating barriers to advancement.
“The issues are two-pronged,” Corinthian’s Lindauer said. “One is making sure individuals have the opportunities in front of them, that they’re able to achieve their goals. It’s also important for employers. Businesses need capable people with the right skillsets to work for them. From an employer’s standpoint, they need these employees to have access to training. And the intent of the report was to frame the challenge and opportunities in front of us. We can be a part of the discussion … and help provide an answer.”
Corinthian offers diploma and degree programs throughout its schools, including 23 campuses in California.
The company has had a rocky ride over the past few years, with falling enrollments at its campuses amid heightened scrutiny from federal regulators of the for-profit education sector. Regulators have knocked the for-profit schools for what they deem to be low student graduation rates, insufficient job prospects for graduates, and loans that have left many students unable to pay them back.
Key moves to cut costs—such as closing underperforming campuses and slowing expansion—have helped Corinthian navigate some of the challenges and gain stability.
The company last year signed a new lease for a 164,000-square-foot headquarters at Griffin Towers in the South Coast Metro area. The office houses 800 of the company’s overall employee base of about 15,000.
Corinthian’s latest quarterly financial report showed a 4% year-over-year gain in revenue to $410 million, while indicating a loss of $68,000 compared with a profit of $1.8 million a year ago. Corinthian said it expects a profit of between $3.5 million and $5.2 million in the current quarter through March on revenue of $400 million to $410 million.
