The things the study didn’t think to look at...

As a former California community college and UC student and now UC adjunct there are some issues that I’d like to bring up that the authors did not look at. First—the community college system works outstandingly for those students who fouled up in high school and cannot get into the UC or State system because they either did not graduate at all or because their GPA is terrible. And because they come in with a terrible transcript they have no ability to compete for Pell Grants, which are competitive. But, if they are motivated and work hard, they can in fact do well, even if they have to do so slowly (1-2 classes a semester) because of work and get themselves to the point of transferring.

Second, the low tuition (the lower the better), encourages students who are frightened of higher education and feel they are likely to fail (as I felt), because of their academic history to try without it being an excessive risk. I never would have applied for the UCs where I had to take out loans before discovering that I could succeed at the JCs (at $11 a unit). Education was intimidating for me, as it is for many who have not experienced it and don’t have a lot of successful friends, and also for a lot of reentry students who failed out of college the first time when they were young and distracted.

Finally, it is important to remember that a lot of students who are at JCs are there for enrichment, not because they want to transfer. They want to learn some Spanish or computer skills for work but have no need to go further (indeed, they may already hold an advanced degree); they want to know a little about the art of Mexico before travel. This means that the transfer rate is going to be low and the pellgrant rate is going to be low, and does not mean that it is indicative of a problem. It is just indicative of the fact that JCs serve very different populations than other kinds of colleges do.

Kira, at 11:40 am EDT on April 6, 2008

Why not just give it away? In other words if a student signs up for college, send him to the next table and just give him a degree?

Seems okay to me.

Maybe this study is missing something? Maybe it is missing the motivation of the prospective student. Normally if a student says “financing is keeping me out of college” you can bet that there are other reasons involved.

More importantly, are these prospective students who aren’t enrolling actually capapble of doing college work? Or are they in need of high school remediation.

It is interesting to note that GW Univeristy is lowering their merit based ais and increasing their need based aid to help studnets who are finding it difficult to meet GW’s high cost. But what that article didn’t say was that the students that they are enrolling are academically qualified to be their. They are not reaching out to the students who are both financially and academically challenged.

So, I think the students need to have some repsonsibility for their education and actions. High School education is “free” and look at what you get: schools that can maybe teach Johnnie to read and write and other high schools that can teach a student how to launch a space shuttle. So is all high school education equivalent? No, so who do we blame, society or the government?

Therefore, let us use our higher education system to remedy societies issues......good luck with that one...

So. CA go ahead and give it away, after all then the students will not have any reason not to go on and get a “higher education”

By the way, I have asked some of our students who come to our state why they leave CA, where education is so cheap, and their responses have been about location. Getting out of CA to experience something else. Also, these students were able to do this because of their high school academics.They met or exceded the admissions qualifications for the college they were chosing.

Jim, at 10:55 am EST on March 7, 2007

Here is another question

I have several students with 2 to 5 kids working one or two fulltime/part time jobs, living on virtually no sleep, while going to school to make a better life. I wonder… how should I tell them that they should have to pay more in “Fees” to make way for others who don’t, won’t, or some how can’t go to school because it is not free or near free. I also have many students on financial aid. Some are the perfect example of a system that works while others feel it is a God given right to an education. This group also tends to believe that the government doesn’t do enough. It is funny and sad, but this is also the group that complains the most about everything, can’t seem to make to class on time or at all, and expect to learn by osmosis. Go figure!

The biggest detriment to higher education is the cost of tuition. Financial aid helps a select few, while lower tuition rates generally help anyone and everyone motivated enough to succeed.

billa, at 12:11 pm EST on March 7, 2007

CA “Fees”

I am an adjunct at a California Community College. The rest of the time I work in a staff position there.

Unlike the 2 year college of my youth in New York State, the 2 year schools of our district don’t have campus housing (which I always found to be significantly cheaper than local community rates), so my students either live at home or struggle to pay for the cost of living. Most of my students are employed, and some, as in the article, work several jobs and still try to make time to attend school. Tuition for my class this semester was $60. The textbook cost more and, because I teach a photography class, the equipment required (not provided by the department) costs 5-10 or more times that new—thanks to the loss of our wet-room and a decision to switch to digital. That means those students working in film must also pay to have the film processed somewhere and those working in digital will eventually need to make additional investments in computers and software. Not to mention that advances in digital technology makes the equipment obsolete almost as soon as a student walks out the door.

I’ve had some incredibly talented and dedicated students who came through my doors who couldn’t continue in their studies because of family and work requirements, because of a lack of reliable public transportation, and because the school doesn’t offer facilities which are available to them when they can actually use them (or labs are not open weekends, early morning, after 8 p.m. or after 3:30 on Fridays.)

I’ve rarely met a student at the community college who is here because of a feeling of entitlement, unlike a number of my much younger classmates in law school who were there because mom and dad picked up the tab and they didn’t have any other direction in their lives. Most of the students I meet are here because they desperately want to be here to improve or change their lives. The tuition may be low, but the rest of the costs are very, very high.

Christine Valada, at 1:11 pm EST on March 7, 2007

Motivation

One area that Sociology (and other social sciences to a lesser extent) have largely ignored since inception, is the question of how individuals are motivated.

Is there a meta-Darwinian principle at work here? Those individuals who learned at home (or somewhere along the line, in the streets maybe?) to delay gratification, to save a percentage of their money, invest a percentage of their time in personal development, etc. — get ahead.

Is that possible?

Maybe Mother Nature is weeding out the grasshoppers and rewarding the ants (remember that parable/fable)? If this hypothesis were true, many offspring of even wealthy families could be observed wasting the advantage of their birthright by partying and consuming mass quantities of whatever is available; running up huge credit card debt for no observable long-term benefit. . .

Darwinism in action? Cruel Mother Nature? Malevolent Big Brother/State? or just poor individual planning (or poor family socialization in modern families)?

. . . or maybe it’s just bad (15 hours per week in class, 30 hours studying, 40 hours at work, 35 hours sleeping, and 50 hours partying/socializing — oops, ran out of week) math?

Dr. F. Gump, at 4:01 pm EST on March 7, 2007

Inside and Outside the Three-Way War

I would like to see a change in the inherently divisive structure in California higher education. When K-14 fights the CSU and UC systems in a three-way battle, students and budgets become casualties. It’s wonderful that schools such as Cerritos College partner with local universities to provide fast-track transfer programs and reciprocal library privileges, but it’s time to move to the next step.

If we can put more students on transfer tracks with incentives to reach marks on time, all the while assisting them in being college students first and workers second, we can improve transfer rates, increase the speed with which the educated work force grows, and provide hope to students who are taking one or two courses per semester in hopes of finishing in five years.

For the purposes of the comments here, I would ask that those who are looking at California’s community colleges from the outside (as I did before spending nearly five years as an adjunct in the state) take the time to learn about the problems and the real successes before criticizing the students.

These students take jobs in order to pay fees, and when the state can raise those fees from $11 to $17 per unit in one year (as happened once during the period covered by the study), student budgets get demolished in a heartbeat. This is not idle whining when fees climb 55% in a single bound.

Andrew Purvis, at 10:10 pm EST on March 7, 2007