How to Escape the Community College Trap

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/how-to-escape-the-community-college-trap/355745/?single_page=true

by vellum • 13 years ago

81 39 13 years ago

If there are age restrictions on the ASAP programme they are not mentioned in the article. If you live in New York City and high school sucks you should apply for this programme if you are planning on going to a state college. I would guess you can get in as a 16 year old with a GED. High school sucks for plenty of people.

As an obvious consequence of the above reasoning this programme or something like it will eventually be dominated by middle class applicants. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis. As I type this article is being forwarded by some Tiger Mom who wants to save on undergrad because their darling is going to grad school anyway.

hello_newman2• 13 years ago

This article was absolutely fabulous. I come from the community college setting, and this rings all too true for me.

At the community college I attended, it was a feeder school for many Orange County students. There was a general feeling of "High School Part 2" and an incredibly laid back climate. There also happened to be over 26k students, and classes were constantly too full. After having to schedule an appointment 3 weeks in advance with a counselor to discuss my options of getting into some B level school, I was told it would take me 6 semesters, or 3 years. I decided to learn to code.

I dropped out, hit the library, and started learning. Then, I applied to, and got accepted, into Dev Bootcamp. However, my mom ended up getting diagnosed with breast cancer, and in an effort to stay closer to her, I ended up getting accepted into General Assembly's Web Devlopment Immersive in Santa Monica. I decided to take a path of books, library study time, and self guided learning utilizing the many resources available to me such as; weekly coding sessions with Keith from DBC, Stack Overflow, and Google.

"The “beginning of the unbundling of the American university” is how one observer has described the transformation. All it will take for students to avail themselves of this emerging opportunity is a clear sense of where they’re headed, lots of self-motivation, and good access to information about what mix of skills is likely to lead to a promising career."

This above statement could not be more correct. Although the tools are out there for you to learn and become whatever it is you want to do, there is almost too much information. You need someone to guide you through the obstacles on your own individual path.

One thing I do hope we see more of, is a push for continued learning and education. It appears the vast majority of people entering and graduating from our 4 year Univerisites, view college as an end all to education. There needs to be a bigger push for learning in general. I suppose this is easier said than done, however.

reneherse• 13 years ago

I think of the educational path that you’re taking as the “auto-didact web development model”. There are several factors that make this path viable (educationally and as a conduit to employment), including:

• a vibrant sector of the economy driving job growth;

• wide sharing of domain knowledge within an online community;

• accepted patterns of skill demonstration and social proof (beyond the traditional credential of a degree);

• low startup and ongoing cost of materials (computer ownership and access to commodity servers);

• willingness of professionals to act as mentors (whether through profit motives or generosity).

As a lifelong autodidact with an educational path that has been less structured than the above, I’m interested to see if elements of this pattern can work for self guided education in other fields... creating systems of non traditional educational guidance and credentialing. Part of the "the unbundling of the American university”, as you put it.

[Edit: formatting]

hello_newman2• 13 years ago

I think there should be more emphasis towards self guided education in other fields. However, in a lot of ways web development and other sectors of programming, is an anomaly. Tech is one of the few true meritocracies left in this world, where it really doesn't matter where you came from as long as you can program. One of my instructors at GA is a fantastic programmer, and he dropped out of high school.

Your points for why tech works as a viable path are hard to reproduce in other fields, however that doesn't mean it's impossible. That needs to change, and I think companies likes Udacity which not only provide courses, but also support, will lead the way in this paradigm shift.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

Akin: One top-tier resource (i.e. that particular book on a topic that is clear, explicative, and authoritative) can be worth 10 second or third tier resources.

Someone new to a field or topic will benefit greatly by direction to those best resources (and away from the confusion and time-sink of others).

----

Similarly, if you are at school and taking classes. It's worth a lot of effort to get into classes taught by those professors who, big name or not, really care and know how to teach. Even if their class is "more difficult". What the hell are you paying all that money for, if not to be suitably challenged to learn and achieve more (with good explanations and choice of materials)?

rbanffy• 13 years ago

THis path is possible, but it doesn't solve every problem. You can't be (or, better, I'd prefer you refrain from being) a self-taught brain surgeon.

If you (plural) are to bring the US back to its former glory (and higher education plays a major role here), you'll need more than shiny web apps.

I'd start by outlawing reality shows. ;-)

protomyth3• 13 years ago

"In the community-college world, McGee’s achievement is a shockingly rare feat, and the program that so intently encouraged him to accomplish it is a striking anomaly."

This article isn't my experience, but I come out of the tribal community college system. Maybe the tribal colleges are an anomaly, but they do mentoring and monitoring because nothing else really works. Technology is used to provide individual tutoring and a lot of support. A lot of the students are older than average and most have families. Vocational programs and standard academic classes are taught so vocational students can easily move to academics. The GED program at the college is always busy picking up where the high school failed.

All classes transfer because they wouldn't be taught otherwise and a close working relationship with the state with common course numbering being used with all state institutions and tribals schools. This allows students to pick up the big generals in a smaller setting with tutor and various academic program support. Plus, the cost is much lower.

Also, some students take college courses during their senior (and sometimes junior) year in high school. Their cost is like $15/credit hour and it transfers.

Beyond education, many tribal community colleges are centers for activities in the community and often a focus point for government programs.

japhyr• 13 years ago

What state are you in?

protomyth3• 13 years ago

North Dakota

slurry• 13 years ago

Do tribal colleges have significantly better graduation rates than mainstream community colleges? I'm having a hard time finding good, current, nationwide numbers online, but that seems implausible on its face.

(On the other hand, it seems very plausible tribal colleges have excellent programs to maximize grad rates as much as possible.)

protomyth3• 13 years ago

Uhm, I'm not sure, good stats are a bit of a problem and it is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison due to the number of high school dropouts that need to get their GED first. Most non-tribal community colleges really don't go in for the GED or the vocational education that are staples of tribal efforts. Also, sadly, many of the high school "experiences" have not prepared students for higher education.

So, it really depends on what the goal is this time around. Is it a vocational certification, industry certifications (e.g. Microsoft Office Specialist), AA or AS degree, GED, or just some classes before a 4 year college. Getting to a goal is a little more important than "maximize grad rates"[1].

I guess if you have the frame of mind as "community educator" then it makes sense[2] and it really is a bit of a different world.

1) that is important, but it has to be with the students on a graduation track

2) CPR is a popular class

d64f396930663ee• 13 years ago

At the community college I went to, you took as many or as few classes as you wanted, and could quit and return at any semester as you pleased.

What's with all the bullshit rules and time pressure?

Espressosaurus• 13 years ago

The bullshit rules and time pressure are all part of making sure you actually make it through the system.

I, for example, took 4 years to get a two year degree in part because I didn't know where I was going, not all of the classes transferred, and the classes needed to transfer were different depending on which school you went to. So, you cover your bases since you might not get into your chosen school...

alistairSH2• 13 years ago

The article explains it all.

The rules only apply to those enrolled in the ASAP program. Non-ASAP students get the standard CC experience, come and go, part-time, etc.

The ASAP program forces those students into a more rigorous program in order to get them graduated. I don't see a problem with that - there is obviously a set of students that need the structure in order to excel. And it appears to be working.

So, what's your gripe ("bullshit rules")?

Spooky232• 13 years ago

So community colleges are traps because twenty something's who cannot read or write aren't graduating in two years?

Community colleges are the way out for folks who fall off the path early. Many also provide vocational options as well. The problems described mostly reflect the demographics that they serve.

Filter2• 13 years ago

Did you read the article?

Holding pedagogical standards constant, more people were able to graduate due to the ASAP program. The implication is that many of the students who currently fail at community colleges do not do so because they are incapable, but because they need guidance and structure.

Community colleges are the way out for folks who fall off the path early.

What path? Is a four year college the expected path?

The problems described mostly reflect the demographics that they serve.

I'm uncertain what you are trying to say. Do the problems of a certain demographic not matter? Is the ASAP program mistaken for helping the wrong demographic graduate?

Spooky232• 13 years ago

Some kids get out of high school and find their way. They go to college, join the military, start working in a trade, etc. That's the "path" that I'm referring to.

Others don't. They end up working in marginal jobs or jobs without a good career path. In the meantime life goes on. They have children. They have ailing parents. Or any of a thousand other distractions.

Point is, for many, there isn't a "trap" in community college education. The ability to affordably take a couple of courses a year when you work one or two jobs and raise a child is success. Programs like ASAP are awesome and will help many, but the article implies that the overall concept of community college is a failure. That's an assertion that I do not believe to be true.

PaulHoule• 13 years ago

My wife did two years at a community college and then transferred into Cornell but she's definitely an anomaly.

textminer• 13 years ago

I bounced from one to a liberal arts college to Columbia. Also an anomaly, but it was a fantastic learning experience (and quite the redemption from terrible high school performance).

coldcode• 13 years ago

Comparing community colleges with Harvard does a disservice to the many state 4 year colleges and universities that still offer a great education. I volunteered at one in Texas and none of the students had it easy, but 90% still graduated in four years. They might not be as cheap as a community college but it's a far better comparison than Harvard.

qwerta• 13 years ago

I found it very strange he had problems with basic math and writing, after 2 years in prison. He obviously had interest in education and wanted to learn.

In most European countries one can actually graduate INSIDE prison.

a3n2• 13 years ago

Depends on when he had his moment of clarity. You could just as easily have said that it's strange he went to prison at all. People fall, some get up, there is no schedule.

mason240• 13 years ago

I went to community college, got an associates, and went to complete a BS in CS. Like pretty much everything else in life, you will get out what you put in.

If you are an unmotivated person who didn't take the traditional path of going to a 4 year school right after HS, chances are you are probably going to still be unmotivated when you go CC and end up dropping out.

If you were unable to take the traditional 4 year approach because life got in the way (like a young pregnancy, coming from a poor, rural family), then CC is going to give you a chance that wouldn't have had otherwise.

When I was at CC, I never got the impression that goal of the system was to get everyone an associates degree and then into a 4 year to complete a bachelors, but rather to give the people in the second category a path to a bachelors.

I really hate using the term, but the writers of the this article must be extremely privileged and out of touch if they don't understand that not everyone get the chances to go from HS graduation to living in the dorms as freshman, and the CC system is a great tool for upward mobility.

bvirkler• 13 years ago

This was my first thought as well - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. Sure there's kids that treat it as high school part 2, but in my experience there's plenty of that at 4-year schools as well.

I got into my junior college's honors program, which meant free tuition for 2 years. In addition I participated in a local Fortune 100 company's student trainee program working 20 hours a week getting professional experience. It was a great jump-start to my college and professional career.

Even without free tuition, it seems like a no-brainer to me. Junior college professors can tell which students are there to learn. I had great relationships and learned a lot from both my junior college and university professors. To me the university atmosphere/experience isn't worth the extra cost.

rndmize• 13 years ago

Did you even read the article? The entire point made is that not everyone has the opportunity to do college straight out of high school for any number of reasons, and those students, often without strong life/career/academic guidance, don't succeed in the current community college systems. The author examines the success of a new system with a strong emphasis on advising, guidance, and providing poor students the things they need - book loans, money, etc. - so they can effectively succeed at a CC.

Like pretty much everything else in life, you will get out what you put in.

This is exactly the kind of idea the article is largely running counter to. Putting in the time and the effort isn't going to take you as far as you need to go if you have to figure out everything yourself from scratch; if you have no idea what to major in, or how to pick a major, or what majors are worthwhile; or if you have to take care of a kid, or work a job, and take remedial classes at the same time; if you don't have peers you can turn to that can provide good advice...

Kids from the burbs grow up with certain skills and attitudes and approaches indoctrinated into them from the start, and the "do everything yourself" approach may work for them because they have that prior grounding. That doesn't mean it will work for everyone.

dkokelley• 13 years ago

Here's a data point:

Being the oldest of 6 children meant that my parents could not afford to send me to any of my first choice schools. This actually meant an early career redirection for me (as I had planned to become a pilot after studying at Embry-Riddle). 16-19 year old me did not fully appreciate the cost of pilot training, and after about a dozen hours I could not afford training.

I refocused after "plan A" fell through, and went to my city's community college (College of the Canyons, or COC). To many students, COC was considered "the 13th grade" - an extension of high school. Still, COC was incredibly inexpensive at around $20/unit. Here's a college secret, freshmen units and senior units generally cost the same within schools. I was able to complete two years of lower division study and G.E. at the incredibly affordable COC rate, and then transfer to CSU Northridge to complete my B.S. Between COC and the California State school (as well as working to afford my own books and school supplies), my parents were able to put me through school with enough savings left over to afford my younger siblings a college education.

a3n2• 13 years ago

Essentially what I did, two years CC, finishing up my BS at university.

gmays• 13 years ago

Another data point.

I went to a community college (Modesto Junior College, to be specific) because my parents couldn't afford state college. I noticed that most people treated it like High School II, but that seemed more because those are mostly (not all) the kinds of people who ended up there. It seemed most of the ones with goals (or money, or parental encouragement) ended up at "real" college.

I applied to a college and got in, but knew for a while that I'd be going to community college due to our financial situation. I'm mostly black, but also part Native American and Mexican but didn't apply for any scholarships or student loans. I guess it was a pride thing to my parents. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have.

Sure, at the community college I went to you could say that classes were full and give just about any other reason for not making it through, but if you look for an excuse you'll always find one. I started taking classes in the summer two weeks after finishing high school. I took around twice the full-time student workload, but the following summer I finished the two year's worth of prerequisites needed to transfer.

I transferred to a local state college (Cal State Stanislaus) and earned my BA with honors a little over a year later. The whole degree took about 2.5 years from high school (summer 2003) to graduating (winter 2005) and this includes taking off one whole summer to work. I had the financial pressure. I was constantly told by my mom that she my not be able to afford to keep sending me to college, but luckily I finished before the money ran out. But even if the financial pressure wasn't there, I think I would have worked hard anyway. It's in my nature.

It is what you make of it. I know it sounds silly, but I haven't found one situation in my life that I couldn't influence or over come if I worked hard enough.

Filter2• 13 years ago

but if you look for an excuse you'll always find one

Then why does the program described in the article work?

It is what you make of it. I know it sounds silly, but I haven't found one situation in my life that I couldn't influence or over come if I worked hard enough.

It does sound silly -- and the program described in the article undermines this idea in general. Or were you just bragging?

jpace121• 13 years ago

Transferring from a Community College to a state 4-year is very common in Florida. I dual-enrolled in high school and wound up only a semester short of my AA, so I stayed and finished it up before transferring. The local CC does a very good job at preparing students and giving tutoring/other services necessary to teach students what they need to know, which Universities can't really do, and MOOCs flat out fail at.

elteto• 13 years ago

Community colleges are an excellent choice for those looking to get a quality education with minimal costs. Go to a community college for 2 years, complete the necessary course prerequisites for whatever major you want to pursue and then transfer to a state college to finish your Bachelor's and take the hardcore courses. Many community colleges also have special or honors programs that impose some requirements on the students (such as a minimum course load of 12 credits/semester) but provide dedicated advising (some of you might not understand how important this is, but advisers can make or break your career path at some points, specially in community colleges) and also tuition waivers.

I followed a very similar path to McGee's: went to a very large urban community college and got accepted to their honors program. I completed my first two years completely debt free, while getting a top notch education in the classes that I cared about (sciences mostly) and then transferred to a state university which is in the top 15 nationwide for my major. In all I saved around $30k for those two years. One of the downsides is that the quality of the education in community colleges varies wildly from one professor to another. I solved this by carefully selecting my professors and actively seeking the good ones. I found that attending a community college was in no way detrimental to my education when I compare myself with other students who went straight to the university after HS.

tessierashpool• 13 years ago

I live in a town with an unusually good community college. The new president just got fired because she enacted a graduation-centric agenda which antagonized both the faculty and the student body.

Part-timers enjoying themselves outnumber serious full-timers in this community, and a community college should, imo, embody its community's priorities. Being able to take great courses cheaply, on your own schedule, is fantastic.

I think programs like ASAP have a lot of merit, but the OP assumes that graduation's success and anything else is failure. I think they're using simple metrics to look at a complex space.

Moto7451• 13 years ago

Can't agree more. One great thing about CCs is the low per unit cost means you can take courses to learn specific skills and get out or easily take something way outside your comfort zone. Half the people in the first couple 100 series programming courses at my community college were just curious about it.

I also know a lot of people who went to Community College and dropped out simply because they decided they didn't want or need the degree to do what they wanted to do. Most of them got into the trades. I don't think that should be considered a failure of the CC system. Better to figure yourself put at this level for $2,000 than at a State school for $20,000.

dhimes• 13 years ago

That's always been a problem for the CC- especially in a metropolitan area. For most of the successful students graduation is not the final outcome. There are two major categories of student for which this is true:

(1) The student has a degree in, say, accounting, but wants to go into, for example, physical therapy or medicine. She needs to take some science classes, but has most of her college requirements fulfilled. She can do this at the cc part time. (2 The student intends to pursue a four year degree. He doesn't need to graduate from the cc to do so; he just needs to fulfill (what some call) a transfer block. As a case-in-point, the cc at which I used to teach had a physical education requirement for graduation. A long-ago president instituted this rule, and nobody changed it. Most transferring students don't want to spend the time and money for this requirement just so that they can say they graduated. They fill their transfer block requirements and go.

alistairSH2• 13 years ago

I agree with the principle.

However, you are ignoring the financial implications.

CCs need tuition payments to survive. Very few, if any, have large endowments.

Student's who aren't on track to graduate can't always obtain financial aid or subsidized/deferred-payment loans. And even though CCs tend to be more affordable than 4-year schools, they still aren't inexpensive to the majority of the population. So, graduation rates become a major part of ensuring financial viability.

zhemao2• 13 years ago

These high graduation rates are quite impressive and certainly nothing to scoff about, but I'm curious about the employment rate or median income of the graduates. The article doesn't mention these things at all, even though offering a path to the middle class is the ultimate goal of the program.

loomio• 13 years ago

Can't say anything about specific graduates, but overall statistics indicate that someone with a degree has about half the likelihood of being unemployed as someone without.

Some quick stats from Wikipedia:

The average salary for college or university graduates is greater than $51,000, exceeding the national average of those without a high school diploma by more than $23,000, according to a 2005 study by the U.S. Census Bureau. The 2010 unemployment rate for high school graduates was 10.8%; the rate for college graduates was 4.9%

Of course, college is not a panacea for everyone, but having a degree significantly reduces your chances of unemployment and poverty in general.

In addition, education confers life benefits beyond simply employment, such as increased understanding of the world and critical thinking skills, writing ability, numeracy, etc.

zhemao2• 13 years ago

Oh I know that a college degree is helpful in general, but I meant this program specifically. Aggregate statistics can sometimes be misleading.

mkramlich• 13 years ago

I think this is just data point N that's consistent with so-called "higher education", if not government schooling alone, being increasingly revealed to be a very inefficient -- where not outright distortive or parasitic -- phenomenon that's simply a holdover from a previous age. Whether we call that the Middle Ages, or the early Industrial era, etc. It's clearly an anachronism, in terms of process and technology and assumptions. Good riddance! Not all "education" is good. And not all learning requires "education", formal or otherwise. Book learning can occur outside/without a classroom/school paradigm. And much of the correct-vs-false mechanisms and signal-extraction-or-broadcast mechanisms of traditional education can be replaced, or at least massively automated/optimized, with software. And like the general phenomenon where information bits want to be free, an increasing amount of static educational material is going to become effectively free and public domain. First the purely static experiences, like text, but an increasing amount of the dynamic and interactive experiences as well.

Education, government and banking are all up for yet more huge disruptions and shifts due to computers and the Internet.

How to Escape the Community College Trap

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