How to Boost Spending on Community Colleges

September 21, 2011, 3:08 pm

President Obama has put community colleges at the center of the effort to raise U.S. student attainment rates, yet a new report from the Delta Cost Project suggests financial support for the two-year sector is in decline. The gross mismatch between the grand expectations for community colleges and the declining resources calls for creative thinking about how to boost funding for—and results from—two-year institutions.

According to the report, “Trends in College Spending 1999-2009,” community colleges are spending about the same amount of money educating students as a decade ago, even as per-pupil spending increased by 11 percent at public research universities and 27 percent at private research universities. In 2009, community colleges actually saw a 2.5-percent decline in per student spending.

Of course, community colleges spend less per student than four-year colleges in part because less tuition is charged, but the average public subsidy is also lower at community colleges, the Delta Project finds. As a result, the students with the greatest needs and greatest challenges receive the least amount of public funding.

Compare this situation to K-12 schooling. Fairness in primary and secondary school spending has not been fully achieved, but according to a new report from Third Way, featured in the Wall Street Journal, Americans do put more federal, state, and local resources on average into low-income school districts than middle-class districts (though both spend less than school districts with affluent student bodies). In 2008, middle-class school districts spent $10,349 per student, compared with $11,799 per student in low-income school districts (and $11,925 in upper-income districts.)

While inequities remain at the K-12 level, advocates of greater funding for low-income students have pursued a number of equity strategies, some to substantial effect. The first was federal aid to education through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is progressively distributed based on the proportion of students who are low-income. A second strategy involved state-level litigation, in which lawsuits were brought in dozens of states to provide either “adequate” or “equitable” funding. Many of these suits were successful, and in New Jersey, litigation has actually compelled the state to spend considerably more on low-income districts than on middle-class districts. A third effort involved school desegregation; in many minority schools that saw an influx of white students, greater funding followed. The slogan was: “green follows white.”

At the higher-education level, President Obama’s recent $5-billion proposal to maintain and upgrade facilities in community colleges is a very important idea, smartly marrying the need to bolster community colleges with the desire to create construction jobs at a time of high unemployment. But the prospects in Congress are unclear at best, and the proposal may face the fate of the administration’s American Graduation Initiative, which saw a $12-billion proposal for community colleges cut to $2-billion.

To attract greater resources in the future, community colleges may want to borrow from the integration model employed in K-12 schooling. As I’ve noted elsewhere, over the long haul, community colleges have seen a decline in the proportion of white and upper-middle class students, which may be weakening the political and financial support provided to the two-year sector. Cuts in community-college funding may spawn further middle-class flight, continuing a downward spiral.

Conscious efforts to win back middle- and upper-middle class students could, by contrast, create a virtuous cycle of greater political capital and stronger financial support from state and local governments. In addition, a return of upper-middle class students, who, on average, are more likely to graduate, could foster positive peer influences on all students in community colleges. Middle-class students might be attracted by community-college honors programs, early college programs, or opportunities to gain a bachelor’s degree in a community-college setting.

Bringing in more middle-class students might be seen as squeezing out more deserving low-income students in the short term, but ultimately, a community-college sector which educates students from all kinds of backgrounds will be stronger and benefit everyone who attends. The new data on declining revenues make clear that community colleges need to be open to a variety of new approaches if they want to succeed with the new challenges being laid at their doorsteps.

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andymorton72

According to the article, the meeting with Google sounds like it was productive and positive. Personally I think Google will address this issue sooner than later as they’ve been giving GMail a lot of attention lately. They’re also in competition with Microsoft for this market which may spur their progress.
Michael Langford

Gmail has “clear labels to alert users to the type of information that they should put in each text field, such as the message’s subject or the recipient’s e-mail address,” click basic HTML view.

I think this is going to go nowhere if google files a brief.
electronicmuse

Does anybody else find it ironic that an advocacy group for the blind lays out its message in ” . . . a series of online videos?” Let’s put their reasoning in context of an older technology: should we burn all books that are not available in Braille? Ensuring that institutions do every thing within their power to accomodate the handicapped is one thing. Denying the majority of students is quite another: ” . . . or to reject Google apps entirely.”

I have argued long (and unsuccessfully) at my institution in behalf of blind students, for what I thought were reasonable accomodations. But, having failed, I didn’t deduce that I should therefore slit my other students’ throats in the meanwhile.

Their argument is with Google-not the universities. Google could probably buy and sell most of higher education, and it’s their web service. I sincerely hope Google acts, responsibly.
mfisher2

The issue is with the university because they are required to provide access to the materials and by selecting Google instead of other accessible tools they have denied access to certain materials.
laurencejgillis

The dumbing down of America continues apace.

Here, a major technological advance is attempted to be put on hold, because one group alleges it does not enjoy the benefits as much as the rest of us do. They want the universities to “.. suspend … adoption of Google Apps for Education until it is accessible to all students and faculty, not just the sighted, or to reject Google Apps entirely.”

In other words, instead of attempting to work with Google now (and with the schools) in this major breakthrough — while the technology and its adaptations evolve — they want to take the entire process hostage, in order to give themselves “leverage” in the inevitable bargaining about to take place.

Shame on them. Why don’t they participate in the improvement of the product instead of trying to shut it down?
joemurphy

Google email is accessible through other email client programs. Students, faculty, and staff should be able to configure whichever email client they prefer, which seems to me to address the first-level assertion that email services through Google aren’t accessible to the blind.

(OK, on further research, it’s a locally configurable option to provide IMAP and POP or not. To me, that makes it the schools’ problem, not Google’s, if they choose the less accessible option for their users.)

All that said, I think it’s a positive development if these complaints lead Google to make all of its services more universally accessible.
imronburgundy

Ugh, people are so annoying. If you don’t like it, use something else. It’s that simple. Everyone has to complain about something.
Zachary Reiss-Davis

Yeah, I’m very confident that Gmail can be used just fine by the blind, via POP and IMAP, as someone else said, since there are definitely desktop email clients that are designed for use by the blind. Looking at the titles of the other videos, Google Chrome isn’t actually required by any university, as Firefox is free, and Google products work just fine with it. Google Calendar, again, can be used by any 3rd party program you want. Google Docs and Groups I’m less sure about. It sounds like a lot of fuss about very little, although that is admittedly without actually watching their content.
vandoesborgh

I have a close friend who is blind and I advocate for accessibility where possible, but I don’t see how the university is at fault for using an “add on” service. Google Docs are not required – you can always use a word processing program that works with a screen reader. As for Gmail, the NFB has only created a video about the problems with the signup process-they don’t outline the use of Gmail. This is problematic, yes, but not impossible to work around. I would hope that the student could get assistance from someone in order to set up this step.

I think the issue would be with the student information system and a course management system. Any professor who has a blind student should be prepared to accommodate that student with the assignments. Just don’t require the use of Google Docs until THEY have addressed the issues.

If I’m wrong, maybe I’m just missing the whole point here?
mfisher2

But if the faculty members are using those tools to create and share materials then it is the responsibility of the university. The article says both universities “adopted” the tools which suggests that is what they are supporting for faculty and students.

I don’t think the issue is specifically that someone “could” get help. If something exists that is accessible why not use and support that. (and there are plenty of alternatives).

The problem is that faculty are not prepared and unfortunately some aren’t even willing. I recently saw a message a message that a faculty member wrote to a legally blind student in response to her request for accommodating materials. The student was very polite and professional but the faculty member responded quite rudely. (The student asked for the name of the text book so that SHE could research accessible options and asked that if materials weren’t being posted on LMS could she get electronic copies so that she could be prepared for class appropriately).
electronicmuse

Perhaps if there are other “accessible tools,” multiple tools should be selected, including Google (for the sighted), and another tool that is more apppropriate for blind students.

Still, nobody else has addressed the idea of the tyranny of the minority over the majority. That is, the ” . . . reject Google apps entirely” part of this litigation. And nobody has addressed the analogy of why we indeed do NOT burn all books that are not also made available in Braille.

The greater good is not served by restricting access to something a majority of people can do because a minority cannot also enjoy those benefits. If this were valid, none of us would be able to drive automobiles, because there are blind people who cannot.

The litigation essentially says “if you, as institutions cannot force Google to make their services accessible to the blind, then you shouldn’t allow sighted students access to something of value.”

Obviously, assignments must be made with accomodations to blind students. There might be a number of solutions that don’t include shutting off benefits to others rather arbitrariily.

When you sue someone, there should be a reasonable expectation that they can actually provide remedy. Is this the case with these institutions?
raza_khan

It is one of the faculty member’s responsibility to use tools that every one in his / her class is able to access – abide by the laws that govern such accessibility.

Period.

Raza
________________________
Dr. Raza Khan
http://twitter.com/chriskox Christopher Kox

Why should the blind be privileged here. I am not joking: All of us suffer with their, and other crappy software. We are all test animals. While they reap fortunes we stress, fret, have strokes, yell at our loved ones and make an incomprehensible puzzle out of our patchwork strategies to communicate. You would appreciate this more if you lived in the Bay Area and had to contend daily with the arrogance of the recently enriched digito-chauvinists. i say this now with zero confidence that pressing the “post” button will work here, or whether Disqus will reject it on my ipad yet again. Well, I see it did not. Now, I will have to log on a conventional device, retrieve mail, log in to Chron, patch and paste this note, and retire, exhausted for the night. Class action suit against all software makers implied.
reischd

What truly amazes me is that there is no reason Google should not be at least partially compliant. Their engineers are usually brilliant, and they push for compliance with common web accessibility guidelines so their crawler is equally able to parse information. That they can spend time split testing shades of blue and adding in different star icons, but nobody can go in and wrap “Subject:” with a label tag is beyond me.
ederieux

I agree that “declining resources calls for creative thinking about how to boost funding for—and results from—two-year institutions.” While attracting middle-class students might help two-year institutions boost funding, I disagree that this is a creative or even intellectually honest way to boost results. If a better prepared or motivated student is inherently more likely to succeed at higher education, enrolling that student in a 2-year institution instead of a 4-year institution improves the Community College’s results in only the most superficial and unimportant way. Instead, Community Colleges should examine what they can do better than their competitors and what they can offer a potentially diverse student body, and then invest resources in developing and communicating those offerings. Moving the success stories that already exist from one school to another is not a solution to the problems facing community colleges or higher education in general. Let’s focus instead on how we might create more success stories.
http://twitter.com/rrrrrrrrrrrrosa Rose

I would like to see more community college and high school programs directed at careers in engineering, manufacturing, technology, telecommunications, health care, and the service industry. Too many students are pushed into college because middle class America sees it as the best way to earn a living. Will a liberal arts degree in community college that leads you to a liberal arts degree at a four year college be the most helpful to you in getting a job? Not everyone needs to go to college. Everyone, however, needs career-directed training.
rochamw

I don’t usually comment but I appreciate Mr. Kahlenberg’s idea even if I don’t agree with it. So here goes:

As a California community college president, I welcome any idea to boost funding in an environment when our budgets have been slashed and we are reducing employment for faculty and staff. Today in the Chronicle there is a report that the state of Washington has declared a fiscal emergency for community colleges that will enable layoffs of even tenured faculty and staff. How on earth did we come to this, the total severance between the idea of universal education and economic well being? More importantly, how will we get out of this?

Mr. Kahlenberg has an interesting idea but a wave of middle class students coming to community colleges is already happening, with the effect that many underprepared and lower income students are being squeezed out. I can only laugh ruefully at Mr. Kahlenberg’s citation of funding levels elsewhere at $10,000 per student or above when my college receives under $5,000 per student in public finding and the state caps the number of students we can enroll despite unprecedented overwhelming demand. All this and we are expected to offer modern facilities, technology and top notch faculty and staff.

In the old Soviet Union, the price of bread was cheap and controlled but there was no bread. In California, community college tuition is $36 per unit but enrollment is capped and seats are unavailable. I am NOT advocating increased tuition here. As in NOT. I support universal free public education as a basic human right. Community colleges have suffered much but you cannot also now ask us to suffer the abandonment of lower income and underprepared human beings for the sake of middle class students.

So what do we do? First, we must re-construct the consensus that universal public education is a necessary foundation of a strong economy and nation. That’s a tall order these days but we must continue making this case. Second, we must face up that our funding model for public Higher Ed is completely broken and then try some new ideas.

One idea is to stop funding colleges and instead fund students through a voucher system. The current system encourages state micromanagement through favored programs and “performance based funding” and literally dozens of other decisions that are made in Sacramento rather than by the local community college. Instead, let’s agree on an acceptable level of state funding per student of say $10,000. Every human being would be given an educational voucher of $40,000 for four years of higher education. The student could take the voucher wherever she wishes. In this way low income and underprepared students would have the same funding as others.

Look, I’m an English teacher by trade, so I’m sure the think tank folks can figure out the details of both why this idea could work and why it is silly. My point is, to paraphrase Jobs, it is time to “Think Different”–before it is too late.

Mark Rocha
Pasadena City College