Community colleges have an inverse relationship with the economy - when the economy is in a slump they do well, when the economy is on the rebound their admissi

Community colleges have an inverse relationship with the economy - when the economy is in a slump they do well, when the economy is on the rebound their admissions go down. There's a bunch of reasons for this - people go to school when they're out of work, people who are going to school anyway may not think they can afford a "real" university when the economy looks ill. Once the economy picks up people have jobs so they stop going, those who want to go to school feel good about their odds of taking on a ton of debt and go to a larger school. (source: father was a professor at a vey large community college for ~40 years, mother is a prof at a university)