GED + job training = motivation

Louisiana has shifted adult basic education from high schools to community colleges: Unemployed and underemployed adults can train for skilled jobs while studying for a GED through the Louisiana Community and Technical College System’s (LCTCS) Work Ready U, reports Community College Times.

Most Work Ready U students are training for jobs in construction trades and welding or health care jobs, such as nursing assistants, phlebotomists and pharmacy technicians.

Delgado Community College (DCC) now has 2,500 students in adult basic education, compared to 500 in 2007-08.  DCC is one of 10 Louisiana community colleges in Jobs for the Future’s Accelerating Opportunity program. “There is no reason why a student should need a GED before they start on a career pathway,” said Barbara Endel, national project director for Accelerating Opportunity.

Traditional adult ed courses didn’t provide enough structure and support, said LCTCS Chancellor Joe May.

When ABE was administered by the K-12 education system, it was run on an “open-entry, open-exit approach,” May said. That didn’t work so well with people who had dropped out of school, so there were high attrition rates.

. . . Work Ready U programs limit the number of people who come in at any one time and provide extra counseling and social services. Also, switching GED courses to community colleges allowed for more flexible scheduling, including evening hours, which are more convenient for adults with families and jobs.

“Pushing someone to get a GED requires a ton of effort, particularly for adults with families,” said DCC Chancellor Monty Sullivan. However, it’s worth the effort. More Work Ready U students are enrolling in credit-bearing courses. On average, they are less likely to drop out than regular students.

Last year Congress dropped Pell Grant eligibility for  high school dropouts who passed an “ability-to-benefit” test. To keep Work Ready U on track, DCC turned to foundations to fund tuition aid.

CCs get $500 million for job training

Community colleges will get $500 million in federal grants to fund job training. The Labor and Education departments will work together on the program, which will focus on  ”skills development and employment opportunities in fields such as advanced manufacturing, transportation and health care, as well as science, technology, engineering and math careers through partnerships between training providers and local employers.”

In addition, Jobs for the Future’s Accelerating Opportunity Initiative will give $1.6 million each to Illinois,Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina to fund adult education and job training.

“Many employers are currently unable to fill well-paying jobs because applicants lack the skills,” says JFF President and CEO Marlene B. Seltzer. “Today’s good jobs require education beyond high school and training that prepares workers with practical skills that employers need. Accelerating Opportunity focuses on educational programs that lead to the credentials workers need to secure a family-sustaining job and long-lasting career opportunities.”

Accelerating Opportunity hopes to create career pathways  leading to “marketable, stackable, credit-bearing credentials” in at least 40 community colleges  by 2014.

Congress asks: How are you cutting costs?

Controlling college costs was the topic of congressional hearings last week, reports Community College Times.

At Keeping College Within Reach, a House Higher Education and Workforce Training Subcommittee hearing, college leaders discussed performance-based funding, accelerated credential completion, “prior learning” credits and streamlining transfers.

Federal higher education funding increased 155 percent over the last decade, yet students are paying more, said House Subcommittee Chair Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican.  “If government subsidies aren’t producing more affordable education in the current system, we cannot keep writing bigger checks,” she said. “We need to look to states and postsecondary institutions for creative solutions.”

Joe May, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, said enrollment has increased by 55 percent over the last five years while state support has dropped by 37 percent.

By merging colleges, nixing redundant courses, aligning programs with market demands, consolidating information technology systems and sharing operations such as payroll and auditing services, the system is saving about $30 million annually, according to May’s written testimony.

. . . When Louisiana examined its transfer process, it founds that students who earned an associate degree were losing 21-24 semester credit hours in the transfer. Today, students who earn an associate degree at any Louisiana community college can easily transfer to Louisiana State University or any of the state’s 14 universities as a junior, May said.

. . .  On average, students save $2,117, while the state saves $1,930 per transfer student, May said. In addition, transfer students with an associate degree also use about $2,750 less in federal Pell Grants because it costs them less to earn their baccalaureate.

“Credit-hour creep” — requiring more than 60 credits for an associate degree — was dialed back for all but a few degrees. Students saved time and money —  an average of $1,100 — and the state saved $792 per student.

Students who move slowly to a degree usually give up along the way, said Stan Jones, president of Complete College America. Jones also called for collecting data on part-time students, adult students and Pell recipients to determine what would help those students earn credentials.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Making College Affordability a Priority,  included testimony by Thomas Snyder, president of the Ivy Tech Community College system in Indiana, and Jim Murdaugh, president of Tallahassee Community College in Florida.

Raising tuition every year is not a “sustainable business model,” said Snyder, a former auto industry executive. Ivy Tech has streamlined textbook sales, registration, financial aid and procurement to save time and money, he said.

Ivy Tech’s Associate Accelerated Program (ASAP) lets low-income students earn a transferable degree in one year instead of two. By creating a learning community and including “significant wraparound services,” ASAP has raised completion rates to 75 percent, three times the national average for community college students.

Speeding students to a certificate or degree saves money, said Murdaugh. Tallahassee, which did not raise tuition this year, also requires underprepared students to take a college success course.

Massachusetts report urges centralization

Massachusetts should expand statewide control of its 15 community colleges argues a new report from the influential Boston Foundation. In the centralized system focused on job training, colleges should be judged and funded based on student performance, the report concluded.

The state’s community colleges “have failed to connect in a systemic way with prospective workforce, economic development and employer partners,” reports Inside Higher Ed.

As a result there is no way to make broad curriculum changes based on workforce needs, it argues, and colleges and community-based groups compete for resources rather than cooperate.

“There are good programs within the community college system, but the system as a whole is under-resourced, overly fragmented, and not well aligned with the needs of Massachusetts employers in the knowledge economy,” said Paul S. Grogan, the foundation’s president, in a written statement.

Virginia’s centralized community college system was offered as a model for Massachusetts.

Community college presidents believe they already collaborate, reports the Boston Globe.

“We think we’re doing a hell of a lot better job than we did in the past,’’ said William Messner, president of Holyoke Community College. “We’re on the case.’’

Job training “what we do,” said Ira Rubenzahl, president of Springfield Technical Community College, who was a panelist for the report’s presentation. “We’ve been doing it for 50 years.’’  “I’m concerned that [the proposed structural changes] will be disruptive at a time when our institutions are fragile.’’

The system needs “radical change,” not “tweaking,” responded Grogan.

Next door in Connecticut, the community colleges will share a state board with the Connecticut State University System, a move that’s not popular with college officials.

“Board consolidation is a trendy idea in some states, particularly when budgets are tight,” notes Inside Higher Ed. Louisiana may merge its higher education boards. A proposal in  Rhode Island would create a single K-12 and higher education board.

Decentralization is on the table in other states, such as Wisconsin, which may separate its flagship university from the rest of the state university system.

Louisiana: CC grads earn more, work more

Louisiana’s associate-degree graduates are more likely to find jobs — at higher pay — than graduates with four-year degrees, according to a state report.

Eighteen months after graduation, 72.5 percent of associate-degree graduates were employed in Louisiana, compared to 59.5 percent of graduates with bachelor’s degrees, 60.5 percent with master’s degrees, 38.3 percent with doctorates and 50.4 percent with professional degrees.

New associate degree holders — many with degrees in medical and technical fields — earned $3,000 a year more than new four-year graduates.

Engineering graduates with bachelor’s degrees were the top earners, starting at almost $57,000.

“In 1970, you could be middle class with a high school diploma or less and the sweat of your brow,” (Commissioner of Higher Education Jim Purcell) said. In 2007, the study shows, only 39 percent of the “middle class” in Louisiana had only a high school education.

. . . “We see the need for a strong community college system,” he said. “Ideally, we’d have 60 percent of our students enrolled in community colleges and 40 percent enrolled in four-year institutions.”

‘Pell runners’ abuse grants

Pell Grants don’t always go for college tuition, writes Nancy Marshall Genzer on the Hechinger Report. (Listen to the story on Marketplace.) The maximum grant of $5,500 is more than tuition at low-cost colleges; students get the rest back a few weeks into the term to spend on books and living expenses. They don’t have to account for how they spend the money. A single mother might pay the babysitter so she can get to night classes; a recipient living with parents might buy a car, clothing or Christmas gifts.

While most Pell recipients try to pass their classes, those at low-cost colleges have an incentive to enroll, cash the refund check and then stop attending. Teachers say there’s no trouble parking on campus once the checks go out.

They’ll lose eligibility for aid after two or three semesters, but they can move on to another college and try again, says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org. Colleges should track these “Pell runners”  and turn them into the U.S. Education Department, he says.

Kantrowitz: If you see a student transferring from one college to another to another within a small geographic area, that may be a sign that they’re a Pell runner.

At community colleges in California’s Central Valley, 25 percent of Pell Grant recipients each semester fail their classes or earn such low grades that they lose aid eligibility, a Fresno Bee investigation found. Financial aid administrators suspect some are not serious students, but nobody can say how many are enrolling for the refund check.

Louisiana’s technical colleges charge very low tuition, raising the value of the refund check.  An estimated 20 percent of students collect Pell Grants, then fail all their classes, often because they stop attending, says Joe May, president of the college system. The legislature is considering a bill that would raise tuition to discourage aid abuse.

Of course, all the honest, hard-working students would pay more for classes.

Failing students get federal aid

In California’s Central Valley, 10 percent of Pell Grants went to students who lost aid eligibility for dropping out, failing their classes or earning low grades, reports the Fresno Bee. As many as 25 percent of Pell recipients at community colleges fail to make “satisfactory academic progress” in a typical semester.

Low-income students get up to $5,500 in college aid; whatever isn’t needed for tuition goes to the student for living expenses.  The “refund” makes it possible for low-income adults to pay a babysitter, buy gas for the car, pay for books and survive while they try to improve their futures. But it also provides an incentive to enroll at a low-cost community college — California’s are the cheapest in the nation — for the money.

Pell recipients must show academic progress but have nine years to earn a certificate or degree. While students who drop out mid-term or get all F’s are supposed to repay the grant, the U.S. Education Department doesn’t track how much is repaid, the Bee reports. Nor does the department know how many aid recipients fail their classes.

Only 4 percent of Pell recipients at Fresno State fail to make satisfactory academic progress. The numbers are much higher for community college students.

In the spring 2010 semester at Fresno City College — the latest semester for which figures were available — about one-fourth of the students who won Pell Grants got warning letters for failing to maintain a C-minus average, dropping too many classes or dropping out.

. . . At Reedley College and the State Center Community College District’s centers in northeast Fresno, Madera and Oakhurst, 1,140 students — one-fourth of the Pell Grant recipients — got warning letters in spring 2010 for unsatisfactory academic progress.

. . .  In the fall 2010 semester at College of the Sequoias, nearly one-quarter of students on financial aid, including Pell Grants, got warning letters.

West Hills Community College District’s Coalinga and Lemoore colleges sent warning letters to nearly 11% of Pell Grant recipients in the spring 2010 semester, but only 5% in the fall 2010 semester.

Failing students should lose eligibility for aid after one semester, John Cummings, Reedley College’s vice president for admissions and records, told the Bee. Currently, students can fail for two semesters before losing the right to more money; many successfully appeal for a third semester of aid.

When aid checks come, students go

When financial aid checks arrive, students vanish, writes Julie White, a community college instructor, on The 2-Year Track. The college gets the aid money, deducts tuition and sends students the rest in a “refund” check to cover living expenses.

Of the 27 students who originally enrolled in my course, I have 16 in class today. As I hand back the first test of the semester, I remark that maybe a lot of people have spring fever on this sunny day. One of my students suggests a different reason for the high number of absences, saying, “Well, refund checks were sent this week. By next week, there won’t be any problem finding parking on campus.”

Vanishing students may have problems with child care, medical issues or work demands, she writes. But there is an upswing in disappearances when the checks arrive.

Louisiana’s technical colleges, which focus on job training, cost only $450 a semester for full-time students. Pell Grant recipients collect about $2,500 for living expenses, 79 percent of the grant.  “We see a pattern of people getting Pell checks and immediately dropping all their classes or they stop going to class,” says Joe May, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System. “They’re enrolling not to get an education but to get a check.”

After two semesters of failed or dropped classes, aid recipients lose eligibility for more grants. They have to enroll on their own dime and raise their grade point average to a 2.0 (C) to qualify. Most don’t try.

Vanishing students are less common at Louisiana’s community colleges, which charge more for tuition and return only 38 percent of the Pell Grant to enrollees. May hopes to discourage aid abuse by raising technical-college tuition to 55 percent of the Pell Grant.

Gulf colleges expand oil clean-up training

As the need for oil-spill clean-up workers grows, more Louisiana community colleges are offering free training, reports the News-Star.

Colleges in the Louisiana Community and Technical College System already have trained more than 1,000 spill-response workers, who can expect to earn a starting salary of $12 per hour.

About 35 students, some from neighboring Gulf states, are signed up for Louisiana Delta Community College’s first training session.

Delgado Community College of New Orleans, Nunez Community College of Chalmette, South Central Technical College in Houma and Baton Rouge Community College were the first LCTCS schools to become involved in training response workers.

Clean-up workers are expected to be employed for at least the next several months.