Earlier this year, the College of Lake County was faced with a new challenge — adapting to a flurry of mixed signals and threats related to the federal funding of higher education.
With CLC’s fall semester just kicking off, that sense of uncertainty remains in many ways, and while the school is moving forward with its federal funding restored, it still faces challenges in its future as presidential executive orders create uncertainty in higher education and international students begin to look elsewhere.
The school was facing a potentially million-dollar cut to its budget after the administration of President Donald Trump froze billions in federal education grants across the country earlier this summer. CLC’s $500,000 in adult education grants were only just restored last week, school President Lori Suddick said.
According to a spokesperson for the Illinois Community College Board, more than $24 million had been delayed for Illinois’ adult education programs, creating “much uncertainty” for community colleges, community-based organizations, school districts and other providers funded by the ICCB.
“This pause made it difficult for providers to plan what their programs would look like moving forward, if the programs could be sustainable without federal funding, and what programs to offer,” the spokesperson said. “Colleges and all providers were looking at a multitude of scenarios that included what would happen if federal money was not released.”
It was a similar picture for CLC. While the funding has since been restored and the school has faced no major cuts to funding, Suddick said the delay threw chaos into the school’s planning, and officials had modified their planning to avoid a hole in the budget.
“It puts you in a holding pattern,” she said.
However, issues like withheld funding aren’t unheard of for the school, she noted. In the mid- to late-2010s, before she joined the college, Illinois hit a budget impasse and numerous colleges were forced to make “major reductions” to staffing, programming and delivery, she said.
What has been unprecedented for Suddick, a nearly three-decade veteran of higher education, has been the flurry of executive orders related to education that remain in something of a state of limbo as they end up in court.
“There is an extensive effort, across every higher-ed institution right now, keeping track of what’s coming out,” Suddick said. “A lot of it’s just a waiting game.”
The school has also seen a hit to its international student population, although that represents a relatively small portion of the overall student body.
According to Suddick, in the fall of 2024, CLC had just over 200 international student applications. This fall, that dropped to under 140, a more than 30% decrease. The school had 186 international student applications in the fall of 2023.
Changes on the federal level around processing student visas have caused a steep decline in the number of new international students, Suddick said. However, CLC has seen enrollments rise on the domestic side, she said, and overall the school has seen an increase in attendance.
According to a CLC spokesperson, the school’s total student population from July 2022 to June 2023 was more than 20,500. That increased to more than 22,000 the next year, and sits at over 23,000.
The increase, somewhat unusual for higher education post-pandemic Suddick said, could be attributed to the school’s outreach to high schools and various student-retention efforts. That includes reaching out to students who had previously paused their education for various reasons.
In regard to discussions around diversity, equity and inclusion, typically referred to by the acronym DEI, Suddick said CLC’s “statement remains as it has been.”
“The college is in compliance with all laws,” she said. “Our programs, our delivery, our admissions are not subject to race-based admissions. We are an open-access institution. Always have been.”
Looking ahead
While CLC, and higher education broadly, is in “an environment where things are swirling,” the school also has to look ahead, remaining “agile” as it plans for the future, Suddick said.
CLC prides itself on its relationships with area businesses, often talking about building a pipeline of talent. Tariffs have meant rising costs for everyone, from students to manufacturers, and Suddick said she’s heard about some employers slowing their hiring, which could impact job-seeking graduates.
But the broader issue of demographic shifts shrinking the workforce remains, and in other industries, “the demand is so high that they can’t produce what they need to produce without more people to do it,” Suddick said.
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CLC recently approved its 2030 strategic plan, which has a focus on being a “future-ready organization.” That means everything from launching digital dashboards to developing artificial intelligence policies. The school is also in the middle of a massive, multi-year software transition, to be completed in 2027.
“You are always managing the here and now, but you have to be looking out here and figuring out what are the things that you’re preparing now, for that next set of steps, and really keeping yourself flexible and agile,” Suddick said.