Too many credits
Many community college students earn more credits than they need on the way to an associate degree, concludes a Community College Research Center study by Matthew Zeidenberg. Excess credits cost about $6 million a year, counting only courses students passed.
New students often don’t know what they want to study, he writes. They may try courses that won’t count for the degree they eventually choose. Even when they decide on a goal, there’s “limited advising” to help them take the right courses.
Structural or scheduling barriers also play a role. For instance, a student may need to take course A, but that course may not be available or convenient in a given semester; it may be full or scheduled at a bad time for the student. Instead, the student takes course B in order to maintain full-time status and remain eligible for financial aid. Or a student may be waiting to be accepted into a program and may take other courses in the meantime. Colleges have indicated that this is common in the case of nursing programs.
In some cases, students who go on to four-year institutions can transfer their excess credits, but often students face the reverse problem: Credits that were supposed to transfer are rejected.
In some cases, students earn excess credits for useful courses, Zeindenberg writes. But others are “spinning their wheels” because of “poor advising, unstructured program pathways with excessive electives, unclear transfer policies, and structural barriers.” Students pay in time and money.
California transfer plan helps, but not much
California community college students still have trouble transferring credits to state universities, despite a plan to streamline transfers, concludes an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Under the new law, community colleges are supposed to create associate degrees designed for transfer to the California State University system. Students who earn these degrees should be able to start at a CSU with upper-division standing to earn a bachelor’s degree in two years.
Community colleges need to increase the number of associate degrees for transfer and CSU campuses should maximize the number of academic programs to which these degrees can be applied, the report recommended.
If voters don’t approve a tax increase in November, Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget calls for cutting $250 million from the University of California and CSU system and $300 million from community colleges.
Already, CSU enrollment freezes have blocked mid-year transfers. Community college students are taking longer to complete an associate degree because they can’t get into essential classes.
Is Community College Still a Path to Dream College? asks Sharee Lopez. She enrolled in Long Beach City College‘s honors program with hopes of transferring to her dream school, Berkeley. She’s not paying much for her classes, but she’ll need an extra year to fulfill prerequisites. A neuroscience major, she can’t get into the science classes she needs.
What’s the cost of a community college degree?
What’s the cost of a community college degree? Clive Belfield of the Community College Research Center estimates the median average cost per associate degree in 2008 to be $45,900 at academic community colleges and $36,950 at vocational colleges. “Even as graduation rates have flat-lined, the real costs of college are significantly lower in 2008 than in 1987,” the study concludes.
Evaluating colleges’ productivity is complicated by a variety of factors, including how to assess transfers and how to account for unprepared students.
The Completion Arch, a new project by College Board, will present a variety of indicators of student progress and success.
A head start on college, careers
Chicago will open five early college high schools that give students six years to earn a high school diploma, an associate degree (or two years of college credit) and job credentials that will put them “first in line” for an interview at high-tech companies.
Partnering with employers that need skilled workers is an up-and-coming version of early college high schools, I write on U.S. News. Five-year and six-year programs are growing popular as students seek an affordable route to a college degree or a skilled job.
“It has just now hit me how far ahead I really am,” writes Emily G. Fore, a 2011 graduate of Caldwell Early College High, a five-year program that’s part of North Carolina’s New Schools Project (NSP). “I’m 18 with a 2-year degree. I qualify for some full time jobs already … As our school motto says, ‘Ready for college. Ready for career. Ready for life.’”
Early college high schools focus on low-income, minority and immigrant students who otherwise might not be on the college track. Those who pass gateway college courses in English and math in high school will skip remedial courses in college, greatly increasing their odds of success.
Chicago plans six-year tech high schools
Five technology companies will help Chicago open five new six-year high schools that will allow students to graduate with an associate’s degree and high-tech job skills, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions and Verizon will develop curricula, mentor students, provide summer internships and guarantee every student who completes the program a “first-in-line” job interview after graduation. The city’s community colleges will provide instruction and award credits.
“We want to hire them all. All they need to do is be able to successfully complete a curriculum through Grade 9 to 14 that’s gonna be their ticket to a good-paying job and to the middle class,” said Stanley Litow, IBM’s vice-president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs.
IBM, which provided a $400,000 challenge grant to develop the new schools, helped open a six-year high school called P-TECH in New York City last year. The school, which is focused on information technology, recruited a wide range of students.
How employers see IT associate degrees
When employers in Seattle and Detroit look for information technology technicians, they expect applicants with associate degrees to share some characteristics with bachelor’s degree holders, including technical skills and knowledge, thinking skills, communication skills, and discipline, concludes a working paper from the Community College Research Center by Michelle Van Noy and James Jacobs. However, many hiring managers also feared associate degree holders would lack academic ability, initiative or skill compared to techs with four-year degrees.
Employers did not expect associate or bachelor’s degrees to provide information about certain key qualities, including competency in customer service and teamwork, and personal interest in technology.
CCs fear ‘degree creep’ in health fields
Community college leaders fear “degree creep” could destroy very successful associate degree programs in nursing, respiratory therapy and other health-care fields, reports Community Colleges Times. Requiring a four-year degree also is under discussion for nuclear medicine technicians, radiographers, dental hygienists and dieticians. These are among the most lucrative associate degree programs at community colleges.
Respiratory care therapists with associate degrees do as well on state licensure exams as those with bachelor’s degrees, said Barbara Jones, president of South Arkansas Community College. Degree creep is “a real threat,” she said.
Degree creep has been an issue in nursing for years, but it gained momentum last fall when an Institute of Medicine (IOM) reportcalled for 80 percent of the nation’s registered nurses to have bachelor’s degrees by 2020.
. . . “For some students, the only way to get into a health career is to take it a chunk at a time. Requiring a bachelor’s degree would make health careers inaccessible to many people,” said (Carolyn) O’Daniel, who is dean of allied health and nursing at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Kentucky.
Nurses with associate and bachelor’s degrees show comparable levels of competence on licensing exams, according to a recent American Association of Community Colleges policy brief.
More firefighters seek college degrees
Strength, courage and a high school diploma used to be enough for firefighters, but increasingly firefighters are earning college degrees to advance in their jobs, reports Inside Higher Ed. Community colleges and for-profit institutions are creating fire safety programs, usually leading to an associate degree. Chiefs typically have a bachelor’s degree, sometimes with a master’s or even a doctorate.
Fire departments, it seems, are on board with the Obama administration-led completion agenda. Yet some high-profile critics of those goals argue that many professions don’t require degrees, and that police officers, medical assistants or firefighters might be better off not taking on college debt.
While some firefighters earn college degrees, others earn a series of technical certifications.
More firefighters are professionals, rather than volunteers, these days.
The professionalization of the industry has increased specialized education needs. So has an increased reliance on fire departments for emergency medical services and the recent need for firefighters to be trained in anti-terrorism and homeland security practices. As a result, more firefighters hold related credentials, like EMS certificates or paramedic degrees.
Online education makes it possible for firefighters to earn degrees while working irregular shifts.
Chicago plans six-year high schools
Chicago will open as many as five high-school, community-college hybrids next fall, reports the Chicago Tribune. Students could enroll for up to six years to earn a high school diploma and associate degree in technical fields.
IBM is giving Chicago a $400,000 grant and helping develop the schools,which will be modeled on New York City’s newly opened Pathways in Technology Early College High School. P-Tech is a partnership between IBM, the New York City College of Technology and the City University of New York.
IBM will recruit Chicago Public Schools teachers who want to be trained to work in the new schools.
“If we’re going to really meet our commitment to young people to say, ‘You’re going to be prepared for entry-level jobs in a good-paying career, not just a job that leads to a dead end,’ they’re going to need an associate’s degree,” said Robin Willner, an IBM executive who’s overseeing the Chicago initiative. “This is not about narrowing a student’s opportunity. It’s saying not only will you be first in line for a job at IBM, but also prepared for an IT career (elsewhere).”
The P-Tech model assumes that some students will go on to earn a bachelor’s degree, while others will be able to start a career immediately.
High-paying jobs for two-year grads
Registered nurse leads Monster’s list of high-paying jobs with an associate’s degree.
Also on the list: dental hygienist (hygienist salaries), respiratory therapist (respiratory therapist salaries), programmer (programmer salaries), telecom installer (telecom installer salaries), industrial engineering technician (salaries for engineering techs), police officer (police officer salaries), HVAC mechanic (HVAC mechanic salaries) and paralegal (paralegal salaries).
Heating/air-conditioning techs may qualify via apprenticeship without a degree. Paralegals may find jobs with a certificate.
Community college graduates with associate degrees in health fields are finding good jobs, but other associate degree graduates are struggling, writes Community College Dean.
