A recent request on the NACAC exchange asked about
information for a student – certainly not unusual. Unfortunately, the other thing that wasn’t
unusual was the following: “She is not interested in community college programs
nor exterior programs where she is not actually admitted to a university, in
other words, she want to experience being as close to a normal college student
as possible.”
Community college is college. It is real college. It is, based on the
fact that community colleges enroll more students than any other sector of
higher education by quite a bit, the most normal college.
Please understand, my feelings are not hurt when people say
that the institutions that I have worked with or at for my entire career are
illegitimate, or at least, as with this questioner, a lesser, other, option.
I have thick skin (and waist, and skull…). The reason that it’s
important for me to respond here is because comments in the vein of separating
community colleges as “other” in conversations of higher education are
generally dismissive of the students enrolled at them, the faculty that teach
at them, and the administrators and staff who make them work. This
creates several problems.
First, it actively discourages students who would be excited
to begin their higher education experience with a more local and in many cases,
more supportive experience by painting it as a negative option. It is not
the best option for everyone, but neither is an Ivy League school. By not portraying it as an experience of
equivalent stature, it damages those students who do not have my thick skin.
Students who are on the fringes of higher education for any of a thousand
reasons often find a safe place to become the academic stars that they were not
in high school, or an affordable place to gain traction in an environment that
is increasingly expensive. No one is
confusing Harvard and LaGuardia Community College, but that goes both for
international reputation and for access for students who are generally
disenfranchised by a system based on elitism, wealth, and privilege. I’m scoring that 1-1.
Second, students who could be preparing for the transfer
process from high school are not, because they, their parents, and their
counselors are not acknowledging that option early enough. NACAC is
completely deficient in the transfer conversation (more on that soon), and
NACAC is the single biggest high school counselor connection to higher
education. AACRAO has been having a
transfer conference for better than a decade, but it tends to focus on the
technical aspects of the process (it is an organization for registrars), and it
lacks the high school counselors. Even
NYSTAA, the New York State Transfer & Articulation Association, has
suffered such a disconnect between segments of the process (four-year
admissions and two-year advising) in recent years that specific workshops were
included in the annual conference last May to reintroduce the membership to
each other (full disclosure, I presented them).
There is very little by way of practical introduction as to how to
incorporate transfer planning for students until they are knee-deep in the
process, and many problems that could have been avoided are now front and
center.
I understand that the community college experience is not
what most students want, or what most counselors or parents want for their
students. Unfortunately, this is due in large part to misunderstandings
about those institutions and the students they serve, and due in largest part
to incredibly poor PR. Open access does not mean that every student at
the institution is a poor student – many are outstanding academic
students. Affordable does not mean low
value – it simply means lower cost. (If it makes you feel better to pay more,
just pretend you’re an out of state resident or international student. Let me know if the higher rates increase your
value.) The only portrayals of community colleges in media are negative or
comic relief. Unfortunately, these portrayals, often combined with
parent, family, and counselor reinforcement, take on great power in the minds
of students who would and could be much better served by starting in the
community college. It also weakens the
efforts of those institutions and of the students they serve.
Unfortunately, the “otherness” of community colleges in
these conversations also reinforce the “otherness” of their students. This is not a small thing, as no other
segment of higher education enrolls as many students of color or as many
students of low-socioeconomic status. These
students use the community college as a legitimate entry point to higher ed and
all that that encompasses. They often
face a steep uphill climb to completion, for a variety of reasons, but it creates
an even steeper incline when they have to battle a lack of advice or
information, or worse, denigration for their institution of choice.
Community colleges have courses, credits, registrars,
bursars, financial aid, liberal arts, arts, and technical training,
Ph.D.-bearing faculty, and students with aspirations and accomplishments
both. Some have dorms, some have
intercollegiate sports. They enroll
nearly 8 million students, almost half of the total undergraduate population of
the country. Community colleges are college,
for better or worse, with all that entails, except the pretension. Of that,
they could use a bit more.
