Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
The first semester is make-or-break time for many community college students. “Freshmen academies” try to get new students on track.
Also on Community College Spotlight: More firefighters are getting college degrees to get a job or advance in their career. Is it credentialism or professionalization?
An online portal is helping community college students identify their learning styles and study strategies.
Also on Community College Spotlight: The Lumina Foundation is funding Latino college success initiatives.
More affluent students are starting at community college to avoid debt, reports the Washington Post.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Father Guido Sarducci’s five-minute university will teach everything you’re likely to remember five years from now for $20.
Manufacturing could move back to the U.S., if community colleges, tech and trade schools trained enough factory engineers, Steve Jobs told President Obama. According to Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson:
Apple had 700,000 factory workers employed in China, he said, and that was because it needed 30,000 engineers on-site to support those workers. ‘You can’t find that many in America to hire,’ he said. These factory engineers did not have to be PhDs or geniuses; they simply needed to have basic engineering skills for manufacturing.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Community groups are teaching basic skills as a bridge to job training at community colleges.
Employers complain they can’t find skilled workers, but they’re demanding too much and refusing to train new workers, a management professor writes.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Manufacturers can’t find skilled workers with math, science training.
California community colleges offer “open access and limited success,” says a new task force report, which calls for focusing scarce resources on new students and motivated students who choose an academic plan and make progress toward a certificate or degree. Students who’ve taken lots of classes without completing a credential would go on wait lists and eventually lose fee waivers.
Also on Community College Spotlight: High schools and colleges are trying to teach “financial literacy” to students before they run up huge debts they’ll struggle to repay.
The U.S. trails much of the developed world in young adults with college degrees. South Korea is number one, but 40 percent of new college graduates can’t find jobs. The government is trying to push vocational education.
Also on Community College Spotlight: More unprepared students are enrolling at New York City’s community colleges: 74 percent of city high school graduates require at least one remedial class and 22.6 percent require remediation in reading and writing and math.
As times get tougher on campus, political infighting gets meaner, writes a professor. He calls for academics to rediscover a sense of honor.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Summer bridge programs – intensive remediation plus a “college knowledge” course – are helping Texas students succeed in community college classes in the fall semester.
Community college dropouts cost federal, state and local taxpayers nearly $4 billion over a five-year period, concludes a new study. The study looked at first-year, full-time, credential-seeking students, who are much more likely to graduate. Add in part-timers and it gets much worse.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Postsecondary education is the path out of poverty, but many stumble along the way.
Financial aid fraud rings are targeting online programs. It’s easy to enroll straw students and apply for federal aid if nobody has to show up in person.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Annoyed by credit-card spam generated by his college’s partnership with a debit-card company — the high-fee card is also the student ID card — a student joked on Facebook about porn-spamming the college site. He was suspended for the year.
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