The forces reshaping higher education are neither distant nor abstract; they are unfolding now, with implications that will intensify through 2035 and beyond. This section examines the social, technological, economic, environmental, and political (STEEP) trends that informed MCC’s scenario planning process and shaped the five strategic capabilities identified through campus-wide engagement. Each trend connects directly to the strategic capabilities MiraCosta will need to thrive in 2035 and beyond.
Social Trends
Demographic Shifts & Changing Student Populations
Nationally, community colleges face dramatic demographic shifts and changing student populations. High school graduates peaked in 2025, and experts project a decline by nearly half a million students by 2041.2 The racial/ethnic composition is growing more diverse, with Latine and multiracial students increasing while other groups shrink. College-going rates have fallen from 66% in 2012 to 62% in 2022, marking the first sustained decline in decades. Meanwhile, the dual enrollment population has nearly doubled, now comprising 21.7% of total community college enrollment nationwide.
At MiraCosta: In line with national trends, MCC has experienced both declining enrollment and increasing diversity in both student demographics and in enrollment patterns over the last decade. Between 2016-2017 and 2024-2025, MCC's enrollment declined by 14.8% while enrollment among Latine students increased by 15.8%. Today, more students are enrolling via dual enrollment and in noncredit courses: Between 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, the number of unduplicated students enrolled in MCC dual enrollment CTE courses grew by 158.3% from 84 to 217. In 2024-2025, unduplicated dual enrollments grew again by 57.6% over the previous year.
These trends are particularly significant for MCC, where Latine students comprise 60% of the K-12 population in the colleges service area.3
Mental health concerns have also emerged as a defining characteristic of today’s students, with nearly one-third citing feeling "mentally burnt out" as their primary reason for not
enrolling.4 Notably, 73% of students experienced challenges with food, housing, mental health, transportation, internet access, or childcare in 2023-24.5
Regional Context: Two out of every three students in California's community college system report experiencing at least one basic needs insecurity with students across the San Diego/Imperial region reporting significant food insecurity (42%), housing insecurity (57%), and homelessness (21%). Rates of basic needs insecurities are significantly higher among historically marginalized student populations.
These demographic realities underscore why MCC's first strategic capability, developing flexible, responsive educational models, must address the diverse needs of an increasingly varied student body.
Changing Learner Expectations
Today’s students demand educational experiences fundamentally different from traditional models, with flexibility and career relevance as paramount priorities.6 While quality of education remains students’ top consideration at 42%, flexible classes and online options rank second at 36%, and financial aid options third at 35%.7 Indeed, 52% of prospective students report they would consider enrolling in degree programs if universities offered flexible learning options such as on-demand, online, part-time, weekend, or accelerated formats.8
Students increasingly prioritize practical outcomes over traditional credentials: spring 2024 saw nearly 10% growth in graduate certificate enrollments and nearly 4% growth in undergraduate certificates, reinforcing that learners are choosing credentials with high return-on-investment.9
These learner expectations align directly with MCC's scenario planning conversations, where faculty and staff consistently envisioned 2035 students as "freedom seeking," "career focused," and "wanting human connection" while also being "AI-savvy" and expecting clear return on their educational investment.
The Evolving Workforce Landscape
A persistent disconnect exists between educational institutions and employers; while 80% of educators believe their colleges produce graduates ready for work, only 62% of employers agree.10 Further, the nature of work itself is evolving, with 58% of the workforce needs new skills to perform their current jobs,11 apprenticeships more than doubling from approximately 317,000 to 640,000 over the past decade,12 and growing emphasis on skills like management, interpersonal communication, and emotional intelligence alongside technical competencies.13
In San Diego County, professional and business services, educational services, health care, and leisure and hospitality sectors are projected to drive 62% of all nonfarm job growth,14 the imperative is clear: institutions must forge stronger partnerships with local employers, continuously update curricula to reflect technological changes, and provide both technical training and the essential human skills that complement automation rather than compete with it. This imperative directly informed the college's third strategic capability: strengthening industry partnerships and workforce alignment.
Technological Trends
Artificial Intelligence & Advanced Technologies
Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping higher education instruction and operations, with profound implications for both efficiency and equity. AI represents an "industrial revolution moment" comparable to the introduction of the internet. According to the World Economic Forum, 94% of U.S.
What Students Are Saying About AI: San Diego State University administered a survey on AI to over 100,000 students, faculty, and staff across the country, finding that 57.5% of students expect AI to play a significant role in their future careers but 81.7% report significant concerns about AI's impact on their future job security.
firms expect AI and information processing technologies to transform their operations between 2025-2030.15
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office established the Digital Center for Innovation, Transformation and Equity in 2024 to bring generative AI advances into the nation's largest higher education system while working to prevent an AI digital divide among the system's 2 million students.16
MCC's Approach: MiraCosta began offering the state's first Associate of Science in Artificial Intelligence in academic year 2024-25, demonstrating the college's responsiveness to rapidly evolving workforce demands. In May 2025, MCC's Academic Senate approved a resolution on artificial intelligence in teaching and learning (R 1-25). This resolution establishes the faculty's commitment to human-centered AI integration, asserting that technology should enhance rather than replace human agency, creativity, and learning while prioritizing equity, social justice, and environmental stewardship over efficiency and profit.
Currently, 86% of college students are already using AI in their academic work, yet 77% of higher education administrators, faculty, and trustees report their institutions are not ready for generative AI.17 This readiness gap explains why MCC's campus conversations consistently emphasized the need to "center human connection in the era of advanced technology" – the college's second strategic capability – while ensuring equitable access to AI tools and training.
Economic Trends
Funding Realities
California community colleges face a challenging funding environment. The 2025-26 Governor's Budget proposes $14.8 billion in Proposition 98 funding for the system, representing a 6.1% increase over 2024-25.18 However, these increases follow years of budgetary instability to balance Proposition 98 obligations amid declining state revenues.19
Financial pressures are intensifying as federal stimulus has ended and state healthcare costs compete for education funding.20 These fiscal realities informed MCC's scenario planning across all four futures where participants consistently identified the need for diversified funding models, stronger community partnerships, and operational efficiencies that protect core educational functions.
Local Innovation: MiraCosta's successful passage of Measure MM in 2016 demonstrates that local funding diversification can generate substantial community investment, a model that may become increasingly essential as state funding volatility continues.
Labor Market & Credentialing Shifts
Skills-based hiring is accelerating as employers question whether degrees reliably indicate workforce readiness.21 The World Economic Forum estimates 61% of U.S. workers will require upskilling or reskilling between 2025-2030.22 Nationally, certificate completions continue to rise while associate degree completions decline, signaling a sustained shift toward shorter, workforce-focused credentials.23
In San Diego County, persistent equity gaps related to age, gender, and race/ethnicity emphasize the need for targeted interventions that connect disproportionately impacted communities to high-wage career pathways.24 These dynamics reinforce why MCC's scenario planning
participants emphasized micro-credentials, competency-based education, and flexible pathways developed in partnership with industry partners as essential components of the college's first and third strategic capabilities.
Environmental Trends
Climate Change & Institutional Sustainability
The California Community Colleges Board of Governors has mandated ambitious decarbonization targets, requiring campuses to
achieve 100% emissions elimination by 2035, a decade ahead of California's statewide 2045 carbon neutrality goal.25 For MCC, these pressures intensify given California's projections of nearly one foot of sea level rise by 2050 will increase coastal flooding frequency and affect coastal infrastructure.26,27
MiraCosta's coastal location positions the college at the intersection of North County San Diego's emerging green and blue economies, encompassing clean energy, climate resilience, ocean science, and coastal industries. MCC's own Teal Jobs Report projects over 6,000 green job openings and over 1,500 blue job openings in the region through 2029, representing a significant opportunity to align workforce pathways with the sectors that will define the region's economic and environmental future.28
Local Context: MiraCosta's San Elijo campus operates under California Coastal Commission permit conditions, adding a layer of regulatory complexity to climate adaptation planning that will intensify as coastal pressures mount.
These climate disruptions create both operational challenges and opportunities: community colleges are uniquely positioned to develop the climate-ready workforce needed for California's green economy transition. MiraCosta's fifth strategic capability, expanding the college's mission to address community resilience, recognizes that the institution's role as a community anchor extends to environmental stewardship and climate preparedness.
Political Trends
Policy Volatility
California community colleges operate within an increasingly volatile policy landscape. Community colleges now face "wide policy swings that take place with court rulings and changing administrations" on issues ranging from Title IX interpretation to student aid delivery, requiring "multiple rounds of significant changes in institutional policy and practice" just to maintain compliance.29 The federal administration's actions in 2025 disrupted federal education oversight and program management functions, creating uncertainty about financial aid delivery and requiring unprecedented agility to respond in a constantly evolving landscape.
At the state level, California's budget volatility compounds these challenges, with the 2024-25 fiscal year addressing a $38-68 billion shortfall.30 Community college funding remains vulnerable to revenue volatility and competing K-12 priorities, particularly with proposals to reapportion Transitional Kindergarten funding that could redirect $492 million away from community colleges over three years.31,32
Privatization & Competition
The privatization of higher education functions has accelerated dramatically, creating new competitive pressures for community colleges. The pandemic catalyzed a shift toward reliance on private digital infrastructure, with the "vast majority of U.S. public colleges and universities that offer online education programs or courses now rely[ing] on external companies" including online program managers, learning management systems, and for-profit partnerships.33 These arrangements frequently proceed without meaningful faculty oversight.
Beyond technological privatization, community colleges face intensifying competition from private credentialing providers, skills-based hiring platforms, and employer-sponsored training programs that bypass traditional educational pathways entirely. According to a 2024 study by the Institute for College Access and Success, approximately 62% of community college students who transfer to out-of-state institutions from California enroll in for-profit colleges.34 These institutions often have significantly lower completion rates and higher student loan default rates compared to non-profit alternatives. The same study found that students who transfer to for-profit institutions accumulate, on average, 65% more student debt than those who transfer to
non-profit institutions, while experiencing employment outcomes that are 23% less favorable in terms of job placement and starting salaries. This pattern represents not only a missed opportunity for MCC but also potentially harmful outcomes for students.
Social & Political Polarization
Higher education has become deeply embedded in America's culture wars, with trust in colleges and universities reaching historic lows. Recent polling reveals that 70% of U.S. adults believe colleges and universities are "generally going in the wrong direction." This figure is up sharply from 56% in 2020 and now represents a rare area of bipartisan concern with 77% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats expressing dissatisfaction, albeit for fundamentally different reasons.35
Community colleges typically enjoy broader and more bipartisan support than four-year universities yet remain affected by the same cultural tensions.36 Only 20% of registered voters express “a great deal” of trust in public colleges and universities.37
Looking Ahead
The trends examined in this section are not isolated forces but instead interact and amplify one another in ways that defy simple prediction. Demographic shifts intersect with technological change; economic pressures compound political instability; environmental challenges reshape both operations and curriculum. This complexity is precisely why MCC adopted a scenarios-based approach to strategic planning, recognizing that building institutional resilience requires preparing for multiple possible futures rather than betting on a single forecast.
The five strategic capabilities that emerged from campus-wide engagement represent MCC's response to these converging pressures. Rather than predicting which future will materialize, these capabilities position MCC to thrive across the full range of possibilities, from growth to constraint, from transformation to collapse. The following section describes each capability in detail, grounded in the insights of faculty, staff, students, and community partners who will ultimately bring this vision to life.
References
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3 U.S. News & World Report. (2025). Oceanside Unified School District. Retrieved from
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