Martha Burns ran her campaign for Oakton Community College trustee asking why more Evanston high school graduates weren’t choosing the local two-year school as their next step.
“Where are our kids?” Burns asked at the time, marveling at how relatively few Evanston students attend the college. “That doesn’t make much sense to me.”
According to figures obtained by the Evanston Review through a Freedom of Information Act request, only 1,149, or 11 percent, of the full- and part-time students who enrolled at Oakton in the 2017-2018 school year previously attended Evanston Township High School, the largest high school in the community college’s district.
That’s compared to an average of 16 percent of graduating seniors from the college’s feeder high schools who attend Oakton, and as much as 30 percent of the graduating class from Niles North and Niles West high schools, according to Oakton and Niles Township High Schools Dist. 219 reports.
Enrollment at the community college by former ETHS students rose slightly during the recession, to 1,481 in 2010, but percentage-wise the high school sends significantly fewer students than others in the region.
The largest percentage of Oakton college students in 2017-2018 academic year came from Niles West High School in Skokie. Niles West alums made up 16.3 percent of the college’s enrollment that year.
Pete Bavis, ETHS School Dist. 202 assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said the explanation is simple: Oakton’s Des Plaines campus is difficult to get to, and the nearby Skokie campus has limited offerings for recent high school graduates.
“The reason more kids don’t go is the transportation from Oakton to Evanston. It’s an old story, but it can take over an hour to get out there to the Des Plaines campus,” Bavis said.
But Burns wondered if there was more to it.
Despite the distance, she said, Oakton’s coursework and training can prepare students in two years for a career making more money than any local job-creation programs could.
“There is a stigma” around attending community college, Burns said. “We can overcome the stigma with education.”
Oakton Community College Dist. 535 operates two campuses, the main campus in Des Plaines and the other in Skokie.
It serves about 456,000 residents in Evanston, Skokie, Winnetka, Kenilworth, Glencoe, Wilmette, Golf, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles, Northbrook, Northfield, Park Ridge and parts of Des Plaines, Mount Prospect and Rosemont, according to college data.
Oakton’s feeder high schools include ETHS, Niles North, Niles West, New Trier Township, Maine West, Maine East, Maine South, Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South high schools.
The community college has faced its challenges in recent years. Enrollment has declined, from 9,864 in fall 2015 to 8,936 in fall 2017, according to college figures. Meanwhile tuition jumped by $12 per credit hour for the 2016-2017 and went up another $13 per credit hour in 2017-2018 to its current cost of $141.25 per credit hour. A full-time student typically takes 12-15 credit hours per semester.
No tuition hikes were planned for the current 2018-2019 school year, according to college data.
Still, the proximity to home and the rising cost of four-year universities keeps Oakton an attractive alternative for many high school graduates — especially ones from of NTHS Dist. 219, said Jerry Pope, school district’s dean of college counseling.
Dist. 219 includes Niles North and Niles West high schools and serves students from Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles and Skokie.
“In any given year anywhere between 25 and 30 percent of our graduates will choose Oakton for a variety of reasons,” Pope said.
“One of the things we’re seeing right now is the financial piece,” Pope said. “Colleges, their costs continue to increase. Many colleges, in fact most colleges, are no longer meeting the full financial needs of students” through grants, scholarships and other financial aid.
In comparison, 15 credit hours at Oakton costs nearly $2,120 in tuition — excluding fees, according to community college statements. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tuition for 15 credit hours runs about $6,000 for an in-state, undergraduate student.
Additional costs there typically include university fees, room and board, books and other expenses, according to that school’s website.
To help pay for the higher costs of living on-campus at a four-year university, about 66 percent of undergraduate students in Illinois took out student loans in 2015. The average debt from a four-year institution totaled $29,305, according to The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit group whose goal is to make college more accessible and affordable for all students.
Some students from immigrant families are especially hesitant to leave home and many work part-time jobs to help pay household bills, Pope said. If they go away to college, the family loses an income. That’s another reason Oakton is attractive.
“Sometimes our best and brightest go to Oakton because it’s a very affordable option,” Pope said. “Their manufacturing program is top notch. Students can go there for two years, earn a certificate and an associate’s degree, and come out with a salary of $65,000 to $70,000 with very little college indebtedness.”
Fatouma Hewitt, 21, of Evanston said she faced a stigma from her peers after she decided to attend Oakton after graduating from ETHS in 2015. But, she said, the money she saved has made it all worth it.
She is attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this fall studying crop science in the school’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. All of her credits transferred from Oakton, she said, and she entered as a junior.
“For me personally, it wasn’t necessarily at first a popular choice. It was a reasonable and practical choice,” Hewitt said.
She recalled hearing other high-performing Evanston students bragging that “I’m going to go to my four-year college and I’m going to be the best student.”
“You can be the best student but where is this money going to come from when your scholarships and grants can’t cover everything and your parents can only contribute so much?” Hewitt said.
As for transportation, Hewitt said she took as many classes as she could at Oakton’s Skokie campus, closer to her home. For the one or two classes that she took in Des Plaines each semester, she usually scheduled them on the same day and stayed on campus to study in between.
She also scheduled her Des Plaines classes before or after rush hour, Hewitt said, so the bus ride there took about 45 minutes.
“If you’re thinking about it and you’re in Evanston, you won’t regret it. Once you get to the campus you will see how many students are in the same situation that you’re in and at the same point of life that you’re in,” Hewitt said.
ETHS staff said they are increasing their partnership with Oakton. The community college offers lower-level classes, particularly in math, at ETHS that high school students can take to enter the 101 college class sequence that counts for credit, Bavis said.
Oakton also hosts two daylong outreach events for black and Latino students, high school staff said.
Oakton staff said they are working to improve offerings at the Skokie campus for students on the east side of the district, and to change class times to make them more convenient to attend.
“The college’s location in Skokie has the appropriate course offerings for degree-seeking students,” says Oakton Vice President for Academic Affairs Ileo Lott. “We are, however, looking critically at course sequencing and offering times.”