Community colleges have been called many things — “junior,” “second chance,” “sub-baccalaureate,” and one of my personal favorites: places of “continued dependency, unrealistic aspirations, and wasted general education.” That last one dates back to 1968, in the heat of their growth period (the author is W.B. Devall, writing in Education Record).
Despite all the disparaging remarks, I have a strong sense that many community-college leaders are willing to be called just about anything, as long as they’re “not called late for dinner.” And this year, at least, they’re at the table, and standing to enjoy a nice deal in the form of the American Graduation Initiative (part of legislation pending in the Senate).
But this period of sunshine provides only a modicum of comfort, given the longstanding backdrop of invisibility punctuated by insults. In 2005, Washington Post columnist Jay Matthews wrote a confessional column called “Why I Ignore Community Colleges.” A Brookings Institution report released today reveals that Matthews was (and is) far from unique among his colleagues.
Brookings examined mainstream news coverage since 2007 and discovered that only about 1 percent of national coverage (appearing on TV, newspapers, news Web sites, and radio — and not including blogs) is devoted to education. That’s education of any flavor.
Zoom in on coverage of community colleges and the picture gets even worse. Of all education reporting — of that 1percent — only 2.9 percent is devoted to community colleges. Public two-year colleges enroll 60 percent as many students as 4-year colleges and universities, but receive only one-tenth the news coverage. As the Brookings authors conclude, “From the standpoint of national media coverage, community colleges barely exist.”
Invisibility is both a cause and a symptom of community colleges’ low-status in higher education. The oft-unmentioned “snob factor” contributes to reporters’ sense that their readers neither care, nor need to know, much about this sector. Children of journalists are unlikely to attend community colleges, and we all know that parents pay more attention to whatever their kids are doing. The same problem applies to politicians — it’s a veritable miracle that President Obama is speaking with pride about institutions of postsecondary education where he’s unlikely to send his own children.
Leaving community colleges out of the news means substantially skewing the American image of higher education. Stories about the critical links between the economy and education are missed — after all, it’s community colleges that consistently watch enrollment rise along with unemployment. Kids and parents hear repeatedly about competitive admissions and rising tuition, expensive dorms and climbing gyms, even though these are the reality for less than half of all undergraduates. And we hear about, and from, presidents of four-year colleges and universities far more often than we hear about their hard-working peers running community colleges.
I think that, sadly enough, many at community colleges have gotten used to stereotypical representations of those schools — the lack of resistance to NBC’s comedy Community may be one indication. But, as William DeGenaro points out, it hasn’t always been this way. In the 1920s and 1930s, community colleges were praised as essential to public education, getting ink in publications like The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, and Reader’s Digest. Enrollment was climbing rapidly, just as it is now, and the media took notice. In fact, DeGenaro’s research reveals that “the print media served as a booster, implying that the colleges resulted from common sense.” That “rhetoric of inevitability” stands in sharp contrast to today’s stance of invisibility. By ignoring an entire sector of higher education, the media helps to de-legitimate it. Simply put, reporters need to catch up — the President, together with many federal and state leaders, philanthropists, and citizens, sees the American community college as essential to the nation’s future. What are journalists waiting for?
12 Responses to The Invisible Institution
jffoster - December 2, 2009 at 5:35 pm
The answer to your last question is, news. Part of the reason “Community Colleges” aren’t covered much in the news is that indeed they are invisible. And it’s not the job of the news media to give institutions publicity just because they want it. At one time, “junior colleges” did cast regionally more of a shadow, and a few nationally. People had actually heard of Kilgore Junior College, for instance, thanks primarily to their band and dance line at the Cotton Bowl. There are a few military junior colleges left with a national reputation — Valley Forge Military Academy comes to mind with no slight to the others intended. Great Lakes Maritime Academy was once a “junior” college though not a “community” one, and they certainly have a national reputation but I believe that their program is now three years and students get a baccaulaureate degree in collaboration with Ferris State University. And in any event, most journalists, as most Americans generally, are landlubbers and wouldn’t know a mainmast from a marlinspike. But “Community” Colleges are mostly that — community. They are a little more than reptile but not quite a bird and not quite a mammal. But unlike the duckbilled platypus which fills that, er, bill in the animal kingdom, community colleges as a group and often individually are simply not very interesting. They have some good technical – vocational training programs, but in many respects they are grades 13 and 14 of high school without the football team, the band, the orchestra, or the spring musical. Indeed, many are governed by elected boards, sort of like school boards. Little research or technical innovation comes out of them and isn’t expected to, although some remediated students do and go on to do well in real colleges. But how many I don’t know. And that’s not really news. I suspect the CCs most likely to get attention are those with special training programs that produce students with high employability at decent salaries or wages, like for instance Northwest Michigan College (apologies if I don’t have the official name quite right) at Traverse City, one of the few CCs that have a serious aviation program. Clermont College of the University of Cincinnati is another but it’s in the shadow of it’s parent University, especially this year with the football team currently ranked No. 5. That’s not the fault of journalists.
jhough1 - December 3, 2009 at 8:45 am
I wonder how much publicity that my university (Duke) gets other than on sports, rankings, reports on faculty research (especially in medicine), and a few scandals. Education as such is not easy to cover by the rules of journalism. Community colleges need sports teams (or alliances with bigger sports team) and more organized underaged drinking. More seriously, as higher education is transformed by the internet, the end of the student loan bubble, and the general financial problems of coming decades, we need some models in which people teach, say, two courses in community congress, and engage in some kind of team research half-time with large research institutes funded by industry and/or government. Academia is in denial about the consequences of the internet and the student loan budget, and it needs to search for new models and alliances. The community colleges have to be part of those alliances.
weadie - December 3, 2009 at 11:14 am
In Los Angeles, two community colleges are far from invisible, because they hold licenses to popular public radio stations. These are KCRW (Santa Monica College), and KPCC (Pasadena Community College). Both stations regularly broadcast blurbs about the college’s activities. And, Santa Monica College now has a new performance facility that is one of the few places on Los Angeles’ west side where patrons can attend concerts, theatre, and other events. The facility recently hosted not only the major Los Angeles production of the sequel to “The Laramie Project,” but also to a pre-New York run of London’s Globe Theatre production of “Love’s Labours Lost.” This facility owes its visibility in large measure to regular announcements of its events on KCRW.
willynilly - December 3, 2009 at 11:28 am
It doesn’t matter at all that Community Colleges are invisible to media types and elitest research organizations. Actually, I would prefer if those outlets would ignore the community college sector. Their biases and their careless data collection, interpretation and reporting habits would actually be harmful to the sector. Community Colleges are certainly NOT invisible to students – and that is the real bottom line. Those of us who really know about the impact of these colleges could care less about the lack of awareness in the national media. These colleges are usually the “first responders” and the “continuing responders” to ever increasing millions of students, and their ever evolving learning needs, on a year in and year out basis. I am content to keep it that way.
tangocatz - December 3, 2009 at 12:52 pm
jffoster offends. When I graduated from high school (#4 in a class of 591), I had scholarships to all three universities in my state, and “awards at entrance” to two of them. I chose to attend my local community college for awhile. Far from needing remediation, I found myself challenged and engaged by a good portion of my coursework, especially those that were pre-requisites for my eventual major in engineering geology. I continued my education at the University of Chicago, then earned my doctorate at Berkeley. 2-year colleges have always offered an attractive solution for certain people in certain circumstances–for me the circumstances were financial. Clearly, I was not handicapped by having credits from a 2-year school. Neither did I have any educational debt when I finished my undergraduate degree. Einstein once remarked that “Nationalism is. . .the measles of mankind.” I think elitism is the measles of academia.
jffoster - December 3, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Too bad tangocatz (5) didn’t learn in his community college or somewhere along the way that ‘offend’ is a transitive verb and requires an object. What he meant was “jffoster offends ME.’ Tangocatz, there are always exceptional cases. Your personal anecdote doesn’t disprove the generalizations.
dank48 - December 3, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Jffoster, according to MWCD10, “offend” can be intransitive or transitive; the first three definitions are the former, with a citation from someone named Shakespeare.Not that that has anything to do with the topic.
jffoster - December 3, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Actually dank48 (7), Shakespeare is presumptively irrelevant — this is modern English — unless you provide the context. If you use it “intransitively’, actually transitively with null object (as in John reads.”, you are usually interpreted as making a general claim. Tangocatz may have been personally offended, but he has no evidence on which to assume that everybody was.
dank48 - December 4, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Actually, Jffoster, Shakespeare is not presumptively irrelevant, since he wrote in Modern English, as opposed to Middle English for example. But I am of course being pedantic. I trust you don’t presume that MWCD10 is irrelevant. vb . . .1a: to transgress the moral or divine law: SINb: to violate a law or rule: do wrong2a: to cause difficulty, discomfort, or injuryb: to cause dislike, anger, or vexationvt1a: VIOLATE, TRANSGRESSb: to cause pain to: HURT2 obs: to cause to sin or fall3: to cause to feel vexation or resentment usu. by violation of what is proper or fittingsyn . . . OFFEND need not imply an intentional huring but it may indicate merely a violation of the victim’s sense of what is proper or fitting . . . At any rate, thanks for the rejoinder; I had miscounted the nontransitive definitions.Tangocatz was presumably expressing a personal opinion, as are you and I. I don’t think Merriam-Webster or ordinary usage support your rather prescriptive criticism of Tangocatz’s use of the word.And I don’t think either my or your comments can hold a candle to “elitism is the measles of academia.” Strange how someone else’s elitism is my appreciation for the finer things. . . .
jffoster - December 4, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Actually Shakaespeare wrote in “Early Modern English”, quite different from Modern English in a number of respects. And I don’t care how many “definitions” and less common uses you count in a dictionary. In this case, actually the “MWCD10 IS irrelevant. Tangokatz’ opening phrase was “jffoster offends.’ That is sufficiently differnt from the ordinary common use of that verb in such a context as to have led me at first to think maybe English wasn’t his native language. Had I continued thinking that, I’d have said nothing about the odd usage.
post_functional - December 7, 2009 at 10:06 am
Grammar flames are really weak. It advertises a lack of cleverness on the author’s part, not cleverness, as the author thinks.
wccaccprof - December 8, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Tangocatz – You make the excellent point that community colleges are filled with all kinds of students who find themselves there for a variety of reasons. Having taught in a community college for 12 years, I know what kind of impact we make on students who cannot afford or are not ready for a four-year college. Like you, many of our graduates are successful, intelligent professionals. Also, many of our students have incredible obstacles to overcome – parents who are dying, siblings who are seriously ill and require expensive medical care, families who not be supportive because they would rather the students go to work and help the family get by, etc. etc. I don’t need a journalist to tell me how students are changed when they come here – I have the stories told in my office, day in and day out. I have the gratitude of the people who count – my students.