Clark College 2026 Fall Enrollment Remains Steady At Nearly 10,000 Students - 11/04/26

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Clark College reported its official fall enrollment numbers at a recent Clark College Board of Trustees meeting of a total enrollment of 9,893 students this fall, translating to a full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment of 6,547 — a 0.66% increase in total unduplicated headcount compared to fall 2025, and contributing to an overall increase of 23.5% from fall 2022 to fall 2026.  

Of all students enrolled this fall, 46.6% are full-time and 53.4% are part-time. Running Start is comprised of 2,278 students (1.7% increase from 2025); 392 students are pursuing bachelor’s degrees (4.8% increase overall in the six bachelor programs); 219 student-athletes are participating in 11 different sports; 76 are international students; and 1,287 are non-credit students in the college’s Community and Continuing Education. 

The average age of a Clark student is 27.54 years old and constitutes 39% of the 25 years and over student body, where 61% are 24 years and younger. 47% of Clark students are first-generation.  

"Our steady enrollment tells a powerful story about how Clark College is enhancing the Southwest Washington community and living its mission of increasing student access and success while meeting our workforce needs,” said President Dr. Karin Edwards. “Nearly half of our students are first-generation, and the number of students of color climbs every year. These trends reaffirm Clark’s mission to promote upward mobility, and to deliver excellent and equitable education that opens doors of opportunity for everyone in our community.” 

NOTABLE TRENDS

Enrollment at community colleges nationwide — including Clark — dropped sharply in 2020. Since then, enrollment at Clark and other community colleges has held steady with small incremental increases. Enrollment numbers are provided by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), which tracks enrollment data for the 34 public colleges in its system.

Overall Enrollment (unduplicated):

• Largest enrollment (headcount) since the pandemic in 2020

• Total enrollment of 9,893 students, equivalent to 6,547 full-time equivalent (FTEs)

• 23.5% enrollment increase in headcount over past five years (fall 2022 to fall 2026)

• 392 students pursuing bachelor’s degrees at Clark, up 4.81% from fall 2025

• 2,278 Running Start students, up 1.7% from fall 2025

• 76 International Programs students, a 4.1% increase from fall 2025 

Modality (duplicated):

Students continue to take a mix of online and in-person classes on campus. We are seeing more students on campus with more student clubs and activities.  

• 8,996 in person (duplicated) — 8.8% increase from last fall

• 10,444 online (duplicated) — no change from last fall

• 4,363 hybrid (mixture of in-person and online) (duplicated) — 3.5% decrease from last fall

Student Type (unduplicated):

When comparing fall 2022 to fall 2026, the percent of first-generation college students has increased by 3%, and enrollment of students of color has also increased by 5%.  

• 53.4% part-time; 46.6% full-time

• 23.2% are Running Start students

• 219 student-athletes in track, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, and cross-country

• 589 students with disabilities

• 280 students are using veteran benefits 

Program Type:

Consistent with fall 2025 data, more than half (50%) of students are pursuing transfer degrees and plan to earn a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution. 

• 5,243 students (53%) pursuing transfer degrees in various disciplines, including pre-nursing, business, biology, and general academic

• 392 students (4%) enrolled in Clark’s six bachelor’s degree programs:

  • 18.9% Bachelor of Applied Science in Dental Hygiene

  • 17.8% Bachelor of Applied Science in Cybersecurity

  • 16.1% Bachelor of Applied Science in Applied Management

  • 19.4% Bachelor of Applied Science in Human Services

  • 14.8% Bachelor of Applied Science in Teacher Education

  • 13% Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (new in 2025)

• 20% enrolled in Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, with the top five programs in nursing, business administration, early childhood education, surgical technology, and medical assisting 

• 10% enrolled in Transitional Studies courses (Basic Adult Education, GED preparation, English as a Second Language, high school plus)  

• 13% in Community & Continuing Education (CCE)* or non-seeking classes *4,306 students were enrolled in CCE classes in 2025-26, up 32.5% from 2024-25. CCE offered 494 classes in 2025-26, up 21.4% from 2024-25. 

Running Start (unduplicated):  

• 2,278 students, a 1.7% increase from fall 2025

• Top five school districts with Running Start students attending Clark this fall: 

  • 589 students from Evergreen

  • 529 students from Vancouver

  • 447 students from Battle Ground

  • 283 students from Camas

  • 146 students from Ridgefield

Enrollment Location (duplicated):  

• 11,443 students on main campus

• 967 students at Clark at WSU-V

• 638 students at Columbia Tech

• 188 students at Boschma Farms

• 11,112 students online

• 240 students offsite 

Student Residence: 

• 90.7% Clark County, Wash.

• 9.3% other

Average Age: 27.5 years old 

• 61% age 24 or younger

• 39% age 25 or older

Student Gender:

• 54.4% Female

• 31.5% Male

• 0.8% Nonbinary

• 13.4% Not reported

Student Race/Ethnicity: In most categories, Clark enrollment closely mirrors Clark County (CC) demographics

• 54.6% White (74.1% CC)

• 6.5% Asian (5.3% CC)

• 11.7% Latinx (12.9% CC)

• 0.4% Native American (1.4% CC)

• 14.7% Multiracial (11.3% CC)

• 0.7% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (1.3% CC)

• 3.4% Black/African American (7.2% CC)

• 8% Not reported

• 0.9% Other

The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) makes higher education accessible and affordable by advocating, coordinating, and directing Washington state’s system of 34 public community and technical colleges. SBCTC collectively serves over 262,000 students each year, which makes it the largest system of public higher education in Washington. They serve over 50% of students of color. They are accessible, affordable, and connected to K-12 schools, universities, and employers. 

About Clark College  

Founded in 1933, Clark College is Southwest Washington’s largest public institution of higher education and serves nearly 10,000 students per term. Clark College provides residents of Southwest Washington with affordable, high-quality academic and technical education.  

Clark College offers more than 100 degree and certificate programs, including bachelor’s and associate degrees; professional certificates; high school diplomas and GED preparation; and non-credit community and continuing education. Clark serves a wide range of students, including high school students, displaced workers, veterans, parents, non-native English speakers, and mature learners. Approximately 47% of its students are in the first generation of their families to attend college. 

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Clark College Announces Fall Programs At Archer Gallery (Photo) - 10/14/26

The public is invited to attend free art events, including the opening reception of Archer Gallery's upcoming exhibit by award-winning artist Roger Allan Cleeves

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Archer Gallery at Clark College is hosting a new exhibit and an exciting lineup of public programs. All events are free and open to the public, and they will take place on Clark’s main campus at 1933 Fort Vancouver Way. Art Talks will be located in the Penguin Union Building (PUB), room 161. Light refreshments will be provided. Directions and maps are available online.

Located on Clark’s main campus, Archer Gallery serves the students and community by exhibiting contemporary art in a not-for-profit educational setting. Archer Gallery exhibits work by nationally and internationally renowned artists and connects the Clark College community with accessible and diverse perspectives from the contemporary art world.

Clark Art Talks hosts an art lecture series throughout the academic year for students and the community. Distinguished artists and art scholars from around the country share their experiences related to their art practices and provide unique insights into their varied career paths and artistic techniques. For more information about Archer Gallery’s exhibitions and art talks, and to watch videos of past art talks, visit archergallery.space.
 

UPCOMING EXHIBIT: ROGER ALLAN CLEAVES, PATH TO PROGRESS

Opening Reception: Tuesday, October 12, 2–5 p.m. at Archer Gallery

Art Talk: Thursday, October 22, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. in PUB 161

Artist Website: https://www.rogerallancleaves.com/

Path to Progress represents a chapter in Roger Allan Cleaves’s ongoing narrative universe, Forget Me Nots Land — a world where history, folklore, popular culture, and imagined futures come together. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Cleaves brings a perspective shaped outside the Pacific Northwest to Archer Gallery. He will join us for the exhibition opening and an artist talk, giving students and visitors an opportunity to hear directly about the ideas, stories, and visual references behind his work. Cleaves’s practice is deeply connected to Afrofuturism, a movement that brings together Black history, African traditions, fantasy, technology, and science fiction to imagine new possibilities for the future. Afrofuturist art matters because imagination can be a form of agency. By envisioning Black people as protagonists, explorers, inventors, and creators of future worlds, artists can challenge histories of exclusion and imagine futures in which Black life can thrive. This idea is at the heart of Forget Me Nots Land and its central character, Bookie, a young Black protagonist navigating an ever-expanding, otherworldly universe.

For Archer Gallery, Path to Progress offers an opportunity to consider how contemporary artists can engage with art history as something alive and changeable. Cleaves invites us to recognize familiar images, look at them differently, and consider who gets to shape the stories of the future. As one chapter of Forget Me Nots Land, the exhibition remains open-ended — an invitation to imagine new stories, new protagonists, and new futures.

Cleaves was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he currently lives and works. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Memphis. During his tenure at the University of Memphis, he was one of fifteen undergraduate students selected from across the country to participate in the Yale Norfolk Summer program for the arts. Cleaves went on to study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned his MFA.

Cleaves’ exhibit will be at Archer Gallery from October 1 through December 4, 2026.

CLARK ART TALKS, LECTURES, AND WORKSHOPS

Orlando Almanza Art Talk: October 26, 2–3 p.m. in PUB 161

Artist’s website: https://www.orlandoalmanza.com/

Orlando Almanza (b.1989, Las Tunas, Cuba) pulls us into his dreamworld of memory, myth and loss with ethereal landscapes, portraits and storytelling. His stories take place in the natural world where figures are intertwined with plants, animals, and light. The interconnectedness of his work points to the artist's deep dedication to nature and the unique way it connects with myths and storytelling across cultures. Each painting invites us in, to search for meaning and truth. Almanza received his B.A. in printmaking from the Institute of Superior Arts in Havana, Cuba.

Tentacle Tribe (Montreal) Lecture Demonstration: October 28, 2–3 p.m. in Archer Gallery

Artist’s website: https://www.tentacletribe.com/

Clark College Foundation Presents and Archer Gallery welcome "conceptual hip hop" dance company Tentacle Tribe (Montreal) for a Lecture Demonstration, including performance excerpts. This free public event will feature internationally renowned dancers sharing their unique vision for melding street and contemporary dance forms.

Steve Gardner Artist Workshop: October 29, 1–4 p.m. at Frost Art Center, Ceramics Lab

Artist’s Website: https://gardnerart.com/

Seattle artist Steve Gardner studied art and biology at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, then received his M.F.A. in ceramic sculpture from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. He sculpts his three-dimensional work in architectural terra cotta, using traditional techniques with new innovations in surface color. Both his gallery work and his architectural commissions focus on the human figure, surface pattern, and a sense of story. Recent architectural commissions have taken the form of large murals in cast glass and metal. Installations of his sculptures can be seen at SeaTac International Airport (Seattle, WA); The LaSalle Building (Baton Rouge, LA); the Snohomish Library (Snohomish, WA); the Vancouver School for the Blind (Vancouver, WA); the Denali Lodge (Denali, AK); and the Oregon Zoo (Portland, OR). He lives with his family in Ballard, Seattle, WA, USA.

Laura Ross-Paul Art Talk: November 3, 11 a.m. –12 p.m. in PUB 161

Artist’s Website: https://www.lauraross-paul.com/

Laura Ross-Paul has been painting professionally for over four decades. During that time, she has been represented by nine West Coast galleries from Seattle to LA, with solo exhibits at the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, The Column Gallery, Colorado College, Colorado: The Art Gym, Portland, Oregon; and important exhibits at the Arnot Museum, Elmira, New York; Palm Springs Art Museum; Seattle Art Museum; Tacoma Art; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene), The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Portland), and The Schnitzer Family Collection.

Among her many awards, Ross-Paul has received the Bonnie Bronson Visual Arts Fellowship, an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, and the Susan Cooley Gilliom Artist and Teaching Residency in Roseville, California. Her art has been singled out for prizes in regional biennials at the Portland Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museums, and Turtle Bay Museum in Redding, California; featured in the cable TV film Spy (1989); and appears on book covers including fiction by Charles Spaeth (2011) and Barbara Wilson (1993) and poetry by Judith Barrington (2015).

Diego Mancilla Art Talk: November 5, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. in PUB 161

Artist’s Website: https://di-nation.com/

Born in Mexico City, raised in Portland, Oregon — Mancilla is a creative spirit. From the moment he drew on MacPaint in 1998, all he wanted to do was design. Today, he focuses on working with companies and individuals to create design solutions through the use of typography, layout, color mashups, and a splash of creativity. He is a Digital and Graphic Designer.

Palmarin Merges Art Talk: November 16, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. in PUB 161

Artist’s Website: https://www.palmarinmerges.com/

Palmarin Merges is a Filipina American artist whose work draws from the desire to become more sustainable by re-using materials close at hand and by adapting restriction as a generative force for creation. Trained as a Printmaker, she now works primarily in mixed media, especially household waste - plastic, cardboard, etc. These common materials taken from the fabric of her daily life are processed and then transformed into pattern, collage and concrete poetry.

Raised in Hawaii and California, she left Oregon in Dec. 2019 with her husband to return to Japan, this time to Tokyo. Her adventures now include exploring a variety of traditional crafts and wandering the areas in and around the Yamanote Line.

Palmarin Merges holds an MFA Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited in Japan, the Philippines, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. She has previously taught Relief, Screenprint and drawing at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Marylhurst University and Pacific University.

About Clark College

Founded in 1933, Clark College is Southwest Washington’s largest public institution of higher education. Clark College provides residents of Southwest Washington with affordable, high-quality academic and technical education. This public community college offers more than 100 degree and certificate programs, including bachelor’s and associate degrees; professional certificates; high school diplomas and GED preparation; and non-credit community and continuing education. Clark serves almost 10,000 students, including high school students, veterans, displaced workers, multilingual and mature learners. About three-quarters of its students are the first in their families to attend college.

Clark’s Fine Arts Program

Clark’s Art/Fine Arts program invites students to explore creative expression through a wide range of artistic media. Taught by professional artists and instructors with advanced degrees, courses provide a supportive environment for students to develop their skills and pursue their artistic ambitions. Whether students are beginning their journey or expanding their talents, students can choose from courses in painting, drawing, ceramics, photographic, and graphic design.

Learn more about Clark’s Art/Fine Arts program here.

All Are Welcome: Clark College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution. Learn more at www.clark.edu/nds.

Clark College’s Columbia Writers Series Kicks Off With Author Ed Park On Nov 5 (Photo) - 10/08/26

Pulitzer Prize finalist Ed Park opens 2026-27 Columbia Writers Series

VANCOUVER, Wash. — The Clark College Columbia Writers Series will begin its 2026–27 season with Ed Park, author of the book Same Bed Different Dreams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize. Additionally, Park has authored Personal Days, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the story collection An Oral History of Atlantis. His latest book is the memoir Three Tenses: A Transmission from the Nineties. 

This event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 5, in the Penguin Union Building (PUB) Room 258 on Clark College’s main campus, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver.

Park’s accolades include the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2025 and the Deborah Pease Prize from the nonprofit publisher A Public Space. He is a founding editor of the literary magazine, The Believer, and currently teaches writing at Princeton University.

EVENT DETAILS

Location: Penguin Union Building 258, Clark College main campus, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver, WA 98683

Parking: Green or Red lots—view online map and directions here.

Accommodations: If you need accommodations due to a disability to fully participate in this event, please contact Clark College’s Human Resources Office. Phone: 360-992-2105 or email: [email protected]

Clark College expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, perceived or actual physical or mental disability, pregnancy, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, creed, religion, honorably discharged veteran or military status, citizenship, immigration status, or use of a trained guide dog or service animal in its programs and activities. Learn more at www.clark.edu/nds.

Fall Columbia Writers Series Events

• Ed Park, author of the book Same Bed Different Dreams and Pulitzer Prize winner, Thursday, Nov 5, 11 am
  (see above)
   

• Debra Magpie Earling, fiction writer, February 2, 2027, 1 p.m.
  Earling is the author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, an award-winning novel that challenges dominant narratives of the life of Sacajewea. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was the first Native American to serve as director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana, where she was recently awarded an honorary doctorate and serves as professor emeritus. Born in Spokane, Washington, she is Bitterroot Salish.
   
• Erica Berry, author and essayist, May 26, 2027, 11 a.m.
  Berry is a writer and teacher based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Her essays, which are often about the confluence of emotions and the natural world, appear in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Emergence, The Yale Review, and Orion, where she is a contributing editor. She is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear, which won the Oregon Book Award, and the forthcoming Bodies in Heat: Love in a Changing Climate. Winner of a James Beard Award, Oregon Career Fellowships, and a Spark Award from the Miller Foundation, she was a 2026 Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor at Willamette University.

About Clark’s Columbia Writers Series

The Columbia Writers Series aims to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of Clark College by providing a platform for literature and the arts. Since 1988, the series has brought a diverse array of local, national, and international authors to the campus and the community. Learn more about the Columbia Writers Series.

About Clark College

Founded in 1933, Clark College is Southwest Washington’s largest public institution of higher education. Clark Collegeprovides residents of Southwest Washington with affordable, high-quality academic and technical education. This public community college offers more than 100 degree and certificate programs, including bachelor’s and associate degrees; professional certificates; high school diplomas and GED preparation; and non-credit community and continuing education. Clark serves almost 10,000 students, including high school students, veterans, displaced workers, multilingual and mature learners. About three-quarters of its students are the first in their families to attend college.   

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