Student enrollment has increased at Fresno City College compared to this time last year according to campus officials.  

Dr. Ghada Al-Masri,FCC’s vice president of instruction, said there has been an estimate of about  7.3% of students enrolled from last year and 14% increase of the past spring semester.

The increased enrollment is welcome news for campus administrators.

“This semester there has been a recovery,” FCC Public Information Officer Kathy Bonilla said. 

Last year, It was said that a recovery is needed for the campus to maintain the state funded budget that could have declined if low enrollment extended into 2024 and 2025 according to Don Lopez, FCC’s previous vice president of instruction last semester. 

While enrollment is up compared to the previous year, it has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. About 2,000 students have not returned since the fall semester of 2019, but there has been an increase year by year since 2019 according to Al-Masri , temporary Vice-President of Instruction. 

Meanwhile, former students like Vivian Esparza, a previously enrolled English major at FCC have expressed their own personal reasons for not returning to campus. 

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in,” said Esparaza. “I dropped out of classes because of lack of motivation and I wanted to figure out what I really wanna do.” 

Esparza says she plans to return next semester. 

According to Al-Masri, the college has expanded programs and services to recruit more students and help current students do well in their classes and stay enrolled.  

“The focus is on serving more students even better.” Al-Masri said.