The famous quote by United States’ trailblazing president, delivered during a 1903 speech to farmers in upstate New York, is a messier maxim for those living in a post-pandemic age, under the rising sun of a former virtual assistant that seems better equipped to pull rank with each passing day.
Work worth doing — and devoting the time and money to make a career — may be different today than a generation, even a decade ago. When and why students choose to spend their educational dollars remains a timeless window into the softer metrics at work in a changing world.
“When the economy is good and there’s lots of jobs and people feel like they can afford groceries, they don’t tend to come back to school (community college) as much,” said Rebecca Woulfe, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Front Range Community College, Colorado’s largest community college system by enrollment, with campuses in Westminster and Larimer and Boulder counties. “Typically, what will happen is when the economy is bad and people aren’t making enough money, they’ll go back to school, because then it’s worth it to invest the time and money into learning — if they know that they can better themselves and therefore better their families.”
Seeking insights into the nuances of workforce shortages in modern times?
Engage with society long enough to notice scarcity, closures and long lines.
Or, ask your local community college.
A GROWING ALTERNATIVE TO UNIVERSITY
The proliferation and popularization of higher education around the turn of the 20th century paved the way for a so-called “Second Industrial Revolution,” forever transforming an agrarian society into a more learned and increasingly tech-reliant one. The nation’s community college systems evolved alongside the university movement, offering a more accessible, affordable and condensed track to the American dream while also fulfilling workforce development goals set forth in the decades after the Great Depression, and later, the promises to service members under the GI Bill.
Nationwide, community colleges appear to be recovering at a faster pace than universities from pandemic enrollment slumps, according to a January report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
That report showed a continuing rise in the number of graduating seniors opting for community college and other short-term credentialing programs, with enrollment in those institutions jumping by 28 percent over the prior four years and growing about 2 percent in 2025, roughly double the rate of universities.
According to fall student counts recorded by the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), total enrollment in the state’s community colleges increased by 5,555 students or 6.23 percent to approximately 94,300 across its 13 campuses.
Nearly 24,000 of those enrollees registered as full-time students, taking at least 12 credit hours worth of classes each semester.
SHIFTING TRENDS
Factors driving the growth come from a number of areas, with workforce demand a big one, said Jennifer Sherman, Pueblo Community College vice president of academic support.
“They call it the ‘silver tsunami,’ meaning the retirements of especially the Baby Boomers, and that there’s not enough people behind them,” Sherman said. “Gen X is a small generation, and … the (teaching of) trades went away for a long time in public schools. That pendulum is kind of swinging back, but there just weren’t people coming up through that skilled trade kind of pipeline.”
A shift in the appeal — and opportunities — for younger students seeking practical career development through programs that, in earlier generations, were fed primarily by adult and “non-traditional” learners has also been a major driver of enrollment.
PCC President Chato Hazelbacker said that concurrent enrollment, or high school students also taking classes on the Pueblo campus, has increased across the system. His college, for instance, gained more than 230 students — for a total of 6,900 — over the past year.
Out of this total, 3,080 students were reported to be under the age of 18.
Enrollment at Pikes Peak State College (PPSC) grew by 530 students (4.22 percent) in fall 2025 to more than 13,000, with just over 20 percent of the student body now aged 17 or younger and 23 percent on a concurrent enrollment path.
The college’s senior director of admissions and recruitment, Kevin Hudgens, said that this type of enrollment has steadily grown over recent years and, in some cases, is preferred over more typical postsecondary options like Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes.
“Students and families have found that concurrent enrollment classes offer a lot more flexibility and less high-stakes tests than those classes, so we’ve been seeing a statewide increase in that,” he said.
An embrace of online learning has also helped bolster the ranks at the state’s community colleges.
This fall, CCCS reported that over 6,700 community college students were counted as full-time online students, with 24 percent of this enrollment coming from PPSC. Hudgens noted that this is the largest percentage from any college in the state.
Despite the hands-on nature of the school’s trades programs, he said that a number of career paths can be pursued entirely online outside of the required lab work.
RETURNING TO TRADES
Among the newer additions to the Pueblo Community College course catalog is its automotive technician program for electric and hybrid vehicles and its own renovated dental hygiene facility, while PPSC has worked to round out its nursing, dental and cybersecurity offerings.
Trade options such as welding are consistently popular in part because of its short-term completion track, affordability compared to a university and a greater guarantee of a living wage upon completion. With construction booming statewide, and more residents driving older model cars as vehicle prices continue to skyrocket, job recruiters are getting desperate.
“We have over 300 students across our campuses in welding, and we still have employers contact us and say, ‘We need more, we need more,’” said PCC’s Sherman. “We’re training and graduating as many as we can physically fit in a space.”
According to Front Range Community College, enrollment in its welding program is the highest in at least a decade.
Demand is rising for trained professionals who can do the jobs AI cannot — as well as those who can service the current real-world tech it has wrought.
'IT CHANGES THE WAY YOU TEACH'
In Pueblo, classes of 10-12 automotive students now suit up in insulated personal protective equipment more akin to what’s in power plants or on power lines for their daily safety test ahead of their lab work.
Layers of gloves, coveralls, an insulating blanket, face shields, dielectric boots and insulated tools, all with a Class 0 rating to withstand 1,000 volts, are not only commonplace but mandatory in the electric and hybrid automotive field.
The chair of PCC’s automotive technology program, James Cordova, said that their hybrid and electric vehicle (EV) safety and operation coursework, which the college began offering in 2023, prepares students for a different type of work environment in a growing field.
“These batteries that we’re working on today are an excess of 360 volts. Very dangerous,” said Cordova, who has taught at the college for over 20 years. “It changes the way that you teach and you train because of the safety aspect of it.”
PCC currently offers the two-year automotive program that includes this coursework and a standard-class EV-focused certification option that can be completed in 16 weeks.
Along with prioritizing worker safety and equipment maintenance, he said the coursework prepares students for careers with a heavy focus on electronic diagnosis, controller-area networks and communications between different modules.
Technicians for both EV batteries and charging stations are among the high-demand job opportunities for students who complete the program.
The specialized coursework is the first of its kind in Colorado and among the first in the country. Cordova said that he and the school met with stakeholders, education leaders and community members to develop its content while state incentives, grant funding and donations got it off the ground.
“The workforce was speaking loud and clear that they need the additional support because these vehicles are here,” he said. “They’re not going anywhere, so I think we listened to that call.”
INCREASINGLY AFFORDABLE OPPORTUNITIES
Across the state, legislative efforts have been made to bolster both the workforce and post-secondary enrollment following the precipitous drops in both areas.
Care Forward Colorado began in 2022 to reimburse students enrolled in qualifying health care certificate programs at community and technical colleges for their tuition, fees and materials in addition to transportation, child care and rent. The state launched Career Advance Colorado the following year to expand this support to students in other trades like construction, education, forestry, firefighting and law enforcement.
Part of the state department of education’s 2025-28 strategic plan is a goal for 100 percent of high school graduates in the class of 2029 to have a work-based learning experience, college credits or an industry-recognized credential.
The Colorado Department of Higher Education reports the average loan debt for associate degree graduates in Colorado is about $13,000, according to Fiona Lytle, CCCS public information officer.
A recent reclassification of what is considered a “professional” degree by the Trump administration — a change that potentially affects the amount of money students are able to borrow to pursue a particular course of study — isn’t expected to majorly impact community college students in the state, she said.
“We anticipate that the loan caps will have minimal impact on CCCS students, especially since undergraduate loan limits have not changed,” Lytle said.
Additionally, the state’s community colleges are already the most affordable public higher education option in Colorado. Pell Grants alone often cover full tuition and fees. Only about 10.6 percent of CCCS students — roughly 13,200 students — took out federal loans last year.
“Among those, the average loan was under $5,000. For our students,” Lytle said, “borrowing is the exception — not the norm.”
CONTINUED INVESTMENT
The community college path is especially critical in training students for jobs in the health care fields, where post-pandemic burnout conspired with other dynamics to create widening workforce gaps in a number of fields.
The close of 2025 saw a critical shortage of pharmacy workers, especially in Colorado — so much so that local retail outlets, including Walgreens, were forced to share available professionals and close on days when they were scheduled elsewhere.
Pharmacy work requires precision, science, math and an encyclopedic knowledge of how different medicines interact. It’s also physically demanding, an on-your-feet and oftentimes in-people’s-faces occupation that was prone to burnout even before the pandemic stepped in, said Angie Peach, dean of health sciences and wellness at Front Range Community College, which offers pharmacy tech programs at both its Westminster and Larimer campuses.
Laws have been adjusted to help address shortages in the past in Colorado, which in 2018 began allowing community colleges to offer four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees.
Peach said she hopes state leaders will take a look at similar measures to help open up opportunities and interest in pharmacy. Some high schools in the state offer what amounts to a pre-pharmacy program, the “education piece,” but state regulations mean many high school seniors hit a wall.
“We can train things like medical assistants in high school, but pharmacy is harder to train a younger population because they have to be 18 years old to be approved by DORA ( Department of Regulatory Agencies ) … to do the required internship hours,” she said.
'WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO BE READY?'
Colorado is among only a handful of states that allow dental hygienists to open private practices, but it ranks near the bottom nationally in availability and access to dental hygienist training programs.
Students in Pikes Peak State College’s first dental hygiene class aren’t scheduled to graduate until May 2027, but already hopeful employers have started reaching out, said dental hygiene program faculty member Jennifer Hawkins.
Already, the school has received more than double the applications than will be spots — 30 — when the seats open up after the current class moves on, into jobs potentially earning up to $120,000.
“I can’t tell you the number of dentists that have reached out to me, knowing that I teach on this program, like, ‘When are they going to be ready? We desperately need people,’” said Hawkins, also a registered dental hygienist. “I have no doubt that this group is going to have great job prospects once they graduate.”
Students in the school’s new program now can put their book learning into practice on real patients, under the oversight of instructors and a dentist, thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the Delta Dental Oral Health Career Center — the largest single gift in PPSC’s history.
The state-of-the-art clinic opened in early February in Colorado Springs, offering a range of low-cost treatments, including from cleanings to crowns.
Dental hygiene student Cynthia Perez said she spent 20 years as a dental assistant before deciding to go back to school.
“It just seemed like a great opportunity, and the job just seemed very inviting,” said Perez. “You know, if you’re not able to grow somewhere, you’re gonna move on and grow somewhere else.”
And, if you’re lucky, continue to evolve while keeping a good gig.
“I was very blessed with the doctor I work with,” Perez said. “He supports me going back to school, and he knows how badly these jobs are needed.”
© 2026 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
