May 15, 2008

GAO Report Says Community Colleges Are Crucial in Training the Work Force

Community colleges continue to meet the needs of local industry through specific technical training, according to a report issued today by the Government Accountability Office.

In the report, the GAO surveyed 20 community colleges and found that they met the needs stipulated in the Workforce Investment Act through customized training of workers from specific employers, teaming up with small businesses, and specifically modeling their educational programs to suit their local populations. Money for the programs has come from both the Education and Labor Departments.

According to the report, community colleges operate 11 percent of one-stop centers for employment assistance started under the Workforce Investment Act, and will continue to be key players in training future employees. —Hurley Goodall

Comments

1. I have long said that Community Colleges aren’t really “colleges” so much as they are social service delivery hubs – but if they perform as they should, meaning resocializing and retraining the children left behind by the public schools over the last forty years, I’m all in favor of expanding the role.

   However, academic standards and academic disciplines should not be compromised in the process. Good luck on that one.

   — Muap Conners    May 16, 08:34 AM    #

2. Please do not perpetuate the streotype that “community colleges are not colleges”. I will grant that we are not the same as a university because we don’t offer the third and fourth year of a bachelors degree program, and we emphasize quality teaching over research. As the article pointed out, we also, through our non-credit side, offer training programs for local industries. So we are different from the standard university or four-year college, but we are no less a college in our own right.

   Most of the specific workforce training is done on a non-credit basis through the community college’s continuing education division. A typical example is a welding training program our continuing education division put together for a local industry that was expanding. Within weeks we had a plan in place to train 40 people in flux core welding, and within a couple of months a bunch of formerly unemployed persons were on the job making over $11 per hour plus overtime. Not a great salary, but it was a start to a new life for each of them. The training was paid for by WIA funding through the US Department of Labor.

   Completely separate from the non-credit side of the college is the more traditional credit, or academic division. Most of our academic programs are what we call “career programs” in which a student learns job skills in addition to completing a solid general education core. Most of the career programs are associate degree programs, though some are just certificates. We find that we get a significant number of students who already have bachelor’s degrees but no job skills who use us as a sort of “graduate school” – the bachelors degree in liberal arts plus a certificate in CAD makes one employable, while a bachleors in liberal arts alone does not.

   We also have associate degree programs that are transferable to the local university through articulation agreements. A student can come to us and complete the first two years of a bachelors degree at 1/3 the tuition charged by the university, then transfer and complete the bachelors degree. Since community colleges are typically open enrollment institutions, we don’t accept or reject students based on SAT scores and high school GPA. Everyone who applies gets in. But don’t let that fool you into thinking our standards are low. Instead of the SAT, all new students take an assessment test to determine thier level of math, English, and reading skills, and placement into coureses is based on that assessment. So, if we get an underprepared student, that student must pass appropriate pre-curriculum courses before he or she can enroll in the college level courses. In the end, we find that there is no statistical difference between the GPA our transfer students achieve upon graduation from the university and the GPA earned by university graduates who began at the university.

   Those of you who have never been to a community college campus need to get out and see what we are all about.

   — F. Bowles    May 16, 10:34 AM    #

3. Remember the glut of all of those PhD’s on the job market? Well more and more of them are finding extremely gratifying work in the community colleges. Students are finding out that they can get just as good if not better instruction at a community college for a fraction of the price they would get at large, public, research oriented institution. In addition to this, they are completing their prerequisites and introductory courses in small class sizes and they will have additional contact with their professors who are teaching the labs as well. I shudder to think of the money I shelled out as an undergraduate to be a number in an arena sized lecture hall only to leave for lab to be taught by a (relatively) inexperienced graduate student. Here they find that professors actually attend their office hours and they are more likely to interact with them outside of their office hours as well.

   Diversity is not a buzzword at a community college it is everyday life reality. I have students ranging from those who are on their way to U.C. Berkeley to those who perhaps are finding out college may not be right for them. This makes for outstanding classroom discussions that are probably comparatively rare at the four-year institutions. For example, in my general biology course for non-science majors, I had a construction worker in my course who was part of the crew building a salmon ladder for a dam just outside of town. I also have students who worked as migrant laborers in agriculture. And from my own personal experience, I find that the students tend to be more serious and attentive given they come from backgrounds where education is not a birth given right but something to be worked for when given the chance. I find there are less students who are here because “they don’t know what else to do.” I’ve found that community college students, whatever their background, have a little more fire under their belly and a greater sense of urgency.

   I still do research but I pursue questions that solely intrigue my intellectual curiosity with no institutional pressure to measure up to and I ALWAYS have the whole summer to pursue these interests.

   It’s well past the time to get it out of your head that community colleges are the fifth year of high school. They have always been, but now are even more increasingly, the first two years of college.

   — Professor San Joaquin    May 16, 12:47 PM    #

4. Typo — it’s two-year colleges that are providing essential skills for their students, and we need to be investing more in curriculum and professional development.

   — william    May 16, 01:11 PM    #

5. We need to keep in mind what the above article actually says: “Community colleges continue to meet the needs of local industry through specific technical training, according to a report issued today by the Government Accountability Office.”

   Community colleges meet the needs of business through “training” not teaching. The two training centers that I am familiar with were once called “Vo-Tech” and “Vocational”, now they are each called “Community Colleges.”

   F. Bowles writes, “Completely separate from the non-credit side of the college is the more traditional credit, or academic division. Most of our academic programs are what we call “career programs” in which a student learns job skills in addition to completing a solid general education core.”

   What is now called “career programs” used to be called “vocational.” These were handled by trade schools that prepared men and women for a trade. There is nothing wrong with that, but let’s not confuse it with a solid education in the liberal arts. A tradesperson with a liberal arts background will not only hold a job, but be prepared for, well, let’s call it life.

   What do I mean by that?

   A person with a sound education will not only have the skills to perform a job, but he/she will have an understanding of how systems operate and what their relationships are to one another. Take this WIA program for example.

   There was a time when industry hired a person and trained that person to do a job. No more. It has left the training up to the Community College. The College trains 40 welders. Does the business hire all of them? Probably not. Have taxpayers paid for 40 people to be trained and only some hired? Yes. The business turns a profit on the backs (wallets) of the taxpayers.

   And what happens if the business closes shop and moves to China? Are taxpayers reimbursed with interest?

   It’s a noble thing when taxpayers (citizens) pool their money to train and teach their fellow citizens. But it is a shameful thing when businesses shirk their responsibilities by shifting them to the backs of the community.

   Ironically enough, often these same businessmen who thrive from public resources turn around and rail about the same government that helped to enhance their bottom line.

   Let’s go back to that passage I quoted from the article. It says that community colleges meet “the needs of local industry.” That’s not the same as meeting the needs of the community. I would argue that a liberal arts education does that.

   — HL Morgan    May 16, 02:36 PM    #

6. #5 brings up a valid concern, but I think these programs also have worth in exposing students, who otherwise would not necessarily consider going to college, to a college environment. There are many students who deem themselves non-college material only to find otherwise once they get there. Maybe they don’t get a job as a welder, but they leave with the prospect of a liberal arts education in their future. It’s quite common for students to change their interests once they are introduced to the greater educational opportunities available to them at a college. I think two-year colleges play an important role in this process for the betterment of the whole community.

   — Professor San Joaquin    May 16, 03:34 PM    #

7. Community Colleges are wonderful. The professors and staff are loving and they care about the students and they also TEACH the students. So give the Coomunity Colleges a break. One has to start from somewhere to get an education.

   — JL Watkins    May 16, 04:16 PM    #

8. Community colleges have long endured evolving identities. The colleges continue to evolve in many different ways.

   They still feature many nontraditional faculty teaching nontraditional students in nontraditional programs in nontraditional ways.

   They are no longer just junior colleges nor vocational institutes. The evolving “mix” is quite unique and they mostly function somewhere between postsecondary and higher education.

   They have survived long standing identity crises and continue to function in many new nontraditional ways.

   You have to think out of the box to get a grip on where they are going…

   — Bob P    May 17, 12:59 AM    #

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