The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted by where they enroll are often two different things.
The simplest answer is the most likely: the strong economy, including among relatively low wage, low skill workers.
Undergraduate enrollment at a 4-year school technically runs cyclically to the economy, but in practical terms enrollment remains flat at most schools.
That is, the talking heads might not be wrong about what they think community colleges are getting right.
There's no "paradox" here. There's just a huge gap between two groups whose members have likely never had a conversation with someone from the other group: talking head commentators and people without even an associate's degree. The commentators are saying that people who haven't gone to college should want community college, because they believe traditional universities aren't worth it. The people who haven't gone to college don't want community college and keep taking on loans to bankroll traditional colleges. It turns out higher education is a business and consumers love frills no matter what the sector is, but especially if they don't have to think about paying it back.
Any CC student whom is motivated by employment is flushing their money down the toilet if they're on a track or a program.
I was in a transfer program along with several other kids and that program worked very well, but "most" people paying for CC are wasting their money.
The non-credit courses are, however, a good deal and an excellent way to learn and skill up. Note that paying 100x as much to make those courses "credit" courses is worthless if the degree or cert granted is considered worthless in the workplace. And the institution cannot stay in business if everyone takes non-credit courses instead of being on a very expensive "associates degree" or "certificate" path.
The other way to use Community Colleges is to focus on something that has a very specific certification or outcome just by finishing the certificate or degree program.
An associates degree from a community college by itself has minimal value.
This is a universal truth about everything though. What people say and what they do are not guaranteed to be same.
Most cc teachers were not tenured - they were often experienced industry professionals who taught as a hobby. And the ones that were prized and retained were the ones who had exceptional teaching/lecture ability.
At a university so many professors are basically just the middle-management of academia - hired because of their research or experience managing grad students.
At a normal university, you end up taking classes from "professional" professors with no actual industry experience who are unlikely to be native English speakers. These professors copy & paste their notes, assignments and exams, cheating their way through teaching, hardly able to go off script or explain a concept beyond their intended lecture area. I've literally taken several classes (at the graduate level even) where the entire curriculum, lecture notes, assignments, exams were copy-pasted from other teachers or schools.
Of course, I believe there are some highly reputable universities and reputable professors. But the vast majority of PhD professors teaching at middle to low tier schools are hardly really teaching.
I'll take a class from an adjunct who is passionate about teaching even if they are somewhat just winging it. At least their heart and experience are in the right place.
If community colleges could attract the best teachers (etc.), and provide the kind of education as stated, then perhaps they would be what people want.
The problem is the incentives of workers, academics, students, the state, etc. are not aligned.
Most students probably do want the best practical education to get them into the workforce effectively -- but those who can provide that education have no incentive to.
The best industry professionals are in industry, the best academics are researchers.
The biggest drivers of reputation of have little to nothing to do with the quality of instruction. Below are probably the largest drivers of reputation in ranked order:
1. Athletics
2. Research
3. Notable alumni
4. Notable campus beauty / landscaping / facilities
5. Appearances in popular culture (movies, tv, etc.)
6. Outstanding instruction in a particular discipline for decades
The local CC paid TAs the same at 2 year CC as at 4 year state U. Odd that they charge differential tuition to students while paying the TA the same. I had a programming grad student TA and a History grad student TA who both commuted to also teach at the 4-year down the road 30 miles.
There simply is none, and what's considered fraud in any other industry is just business as usual.
I also tried to take a “fun” class each time I took a math class just to break up the grind. Creative writing was an eye opener. Most of the stuff turned in was dreadful, sometimes in style/substance but especially in effort. Short stories meant 2 paragraphs for a lot of them. The final story of the semester was supposed to be the culmination of the class. I turned in a 7 page story. While several people were enthusiastic about reading it for critique most were not. One guy even told me, “I’m sure it’s good but dude, I’m never going to reading anything that long.”
I asked the prof about the lack of effort and awful results from the class. I was in a BFA program in film and photography for undergrad and the critique sessions were intense. Part of what drove us, me at least, was fear of embarrassing myself in front of everyone with lousy work. This creative writing class was an elective and presumably the people that signed up for it should have been at least interested in the topic.
She said that you have to understand that most of the people there were really pushing themselves to be at college at all. Most had never developed successful academic habits or understood what it takes to seriously engage with a topic. “That’s why they are at community college instead of a 4 year school” was left unsaid but was clearly implied.
I’m of the opinion that marginal students, either in skill or interest, are more likely to just not try college at all these days instead of wasting their money and time. That’s actually a good thing IMO.
I was always dumbfounded when I saw how people just couldn’t care less. Its as if they already predetermined this is isn’t worth it or they’re not good enough idk.
Advisors were also awful, they would actually encourage you to not finish ur degree in 2 years and take longer.
>“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month.
State schools are like this too.
That sounds like the ideal response, doesn't it?
We talk about kids not being prepared for the real-world, and this seems like a good example. The first student graduated high-school with a 4.0 GPA, but can't figure out what classes he should take? Some of us went to college pre-email; there was no way to communicate but going office to office to resolve issues..
If I had to guess, the low college completion rate and "employers [being] “lukewarm” about the quality of community college students who do manage to graduate" both stem from grade inflation.
>That sounds like the ideal response, doesn't it?
Ideal would be like a competent concierge, but that simply doesn't exist for the non-wealthy.
The details don't matter but years ago we had some international family financial transaction that needed an appropriate stamp from someone. A notary wasn't good enough. I was sort of out of options at that point until someone pointed me to one our executive admins who knew what was needed. Today the answer is probably a Google away.
And it's not just state schools. When my wife went back to RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology, an expensive private school) to study photography, nobody there could even answer questions like: What courses do I need to graduate? Knowing that might be useful!
A lot of the student management systems used at many schools are extremely antiquated. Degree requirements are expressed in ways that make it difficult or impossible to create tools to help students plan their schedules and stay on track to receive their degree on time. Registration can make it hard for students to enroll in courses they need to complete their program. Many advisers are doing their best, and come up with hacks and workaround to try and help individual students, but access to advising can be limited and advisers are also affected by the poor data and tooling.
And of course, it's worth pointing out that universities are positioned to benefit from student mistakes. Didn't realize that you needed that course to graduate? See you next semester! Make sure to bring your (or your family's) checkbook. I'm sorry you couldn't register for that popular course as an undergraduate! Have you considered our MS programs?
These problems are not limited to community colleges.
I’m generally a cynical person, but I can’t be cynical about the administration of the EOF program because everyone I interacted with under that program excelled at what they did. They didn’t need to go above and beyond for the poor students, but they did.
Having gone through a 4-year Bachelor's in Computer Engineering at an ABET accredited university, the community college program was pathetic by comparison. There was one professor who seemed to have his shit together and worth the money. The rest were clearly half-assing it, assignments were poorly explained, grading was ludicrously pedantic (red marks for number of spaces on indentations in hand-written HTML), and the curriculum didn't structure prerequisites adequately so if you didn't know any better you'd be learning how to use a command line for the first time while someone is trying to teach you about RLC circuits with Arduino. It was quite bizarre, and they were clearly mostly dealing with the dregs who couldn't make it in a more serious university or in industry.
I guess I can't blame them, I can't imagine a community college teaching position pays all that well. But the only reason to go through that program is to do the bare minimum required for 2 years to trade up to a superior four year program at a major university, and you'll probably have to do a lot of remedial work when you get there.
I’m sure there are very good community colleges all across the nation, unfortunately, education isn’t something you can really shop around for.
It became apparent very early that I was much more advanced than the instructor. So much so that I realized this person was woefully unqualified to teach anyone anything about "computers". I remember the day when he looked at me and out of earshot of the other students said something to the effect of "Don't tell anyone OK?".
My next semester I made sure was at a proper four year college for CompSci.
I don't look back unkindly at my experience as a whole for that community college, it just makes some of the issues in the OP article ring true. Smart people will know the quality of education they're receiving especially when they're having to pay for it.
Even for people who don't finish a degree, it's still a great place to get exposure or make connections. And it's much cheaper to find out college isn't for you at community college.
Transfer programs though are a mess. The culprit are the 4-year universities - who actually punish you for not coming directly from high school. Your application is deprioritized, the requirements are much more stringent, and no one is there to help you.
Depends on the state. IGETC [1], the transfer program from California community colleges to the UC system, was very straightforward back in 2007-2009. Cal had a few dorm buildings specifically for transfer students. Each UC even provided stats on the admission rate for each major.
[1] https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requi...
Part of the issue they won't tell you is that you can apply as a transfer student with basic admissions requirements, but to actually get into some of the specific undergraduate programs had their own admissions requirements.
I was in a weird situation where I got accepted to the college but not into the undergrad program I had been working towards. AND ON TOP OF THAT you couldn't transfer in as a sophomore - you had 6 months to declare a major or you got kicked out. So you were forced to find ANY program at the college that would accept you.
(So as much as people have bad experiences with community colleges, I personally had a much worse time at the university level)
1. Education - Inspiration and job training 2. High-achieving peer groups 3. Prestige and signalling 4. Fun and independence
Online courses do #1 better than CCs. Dorms are essential to #4, so CCs miss out on it. There is no prestige associated with CCs and the titular community isn't especially high achieving.
What value do CCs provide ?
They have some incredible transfer opportunities, where you can get half the cost of a state school for pennies on the dollar.
1. Online is not inherently better than a CC. A CC is not entirely in person, either.
2. High achieving peer groups are not necessary. They simply need to be good enough
3. Prestige and signaling is relative - again this is adjusted to the community. A community where there are not schools could still benefit from a CC.
4. You could certainly fun at a CC, but you're right that the dorms help a lot.
I have worked at a community college. In my experience, the majority of the degrees or certificates emparted by said college do not really carry any marketable skills. Instructors are older, for the most part and not computer literate. Covid-19 forced a great number of them to either retire early or killed them off. Departments are always fighting the state for a small piece of the budget to stay afloat and not cut staff. I've found that most instructors are only there for their paychecks.
A good indicator of how bad things have gotten is the fact that post-secondary schools like community colleges and private schools regularly send out department reps to perform outreach at high-schools just to increase their enrollment numbers. A young mind's brain is very malleable afterall.
I was taught by local business leaders and real human instructors while he was 'guided' through many online sessions using computer-based curriculum. This strategic change dramatically lowered his interactive learning opportunities and made success very difficult. Frankly, it was the one of the most disappointing thing I had ever seen.
Ultimately, he gave up and switched to a technical school and moved on with his life rather than dig a mountain of debt for nothing.
People vote with their dollars and their feet.
Graduated HS in 2007. Was not ambitious in HS whatsoever. Soon after graduating I realized I needed to get my shit together. Education was the best bet at that time. My grandpa was a CC guidance counselor so the CC path was acceptable and familiar in my family. I never actually got much formal guidance counseling from him by the way. The first semester was disorienting but isn't all big change in life? I got much more confident that I could transfer once I discovered IGETC [1]. Every CC class was clearly marked to show what IGETC area it fulfilled. The UCs even provide statistics on the transfer admission rate for each major. My family was poor on paper so I got a lot of financial support. $5K to $10K per year in grants. I actually had $2K in savings purely from grants by the time I transferred to Cal! I chuckle a bit at UC kids taking on $50K in debt for lower-level general education whereas I ended up getting paid $2K to do the same! I transferred on-time, in 2 years. I pretty much had to devote my time to studies, though. It was very lonely. Continuing to live with my mom sucked. I regret not finding ways to socialize productively more during CC. But you can totally find concentrations of ambitious, high-performing peers. The advanced STEM classes had a lot of serious academics for example. I met some sharp people working on the school newspaper who probably went on to significant success in life. The professors were high-quality in general. Most had graduated from Stanford or UCs (colleges in the University of California system) themselves. They were totally focused on teaching us rather than doing research like most UC professors. When you get to CC it's really clear right away that a lot of students will not transfer even though that is their stated goal. Some just have too much life responsibility: needing to balance studies with full-time work to support a family and pay bills, etc. That is a tragedy. There were quite a few spoiled kids who probably subconsciously knew they would never really need to make a big career for themselves and weren't motivated for reasons like that. There were a lot of peers who unfortunately just had bad mindsets about education. You could tell that they didn't accept they needed to start being uncool and start reading a lot of books. There were a lot of peers who unfortunately were probably just bewildered by the bureaucracy of schools and just couldn't figure out the system and weren't being encouraged to persist at their studies. A lot of the students who don't transfer or get a degree as intended are up against some combination of those factors. Some of those problems are solvable by CCs. Others are deep-rooted and I don't think it's reasonable to expect CCs to fix them. Maybe we should just set the expectation that a lot of CC students won't transfer or get a degree simply because they are catering to "at-risk" populations. All-in-all CC was a smashing success for me in terms of sparking my passion for learning and providing an affordable foundation for career success.
[1] https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requi...
In all seriousness, the comments in this thread make me wonder if the show "Community" wasn't as much commentary as it was comedy.
