Student attendance at community colleges has surged during the last decade. Enrollment now stands
at 8.2 million, a 2.2 million hike in the last two years. In Texas, 79
percent of students who enroll in a public university begin at a
community college. Even during the recession, the national rate of
enrollment at community colleges leapt forward at a pace three or four times greater than that of four year institutions.
For
all our Nobel Prizes, it’s increasingly clear that investment in higher
education gets the most bang for the buck when it’s put into community
colleges, not Ivies. There are two reasons why community colleges should
be a top priority for anyone who cares about higher education.
It continues:
Granted, community colleges often don’t provide a great education. Their
graduates are less likely to occupy top spots in the nation or world.
But one lesson of American history is that sometimes mass education is
more important than elite education. In the 19th century, European
countries offered first-rate schools for the upper class but scrimped on
education for all. In contrast, the United States promoted mass
education—first, widespread literacy and primary education, and then in
the 20th century high school education for the great majority of
children, and finally higher education for a large share of the public.
America’s best schools were often inferior to Europe’s best schools, but
what turned out to matter most was that mass education was better in
America than in Europe—and that gave us the jump on economic
productivity and technological innovation.
Now I have first hand knowledge of the community college. I spent the past semester taking Organic Chemistry at County College of Morris, a nice place on a hill west of New York City some fifty miles or so. Now I did not go to an Ivy League university, MIT never considered itself so endowed as say Harvard, but on the same hand I have unlike the author never found a non-American university on a par with any top ranked American one.
Now to Community Colleges. I tracked the MIT course and indeed we kept pace. The exams were comparable. What was different was how the faculty treated the students. At MIT we were treated as potential peers, and expected to perform and excel in such a manner. At CCM we are treated as High School middle of the roaders. Now the top 20% are comparable to many MIT students, but they have little money, are first generation immigrants, and recent immigrants, and are returnees. In effect they are what can and should become our entrepreneurial class. Yet the role of the Community College appears to be "training" not education. The administration focuses on taking attendance so as to ensure that if the drop out rate is too high they do not get blamed. They do not push the students, there is no research path to show the way, there is no networking, and in fact the administration seems to be o par with any public high school.
Thus the students in many ways could I believe compete on par with many at MIT, but the fire to excel has been crushed despite the fact that they keep pushing ahead. Thus the challenge is not more money per se but a better attitude, a respect for the student and a linking of the student with their potential.
It always helps to be part of the system to understand it.
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