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Now that policymakers have started to understand the importance of college completion, it’s perhaps time to look beyond individual colleges. It turns out that some types of colleges are much more effective than others.
According to an article by Joseph de Avila in the Wall Street Journal, a recent report indicates that most students in New York City community colleges never graduate:
About 51 percent of the city’s community college students leave school before earning an associates or bachelor’s degree within six years of enrollment, the report said. Another 12 percent transfer out of the community college system, but there are no data on how many finish school.
Only about a quarter of community college students, nationally, ever either an associate or a bachelor’s degree.
A CUNY spokesman said in a statement that the system had made efforts to boost graduation rates. But he noted that “almost four out of every five freshman who arrive at its community colleges with a high school degree require remediation in reading, writing or mathematics.”
The problem with this line of thinking is that, while technically accurate, it’s sort of beside the point. Colleges often protest that their graduation rates are so low because the students are so unprepared for college-level work.
But at many community colleges, those are the students to educate. The reason these students attend community college is that they aren’t prepared for college. Those are the students community colleges exist to serve.
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EA on November 21, 2011 9:39 PM:
�It turns out that some types of colleges are much more effective than others� is the most absurd statement I have ever read on the Washington Monthly. What does effective mean?
1. In the state of Texas where I teach its cost $152 per credit hour for community college developmental education. Yale spends $2968 per credit hour. Per dollar our .10% graduation rate for all student is much more efficient.
2. In a typical class at my college, a third of students are going to stop attending for non-academic reasons. How many Yale students have a shift change or are deported?
3. I run an honors program at my community college that has four criteria for entry. To get into the program a student needs a B average from high school or college. If they have less than a B average they just need two letters of recommendation. They have to test at college ready reading and writing. They have to be a full time student who can take morning classes. Last, they have to bother to apply to something with the words �Honors� in the title. With those four criteria alone, we get a 90% graduation or graduation with transfer rate. Without those two criteria our college graduation rate is 6%. The type of student matters! We turn no one away. In my honors class this semester 33 out of 34 will pass (one student in jail on attempted murder charges which I am sure happens all the time at Yale), while in my other classes four classes it will average out to about 20/34.
4. You also have no understanding of the community college population if you say, �The reason these students attend community college is that they aren�t prepared for college.� The reason students attend our community college is that they are POOR, they work 40+ hours or the University is too far away.