Oh, you won’t need all that . . .
With all the talk about the affordability of attending college, and the recent initiatives by some of America’s best-endowed universities to enhance their accessibility to people from all walks of life, including those who fall between the poles of rich and poor socio-economically, a random piece of data caught my eye the other day.
It revealed that New Mexico’s public four-year colleges, on average, had some of the lowest tuitions in the nation, coming in at under $4,000 a year. Going beyond New Mexico, the article reported that tuitions at two-year colleges nationwide (which educate about one-half of all American college students) were about $2,361. Taking into account aid, their average net cost is only $320 dollars per year. That’s right, $320!
Obviously, Harvard and Yale aren’t for everybody, even with their newly accommodating financial aid schemes, nor are community colleges. And everyone isn’t going to go to school in New Mexico. Still, you have to admit that at $320 there is more headline news about an educational bargain than is conventionally brought to our attention. And, the community-college tuition in California, a state serving many more students than NM, is modest as well.
Looking at the Web site of the American Association of Community Colleges is illuminating. There are almost 1,200 community colleges across the country, which leads me to believe that there must be one within commuting distance of almost every person in the nation. And they serve in excess of 11 million students (full- and part-time). I have always believed that community colleges were the most authentically American form of higher education. They are to post-secondary education what jazz is to music.
It is not surprising, therefore, that at least two of the presidential candidates have proposed a tuition-tax credit for the first several thousand dollars spent by a family on college tuition: Barack Obama is offering a $4,000 tuition tax credit; and Hillary Clinton is proposing a $3,500 credit plus an increase in Pell Grants. These very similar plans would effectively make community colleges available to Americans no matter how modest their means.
The community-college movement in the United States has been one of the most creative, productive and generally successful education initiatives anywhere on the planet. They have succeeded in providing the types of academic and vocational experiences urgently needed by our economy. Concurrently, they have opened the doors of higher education to countless Americans, who less than 50 years ago would have regarded college attendance as hopelessly beyond them.
Our nation’s community colleges define our democratic ideals, even as they serve our pressing social mandates. While our front-page newspaper stories are often reserved for the Ivy League, the Big 10, and George Washington University, community colleges have typically worked in a quiet and steady manner to fulfill the expectations with which they were launched. They are responsive to input from local, regional, and national employers and have become student-friendly role models in their way for four-year colleges and even research universities, who have all too often graduated students insufficiently prepared for what follows commencement, students who have then stumbled through periods of unemployment or underemployment. There are those with BA degrees who enroll at community colleges to learn a vocation that will permit them to earn a living.
Despite the successes of community colleges, legislators and governors have not fully acknowledged the service and the opportunity they present. Senator Obama’s and Senator Clinton’s proposals are therefore particularly welcome. Two-year institutions have the capacity to inform the head, the heart, and the hand. They provide students with careers, but they can also serve as a bridge into the junior year of baccalaureate programs through articulation agreements and transfer programs as well as institutional partnerships with upper-division programs.
In the coming decade, as more and more baby-boomers leave the ranks of the employed on their way to retirement, the need for skilled personnel will be a serious constraint on the national economy. If the Congress is looking for initiatives to invite to the attention of America’s university community — encouraging them to open their doors more widely to community-college alumni — providing special financial encouragement to the universities and targeted support to the students would be a sound investment. Universities, after all, are tropistic; just as plants grow toward the sun and their roots reach for water, universities lean in the direction of money and status.
Many of the students in community colleges aren’t typical 18-year olds, just out of high school. Frequently, they are older students whose life experiences as well as the disciplines mastered on the job or in military service have provided them with much to write about when they take English 101. Conventionally community colleges have been commuter institutions. The time has come to add residences to their agenda. Housing for students would enhance their attractiveness and help to fully articulate their function.
Graduates of two-year institutions generally have successful academic transitions to 4-year institutions. Indeed, many do better than their peers who arrived on campus as freshmen, directly out of secondary schoo. As our nation wrestles with our competitors in the global economy, as we struggle to define a more sharply articulated national economic politic, as we anticipate a presidential election and a new administration, more robust support for our community colleges makes good sense. They are among our lesser-appreciated and most important academic resources. We need to celebrate them and accord them the status they have earned.
Photo from Flickr user AMagill
