In Defense of the Community College
It wasn’t long ago that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were debating the wisdom of offering free community college — and whether free…
It wasn’t long ago that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were debating the wisdom of offering free community college — and whether free college tuition for all state schools was possible. The argument was build on several assumptions: That college tuition had grown cost-prohibitive for many, and that elected officials need to find better alternatives to allow potential students to afford school than the existing loan-based way of paying for college.
Governors and legislatures in many states took up the mantle; states as diverse as Tennessee, Oregon, Arkansas and New York have unveiled plans and others, like New Jersey, are considering it. Most plans focus on two-year schools like Middlesex County College, where I teach. The community and college systems around the county offer opportunities for poor and working-class students that would not be available otherwise, and which can be made even more available if the already low tuition at schools like Middlesex were to be eliminated.
Tennessee, the first state to wade in, has seen an increase in attendance at its community colleges by about 30 percent, according to The New York Times. Tennessee’s program, called Tennessee Promise, leverages federal aid to students, encouraging each potential college student to apply for federal aid and grants. He state then plugs the gaps. That has led to a 17 percent drop in federal loan applications.
Programs like these may not be a panacea, but they do show the attractiveness of tuition-free schooling and show here are ways to move in that direction.
On Thursday in Ohio, however, President Trump once again signaled a lack of regard for community colleges and a painful lack of understanding of what these two-year schools do.
As he did in February and earlier in March, he downplayed the academic aspect of community colleges, ignoring that about 40 percent of community college students go on to get four-year degrees, assuming that all we do is prepare students for the vocations.
“I don’t know what that means, a community college,” Trump said at one point in Ohio. “Call it vocational and technical. People know what that means. They don’t know what a community college means.”
I teach at a community college. My students know what it means. Yes, many are in what might be called vocational or technical programs, and there are students at MCC seeking certificates in a variety of trades. We educate tomorrow’s nurses and police officers, oral hygienists and lab techs. We teach future teachers, historians, artists, writers, journalists — the list is endless. And that’s because community colleges are part of the broader tapestry of America’s educational system, and they are a necessary part, often one of the few ways that working class and poor students can afford college.
The student profile at Middlesex offers a glimpse into what who community colleges serve and the goals of our students. (These are my opinions alone and should be taken in any way to represent the views of the college.)
Here are some demographics from the college’s website: There were 11,397 students enrolled in September 2017, 53 percent of which are part time and nearly three quarters of which are in transfer degree programs and planning to seek bachelor’s degrees. More than half of Middlesex County College students receive need-based aid, while 46 percent are from families that report less than $30,000 in household income — which is well below the figure for New Jersey as a whole. One third are Hispanic, 15 percent are Asian and 12 percent are black. And one in five of the county’s high school graduates enroll at Middlesex.
To give this a national perspective, I want to quote Alia Wang, writing in The Atlantic:
Community colleges are not just a substantial part of the future of American education — they are also a substantial part of its present. More than 40 percent of the country’s undergraduates are currently enrolled in community colleges, according to the College Board, the higher-education research firm and test administrator. Preliminary federal data suggest that roughly 9 million undergraduates were enrolled in community colleges in the 2015–2016 school year. And with their low tuition (typically costing less than what federal Pell grants provide) and practice of letting in all applicants, community colleges serve as a pathway to the middle class for low-income and first-generation students. Further, one in three community-college students transfers to a bachelor’s-granting institution within six years
These are significant figures that, I think, make it clear that community colleges are not just a dumping ground for those not cut out for four-year schools, as Trump implies with his repeated dismissals of their mission. (It’s important to note here that, despite President Barack Obama’s support for community colleges, he was guilty of a rhetorical dismissal of the humanities (see editorial I wrote in 2009 for The Princeton Packet) that I think helped create an environment in which schools push for limited core frameworks and has found its disastrous worst-case scenario in Wisconsin’s efforts to eliminate humanities classes.)
Trump’s view of education is out of step with the contemporary world, harkening back to a moment in history when college was reserved for the well off and we viewed the vocations — the dirty, work-with-your-hands, but absolutely necessary jobs — as the only options available to the working class. Community colleges, with their open admission policies, their varied programs, are an important alternative for lower-income students, opening a pathway into education that might not otherwise exist. Until we create a truly free public college system modeled on what we do at the high school level, they are the best educational defense against worsening inequality.
It’s sad that Trump either fails to understand this, or refuses to.
*
Some additional reading: A post in defense of the humanities at my old blog home on blogger.
Don’t forget to clap!