Adult education enrollment dips

Adult education can mean anything from a one-night class in summer cooking to six weeks of algebra for a high school diploma, but in all its forms, adult education is proving to be much affected this summer by the sluggish economy.

Programs offering elective courses for personal enrichment have seen enrollments drop by at least 10 percent. Meanwhile, centers that serve as a safety net for high school students have seen enrollments soar as they pick up the slack from slashed school-district budgets.

National figures are difficult to pinpoint since many adult-education centers have not yet finalized or analyzed this summer's enrollments.

What educators feel safe to say, however, is that the nation's economic downturn since Sept. 11, 2001, has sent waves that continue to ripple through the world of adult education, especially in the summer months, which is typically an off-season (enrollment peaks in September and January).

Language courses have long been a mainstay, particularly during the summer, when Americans are traveling abroad. Arabic and Japanese classes that began last year at the Boston Center for Adult Education, for example, are full again.

James Smith, executive director of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Cambridge, Mass., says languages help people "understand the world and United States' place in it."

In contrast, courses in English as a Second Language have fallen off sharply at metropolitan centers across the nation. Public adult-ed ESL classes offered in Brookline, Mass., for example, which usually have 800 students are down by 200. The Cambridge Center similarly lost about 20 percent of its students over the past year.

"It's devastating to our program," Mr. Smith says. "The US is a lot less immigrant-friendly than it used to be, so it's harder to get a visa to come here. [Immigrants] who were here are going home.... Those who are still here are less likely to risk any sort of public exposure by registering for a class."

But in Chicago, immigrants have flocked to a course that combines English instruction with job skills.

Truman College has added an extra section in a technology-based English as a Second Language course, where students learn computers and a new language simultaneously.

"You just go there and forget your problems for a while," says Oleksandra Kikhard, who emigrated from Ukraine four years ago and is out of work. "We came here like small children, adjusting to life in the United States, and it's a lot of stress on us. So you just go and laugh a bit while you learn something that will help you. It's like a therapy."

Adults with weak English skills have kept enrollment steady at the Boulder Family Learning Center in Boulder, Colo., according to director Brenda Lyle. Welfare-to-work programs that began in the mid-1990s have brought immigrants into the workforce, she says, but many struggle to survive at minimum wage.

"It's very hard to advance, even in an entry-level job, if you don't know the language," Ms. Lyle says. "People are trying to catch up on their skills just to keep up with inflation."

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