Two-year community colleges are seeing record enrollment as a weak economy is steering high school graduates away from more expensive four-year universities.

While the shift solves one funding problem, it potentially raises another.

Community college officials in states like Virginia are concerned that rising costs and state government budget shortfalls could limit their ability to handle the anticipated influx of new students.

The American Association of Community Colleges says preliminary reports from community colleges nationwide show summer enrollments
increased, a trend predicted to extend into the fall. The schools had an overall enrollment of 11.5 million last year.

The bulk of federal higher-education funding goes to four-year schools, yet two-year schools enroll almost half the nation's undergraduates.

Community colleges on average get 60 percent of their funding from state and local sources. As a result, if states are having trouble, officials say community college funding could dwindle.