The area around T-Street Gulch has been one of the tiredest neighborhoods in Tacoma for some time. It has one of the most extensive collections of abandoned vehicles in the city, not to mention swaths of weedy overgrowth.

Now, energized by the city’s Clean & Safe projects and a few remarkable activists, it’s rebranding itself.

It’s First Creek now, and it’s organizing.

Since July, First Creek neighbors have held three meetings, set up partnerships with police and building inspectors, and helped bust three meth and drug sites.

Meetings have grown from the initial 10 people to 60 and 80 residents eager to take back their streets, and yards, and woods.

Their fourth meeting is tonight, Wednesday. Oct. 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Portland Avenue Community Center, 3513 Portland Ave. City and Puyallup Tribal police will be there, along with building inspectors and a box of free energy-saving light bulbs compliments of Tacoma Power.

The economy is driving more people to campuses around the area. So what’s the situation at three local colleges?

All up.

UW Tacoma grew by about 350 students this year and will have about 3,000 people enrolled, its highest ever. Most students enter as juniors after transferring from community colleges, but UWT has a freshman class of more than 220 students.

At Pierce College, more than 11,351 students fill its Fort Steilacoom and Puyallup campuses as well as its other programs, like online learning. That’s up almost 1,400 from last year.

At Tacoma Community College, enrollment has reached 7,309 – an increase of 2.67 percent. But certain areas are seeing a boom, like worker retraining (up 20.87 percent) and adult basic education (up 22.45 percent for state-funded programs).

Today I'm going to begin reporting for a story about the boom in college enrollment during the economic downtown. Most of the local institutions have reported double-digit growth.

I'll put the question out there: Have you returned to college recently? If so, shoot me an e-mail.