With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing Illinois community colleges to move classes online, students stayed away in droves. Enrollment was down statewide this spring by over 14 percent. Locally, the numbers are even worse. Illinois Eastern Community College campuses averaged downward 14.7%. Lincoln Trail and Olney Central’s modest drops of 3.3% and 5.2% respectively were offset by bigger losses of 18.2% at Frontier in Fairfield and 19.6 at Wabash Valley in Mt. Carmel. Rend Lake dropped 15.4% year to year 2020 to 2021 and Southeastern Illinois College had the sixth largest percentage drop in the state at 22.5%. The total headcount for SIC this spring was officially 1,300, 377 less than spring of 2020. John A. Logan proved to be the bellwether for the state with a 14.2% drop. Enrollment for spring was actually up for Southeastern Illinois College over fall by 37 students.
