By Katherine Mangan

New Orleans

As a new semester got under way, wrecking crews were hard at work on Delgado Community College's main campus here, bulldozing hurricane-ravaged buildings to make way for new ones.

Long lines of students snaked past makeshift admissions and financial-aid stations separated by curtains in a converted ballroom. The temporary offices had been in place since flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina knocked the student-services building out of commission.

It's a scene one might have expected months—even a year—after the 2005 hurricane, which devastated New Orleans and forced most local colleges to close for the fall semester. But this August will mark the storm's fifth anniversary, and only now is the state's oldest and largest community college able to move ahead with reconstruction.

Seventy percent of the buildings on Delgado's campus were damaged by floods and wind, and as the spring 2010 semester begins, 30 percent of the building space is still unusable. Still, students are coming in droves, looking for affordable ways to retool their skills and find work in a city that, like the college, is still in recovery mode.

"Last fall we had to turn away around 1,500 people because we couldn't turn another closet into a classroom," says the chancellor, Ron D. Wright. "That was the most distressing thing I had to do. I've never told anyone they couldn't come."

Delgado is being pulled in two directions by swelling enrollments and shrinking resources. And while those problems are increasingly common among community colleges across the country, Delgado faces the additional challenge of a depleted infrastructure, with ruined buildings untouched since the storm.

A major reason for the construction delays was the gulf between the college's estimate of the repair bill (about $39-million) and what the Federal Emergency Management Agency was willing to pay after an initial assessment (around $19-million). FEMA's offer was based on the cost of equipment at the time it was bought rather than the cost to replace it now, Delgado officials say. The federal estimate also did not take into consideration post-Katrina building codes that require structures in low-lying areas to be elevated when they are rebuilt. After lengthy negotiations, the federal agency finally agreed to increase the reimbursement amount, although no firm figures are available yet.

Some delays were also caused by a federal requirement that 51 percent of a building be deemed ruined before it can be torn down rather than repaired. Delgado officials did not learn until this past fall that their library met that criterion.

Exacerbating Delgado's problems was an 8-percent budget reduction by the state this year, followed by a 2.8-percent midyear cut.

"It's a double-edged sword," says Carol Gniady, a spokeswoman for the college. "Our classes are in great demand, but we're hindered by a lack of funding and classroom space. We're challenged to provide the same level of service with less."

'Overwhelmed by People'

The situation isn't likely to improve anytime soon. Like many states, Louisiana was able to use its portion of the $787-billion federal stimulus package to plug some of its budget holes and avert widespread layoffs and program cuts in higher education. The stimulus money will dry up after next year, however, and state tax revenues that help pay for education are likely to remain lower than in previous years.

Meanwhile, enrollment at Delgado—which plummeted from 17,398 before the storm to just 2,500 when the college reopened a semester later—has been steadily rising. This year it climbed 16 percent, to 16,715, which puts it just 4 percent below its pre-storm level. "We've been overwhelmed by people who have come to the conclusion that knowledge is the way out," says Mr. Wright.

Among them is Crystal Strate, a 25-year-old senior who entered Delgado with hopes of switching her career to nursing. When Katrina struck, she was managing a clothing store, The Limited, on New Orleans's Riverwalk Marketplace. The store was badly damaged and forced to close. Ms. Strate moved across Lake Pontchartrain to manage a branch of the store in Slidell, La. After struggling to balance work with raising a toddler, she enrolled in a nursing program at Delgado in 2007.

"I wanted a sense of security of having a degree" in a marketable field, she says.

Her heart wasn't in it, though, so she switched to public relations, a field she found far more interesting. Now, though, as her May graduation date approaches and national unemployment figures top 10 percent, she worries about her future. Although she has nothing but praise for Delgado, the decision to take out loans and prepare for a new career unsettles her. "I have some questions about whether it's all worth it," she says with a sigh.

Enrollment trends at Delgado mirror the needs of the local economy, officials say. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, enrollment increases were mostly in noncredit courses, including short-term vocational classes in fields like environmental cleanup and construction, aimed at rebuilding the local economy. "We are the hub of the economic engine of New Orleans," says Mr. Wright.

The college's enrollment boom is especially evident on its Northshore campuses, in Slidell and Covington, where enrollment jumped 31 percent last fall, to 2,315. The growth results largely from a post-Katrina population shift toward the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, where St. Tammany Parish is one of the state's fastest-growing areas. Another important shift since Katrina is in the number of students taking one or more courses online—at least one-quarter of the college population now, compared with just 3 percent during the semester before Katrina struck.

'It's Going to Implode'

Chancellor Wright is relaxed and jovial in a pinstripe suit and salt-and-pepper hair. He leans back in his chair and jokes frequently, but the frustration of waiting for federal rebuilding money and coping with budget cuts is evident in his description of the challenges facing Delgado.

Faculty members are having to teach more and larger classes and to make do with facilities that are long overdue for repair, he says. "At some point it's going to implode. There are only so many times you can tell people just to be thankful that they have a job. We're on a train track heading for a wreck."

Asked why the recovery has taken so long to reach his campus, he responds immediately: "It's purely about power and prestige." When money is tight and the backlog of buildings needing repair is long, he says, it is hard to compete with institutions like Louisiana State University, with its powerful backers in state and local government.

"LSU can graduate all the surgeons it wants," he says, "but if we don't graduate the technicians they rely on, they're going to move to Texas." Delgado also graduates a large percentage of New Orleans's nurses and other health-care workers, he notes.

Although the city's population was back to 76 percent of the pre-Katrina level last year, many of its hospitals are still closed or are operating below capacity. As a result, finding enough clinical-training slots for Delgado's health-care students has been difficult, and some graduates have had trouble finding jobs locally.

"We can educate them, but there aren't enough positions available" for them to practice their skills, says Ms. Gniady, the Delgado spokeswoman. "The work force is not there yet." Radiology technicians, for instance, used to be able to get jobs right away. "Now it takes a little longer, and you might have to drive a little farther," she says.

Meanwhile, student records are stored in stacks of cardboard boxes in the converted ballroom, which has been cordoned off into sections for admissions, financial aid, and advising. Even with the building scheduled to reopen this spring, about a third of the square footage on the campus is still out of commission, including faculty offices and computer labs, college officials say.

The child-care center, which serves as both a student-training location and a benefit for parents, is also being rebuilt. About three-quarters of the college's students are women, many of whom have young children.

Delgado officials say it's particularly frustrating that the main administration building had only 18 inches of water in it during the hurricane, but sat for so long without air conditioning under the hot New Orleans sun that mold spread until the building became uninhabitable. The same problem plagued campuses throughout the humid city, where officials waited weeks or months for inspections as their buildings' interiors slowly rotted.

Even more frustrating is Delgado's library, a vacant shell with wires dangling from the ceiling and ripped tiles strewn on the floor. About $12-million worth of books were ruined. Those that were salvaged were moved into storage, from which they can be retrieved at a computer lab that was converted into a temporary library.

"Students have to tell us two days ahead of time that they want a book, and we put on a mask and go get it," the chancellor says. "OK, I'm exaggerating about the masks, but it's sad, especially since the library is the center of learning."