Washington community college enrollment up

SEATTLE — Enrollment at Washington’s 34 community and technical colleges are up dramatically. College officials say fall enrollment reached 134,000 full-time equivalent students. That’s an increase of more than 9,000 over the previous year. Most of the increase is from the worker retraining program, which helps pay for tuition, books and fees for people who have lost their jobs. Worker retraining enrollment is up 20 percent. If demand for community college classes continue to grow, school officials project they will be teaching thousands of students above the number supported by the state budget.