Community colleges should stick to original mission/SignOnSanDiego
January 17th, 2010http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/17/marty-blocks-folly-community-colleges-should-stick/
“According to the National Center for Developmental Education, about two-thirds of new community college students need very basic remedial help. Allowing these poorly prepared and unqualified students open enrollment access into taxpayer-subsidized, relatively costly four-year degree programs is a dubious use of funds. This point may be uncomfortable, but it is inescapable.”
Blog:
Community Colleges should tighten up the core instructional curriculum with a limited elective offering over a rotating/sequential four semester plan allowing full-time students to complete general education requirements in four semesters. Students requiring remedial education should NOT be accepted at the four-year institution. Remedial education should be offered at high school locations.
Keep community college two year offerings simple and increase transfer rates. Private colleges allow students access to a computer software counseling plan, with semester by semester requirements, to counsel themselves relative to graduation requirements. This saves millions of dollars in student service expense.
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I teach lower- and upper-division courses at a CSU campus. I dread grading term papers for the simple reason that so few students seem to possess the remedial skills necessary to write a basic term paper. This past semester, only one in eight students were able to write a university-quality paper in one of my upper-division (400 level) courses. This is not a new problem.
Even if community colleges prepare more students for transfer, UC and CSU may not have room for them. Add to that we now have students with BA degrees coming back to community college hoping to train in a new field so that they can find employment. This is a new ballgame.