Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
Pell Grant recipients, who come from lower-income families, often start college in remedial classes and drop out before earning a degree. Requiring evidence of college readiness, such as SAT scores of at least 850 (verbal and math) and a 2.5 grade point average in high school, would boost success rates, but limit access.
California leads the nation in poorly educated adults and in low-income workers, not a coincidence. Should community colleges take over adult education?
A wave of senseless violence at community college campuses is raising fears. An 18-year-old student has been charged with wounding two women at a branch campus in a shopping mall near Virginia Tech, the site of mass killings in 2007. Students say the gunmen tried to lure them out of hiding by pretending to be the police, but nobody believed him.
Several community colleges across the nation have been the scene of gun and knife attacks in recent months.
Thar’s gold in them thar greens. Community colleges are creating culinary and agriculture programs that stress food sustainability to prepare students for restaurant and food marketing jobs.
Consolidating California’s 72 community college districts could save millions of dollars in administrative costs – eventually, an analysis concludes. But state law bans laying off administrators for two years after a merger.
Colorado university leaders are fighting a bill that would let community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees in vocational and technical fields, charging “mission creep.” Supporters say rural students could earn workforce credentials without relocating. It’s a growing trend with Florida community colleges leading the way.
Known for low tuition — and low prestige — community colleges hope to attract top students by offering an online honors program in partnership with a for-profit company. Students will have to compete for spots in “American Honors” and pay more for smaller classes and better advising.
Florida community colleges are adding four-year vocational degrees and dorms, but a Ft. Myers college can’t fill its new $26.3 million residence hall.
Online learning will replace residential campuses predicts Nathan Harden in The End of the University as We Know It in The American Interest. Only the elite universities will have bricks, mortar and ivy.
The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students.
Community colleges will survive to serve students who need an instructor, writes a professor.
With state funding often failing to keep up with enrollment growth, many community colleges have wait-listed would-be students rather than raising tuition, concludes a U.S. Treasury report. That’s pushed students to for-profit colleges, which charge much more but provide the classes students need.
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