BELLINGHAM, WA. – (KGMI.com) Whatcom Community College’s enrollment saw an uptick this fall for the first time since the pandemic began.

Like many secondary education institutes in the country, WCC is still recovering to pre-pandemic numbers.

Cascadia Daily News reports the number of students on-campus has increased over a 25% since fall 2022.

The college is working to do outreach to Latino populations and students over 25 years old to further increase enrollment.

WCC also faces a retention issue, but a newly hired dean for student success is focusing on retention.

Full-time enrollment is up 6% from last fall.

The numbers of students enrolled full-time is still down from fall of 2019, standing roughly two-thirds of what enrollment once was.