How We Destroyed Community College Education for Generations of Students – and Why We Need a Reset.
Could Bringing Back JUCO Football Be Part of the Answer – Or Is the Real Story Much Bigger Than the Game?
Part 1. Where Did We Lose Them…THE LUNCH THAT CHANGED THE QUESTION
I went to an opportune lunch to talk about the 2018 disappearance of Arizona Junior College (JUCO) football for financial and funding reasons. Three hours later, I found the real story was Never Just About Football! We were talking about second chances, education, jobs, the minority students that community colleges are trying to reach – and what it might take to bring them back.
Sitting around the table were three candidates for the Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board: John Crow, running At-Large; Ryan Caracciolo, running in District 4; and Susan Winder, running in District 3. They are seeking three separate seats, but they have chosen to campaign together.
On paper, their explanation is fairly simple. Crow brings the business side, as the CEO focused on budgets, efficiency and accountability. Caracciolo brings the professional marketing side, focused on attracting students and growing enrollment. Winder brings the professional education side, with more than three decades as a longtime educator and administrator focused on what happens in the classroom and what students need to succeed.
But that is the résumé version. The lunch told a much more Human Story. We talked – a lot – about bringing back junior-college football and WHY. We talked about its cost, who should pay for it, whether private money should be involved, whether it could increase enrollment, and what measurable results would justify restoring it.
But somewhere in that conversation, something kept bothering me. Finally, I said it.
“It isn’t just about football, is it? It is so much more than that.”
A football field was beginning to look less like the destination and more like one possible doorway. A young man may walk through that doorway because he wants to play football. Another student may come because she wants to become a nurse.
Someone else wants to weld, repair an air-conditioning system, work in advanced manufacturing, enter law enforcement, earn a business degree or learn a trade that can support a family. And another may be 35 or 45 years old, returning to a classroom after discovering that the education – or the job – that once seemed sufficient no longer is.
They do not arrive at a community college from the same place. They do not possess the same talents. And they certainly do not all want the same future.
That was when the conversation changed. Football was still part of it. But now we were talking about why people enter education at all; why some leave; what might bring them back; whether colleges are preparing students for jobs that actually exist; and what happens to the person after he or she finally walks through that classroom door. And strangely enough, the three people sitting across from me began to resemble the students we were discussing. And they didn’t arrive at this race from the same place either:
John Crow approaches the system largely through the eyes of a businessman and employer: What does Arizona need? What will it cost? Where is the money going? And what result are we getting for it?
Ryan Caracciolo looks at another part of the equation: Who aren’t we reaching? How do we get them through the door? How do we increase enrollment, keep students engaged and connect education with employers?
Susan Winder comes at it from inside education: Once those students arrive, what are we teaching them? What standards should apply? And is the education they receive actually serving the student?
Crow and Caracciolo also confirmed during our interview that they have worked together for approximately 15 years. Winder brings an entirely different professional history in education. When I asked why three people with such different backgrounds were running together, their answer came back repeatedly to the same idea:
Their differences and synergy are intentional. Crow described it as each person staying in his or her own “lane.” They told me they believe their talents complement one another – and that if only one or two are elected, whoever takes office intends to carry forward the priorities they developed together.
That raises an important question for voters, too. Specialization can be a strength. But governing eventually requires each elected member to make an independent judgment, even when the person sitting beside them may know more about a particular subject. So perhaps the real test of this team is not whether these three people agree today. It may be what happens when their different strengths someday point toward different answers. And that brings me back to the students as maybe they are the larger question facing community junior colleges.
Students do not arrive from the same place, with the same talents or the same destination. Neither did these three candidates. The challenge is whether different strengths can help students take the next step upward — from uncertainty to education, from education to skill, and from skill to legitimate opportunity.
SO – WHERE DID THE STUDENTS GO?
If we are going to talk about a “reset,” we first have to understand what happened; and the numbers confirm that something did. According to MCCCD’s own historical enrollment figures, its systemwide “historic headcount” stood at 195,293 in 2019–20. One year later it had fallen to 162,022. By 2021–22, it had dropped again to 159,802. That was a loss of more than 35,000 enrollments – roughly 18 percent – in only two years.
Since then, students have been coming back. MCCCD reported 165,709 in 2022–23, 172,953 the following year and 177,901 in 2024–25. But even after that recovery, the district’s historic-headcount measure remained roughly 17,000 below its 2019–20 level. Those numbers caught my attention. But they do not prove that Maricopa County somehow caused the decline.
Community colleges across the country were being hit at the same time. Research on the pandemic period found community-college enrollment nationally dropped approximately 10 percent between fall 2019 and fall 2020, while public four-year colleges did not experience a comparable decline during that period. Researchers have pointed to a combination of COVID disruption, employment changes, financial pressures, caregiving responsibilities and other barriers that fell particularly hard on lower-income students and students of color.
So perhaps the first lesson is this: There was no single student or group of students who disappeared — and there was no single reason students left. A 19-year-old deciding whether to work or attend school does not face the same problem as the 42-year-old parent trying to change careers while keeping food on the table; a student who wants a traditional associate degree may not be looking for the same thing as someone who needs six months of technical training and a paycheck. And men and women are not entering these schools in equal numbers either.
WHERE ARE THE MEN?
During our lunch, John Crow raised another number that stayed with me. He said women now account for approximately 61 percent of community-college students. The exact number depends upon which population is being measured.
MCCCD’s own 2024–25 records show its enrollment was 59 percent female and 41 percent male. Ten years earlier, in 2015–16, the split was 56 percent female and 44 percent male. In other words, the gender gap within MCCCD has widened. Nationally, the pattern is similar. Federal data show women represented roughly 57 percent of students enrolled in two-year institutions in 2023.
But then I found something that changed the question. A Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond survey of 121 community colleges for 2024 found 61.1 percent of award-seeking credit students were women and only 38.7 percent were men. Yet among students enrolled in noncredit workforce programs, the pattern nearly reversed: 53 percent were men. Maybe some of the men did not disappear from education at all. Maybe they changed lanes. They may be choosing shorter programs, certifications and direct workforce training rather than the traditional college route.
National enrollment data give us another clue. By spring 2025, enrollment at highly vocational public two-year institutions had grown almost 20 percent above spring 2020 levels, while certificate programs were also showing substantial growth.
Now the lunch conversation began making more sense: John’s question is not simply, “How many students can we enroll?” It is also: What workers does Arizona need, and are we training people for those jobs?
Ryan’s question becomes: If students – particularly men and working adults – want education delivered differently, are colleges reaching them where they are instead of waiting for them to return to the old credit model?
And Susan’s question comes afterward: Whatever pathway brings that person into college, what quality of education does that student receive once there?
Three Different Questions. One Student.
AND THEN THERE IS THE 31 PERCENT
John raised another statistic during our discussion – one that deserves considerably more investigation. His campaign has said its analysis of federal enrollment data found an average decline of more than 31 percent in Black male enrollment across Arizona community colleges following the elimination of Football Programs. That number is important. But so is the context.
National research found that between fall 2019 and fall 2021, Black community-college enrollment fell 18 percent overall. Among Black men, the decline was even greater – 23.5 percent, compared with 15 percent among Black women. So Black men were already experiencing an unusually serious national enrollment decline during the same period in which Arizona was experiencing its own losses. That does not mean John’s 31 percent figure is wrong. It means we need to ask a harder question:
Was Arizona simply experiencing the same national collapse; or did something here make an already serious problem worse?
And that brings football back into the story. Not as the answer. Not yet. But as something worth investigating.
- If removing football eliminated an important doorway into college for some young men – particularly students who lacked the financial resources or traditional academic path available to others – the numbers should eventually help us see it.
- If the numbers do not show that connection, we need to know that too.
Because this story is becoming much larger than whether eleven men can move a football one hundred yards down a field. It is becoming a story about who walks through the college door in the first place – and why.
And perhaps an equally important question: What Kind of Education Are Today’s Students Actually Asking Us For?
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Coming Next…
PART 2 — WHAT WILL BRING THEM BACK?
PART 3 — THE PRICE OF COMING BACK.
PART 4 — IT WAS NEVER JUST ABOUT FOOTBALL.
By Linda Brickman
©2026 Linda Brickman. All Rights Reserved.
