The SATs have long been the gold standard of college admissions. Along with grades, the mythic 3-part exam has stood as the ultimate test before the applications process, the yardstick by which the caliber of every student is fairly measured. Unfortunately, the SATs seem to have outworn their usefulness, as studies scrutinizing their efficacy have revealed profound inequalities in student achievement on the test. The scores of white and Asian students are rising, while the scores of black and Latino students are dropping, and this uncomfortable truth has many people questioning what is going wrong. Some experts point to the inordinate attention paid to test-taking skills, rather than knowledge for its own sake, a manner of teaching that favors advantaged students with solid academic backgrounds. While the SAT itself may not be to blame, it has revealed problems in the underlying structure of childhood education that desperately need addressing.

Community colleges are no exception to this trend. The tried-and-true lecture method remains arguably the most effective way of teaching, but community colleges as a whole are realizing the benefits of integrating technology and relevant partnerships as a means of improving the services it offers for students.

Not only does embracing the innovations of the 21st century improve the breadth of education students receive, it prepares them for the rigors of working in today’s global economy. Training students to be technologically-fluent is a great means of helping them indirectly gaining skills to bolster their resume. Below we will look at how community colleges are embracing the 21st century changes into their programs today.

Technology

Community colleges have been fervent at integrating technologies into their programs. One of the major institutions promoting such changes is the League for Innovation in the Community College. The League is a leading organization promoting the adoption of technology in community colleges. in 1997, it founded the Transformational Learning Connections Community, which is an ongoing online community promoting learning and discussion about technology adoption. Each year, the organization holds a Conference on Information Technology, which covers a specific aspect of IT pertaining to community colleges. In addition to the broad initiatives of the League, individual school districts are also bucking to the trend of technology innovation.

Columbus State Community College has integrated an open-source video platform and online relay system in order to send streaming video of courses to its diverse student body. Given CSCC’s two campuses, nine off-campus learning centers, and over 20,000 students in its education and workforce development program, this has greatly increased the scope of the college’s operations.
In addition to its video streaming services, CSCC has also integrated its assignments and database management needs to the cloud. Using Blackboard, professors can easily distribute course materials and collect assignments quickly through the online platform.

Partnerships

Prominent four-year universities have been partnering with businesses for decades as a means of bridging the post-graduation and job-search gap for its students. Community colleges have begun to follow this trend by forming their own partnerships.

The California Community College system has a website dedicated to displaying prominent business partnerships it holds with businesses. These partnerships have been established as successful ways for students to gain work experience during their undergraduate years. Its partnerships including:

• Genencor
• Amgen
• Biogen-Idec Pharmaceuticals
• Pasedena Bioscience Collaborative
• Neumedicines
• EWD Biotechnology Initiative
• Industrial Fasteners Institute
• Workplace Learning Resource Center
• City of Palm Desert Ambulance
• Southland Motor Car Dealers Association
• Next Skills Prep
• Small Business Development Center

As you can see, the wide span of partnerships allows students coming from many backgrounds to be able to apply their interests to gain real-world experience. Corporations also gain from these partnerships through gaining a constant stream of talented and motivated students coming from community colleges.

Obviously, technology and business partnerships are not substitutes for a quality education and effective teachers. They are, however, great ways to improve upon models that work and will continue to do so as community colleges learn how to harness their advantages.

Who Qualifies Under the DREAM Act?

The DREAM act does not, like some opponents argue, grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants. In fact, the rules for who qualifies and who doesn’t are quite stringent. In order to qualify under the DREAM act for state help and college residency status, a student must:

• have entered the United States before the age of 16, and thus had no choice in their immigration;
• have been in the United States for 5 years before the Act is passed, to prevent encouraging new illegal immigrants;
• have graduated from a U.S. high school, obtained a GED, or been accepted into a U.S. College; OR intend to go into the military;
• be between the ages of 12 and 35 when applying; and,
• be of good moral character.

That last point has raised some concerns because “good moral character” is not clearly defined anywhere in the bill. Generally, it’s interpreted to mean that the applicant is law-abiding, though whether or not juvenile infractions count is still up for debate.

The Act also has implications for students still in high school. So long as the student is enrolled in school, provided they are 12 years of age or older, they will not be deported and will be eligible to apply for Conditional Permanent Residency upon completing high school or obtaining a GED. Though these rules are stringent, the Act is still a source of great hope for the children of illegal immigrants, who have rallied around it both through demonstrations and through an online presence.

Where does the DREAM Act Apply?

The federal DREAM Act has not yet passed the Senate (it passed the house of Representatives in 2010, and its proponents intend to try it again next time), though President Obama has publicly stated that he will sign it into law if it crosses his desk. But while the federal legislation is help up in debate, several states have taken matters into their own hands and passed their own versions of the DREAM Act.

The first such act came in 2001, when Texas governor Rick Perry signed a new law that allowed undocumented students access to in-state tuition, so long as they have lived in the state for three years and graduated from an accredited high school or earned a GED. Several other states followed suit, with Illinois and New York both passing their own DREAM Act-like legislation, with California adding to the pile most recently. However, these state laws cover only a fraction of the ground that the federal act promises to cover, don’t provide a channel toward citizenship, and many critics argue that they are not doing enough to protect the families of the students they serve.

Those Opposing

While the DREAM act has quite a bit of support—some polls find as much as 70% of US voters in favor of it—there is still a sizable opposition to the bill, which has prevented it from passing. Most vocal among these protestors is Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who gave 10 Reasons to Oppose DREAM Act in a 2010 article for NumberUSA. Chief among his reasons were:

1. Because the burden of proving inaccurate information is on the Department of Homeland Security, illegal aliens with criminal records could theoretically acquire temporary amnesty just by submitting an application under the DREAM Act;
2. The DREAM Act is funded by taxpayer money, which is already stretched thin when it comes to the US educational system, with some community colleges even having to end open admissions in order to meet budgetary constraints;
3. There is already legislation in place that allows undocumented workers to obtain citizenship through military service, with more rigorous standards than those proposed by the DREAM Act.

Essentially, the argument is that the DREAM Act is more expensive than its proponents are willing to admit, riddled with loopholes and will spell disaster for an already straining educational system, making it more of a Nightmare for America. Even legal immigrants have come out against it, arguing that the stringent immigration process is in place for a reason, and loosening the standards in the ways proposed by the DREAM Act will only be a detriment to the United States in general.

Those in Favor

Proponents of the act wave these concerns aside, however, claimed that they are unfounded and based on fear and misinformation. The broad appeal of the act is demonstrated in the variety of supporters its drawn, from both sides of the party line and from all aspects of US culture, including the military, business and religious leaders, and educational experts. The most common criticism of the DREAM Act—that it will place undue financial strain on an already failing education system—is answered with the argument that granting illegal immigrants a channel to live and work in the US legally is actually a return on investments, considering that these students are already educated by public K-12 systems in the US. Instead of becoming undocumented workers or taking their educations to other countries where their expertise would be welcomed, those students could stay in the US and contribute to fixing our own economy.

In fact, much of the opposition to the DREAM Act is inspired by misinformation and fear, as explained in this column from the Washington Times. Each argument generally used by DREAM Act opponents is countered here, with highlights including:

1. The DREAM Act would not allow amnesty for criminals. In actuality, DREAM Act applicants would be subject to rigorous background checks before receiving applicant status. In fact, the DREAM Act does not grant amnesty at all—it only provides the opportunity to apply for citizenship. Applicants would still have to jump through all the same hoops as before.
2. The DREAM Act will actually strengthen the military, as the number of new applicants would be a huge boon to our numbers. Military officials are in support of the act.
3. The DREAM Act will not push US citizens out of jobs or educational opportunities, or take away their funding. There is plenty of room in the system for both, and the US economy can use as many college-educated graduates as it can muster.

While the bill did not pass Congress in 2010, it will undoubtedly be on the table again as soon as proponents can conceivably get it there. It will be interesting to see how the debate plays out, especially with the promised economic changes over the next few years. The DREAM Act is definitely an issue to watch.

*Photo courtesy of wiki commons.

About the Council

The Council for Opportunity in Education is a non-profit organization, founded in 1981 in order to create more educational opportunities for low-income, first-generation or disabled students across America. It exists on the campuses of over 1000 colleges, and helps more than one million students a year through college access and retention services. The stated mission of the Council is “to advance and defend the ideal of equal educational opportunity in postsecondary [sic] education. As such, the focus of the Council is assuring that the least advantaged segments of the population have a realistic chance to enter and graduate from a postsecondary [sic] institution.” They also offer assistance to veterans and students who dropped out of university or high school.

Two-thirds of the students served by the council are from families with an annual income of less than $35,000, as mandated by Congress. Additionally, those same two-thirds come from families where neither parent went to college, making the student the first in their family to receive higher education. And the program isn’t just for college students—it also serves students in 6-12^th grade, helping them get onto and stay on the college track.

TRIO

Most of the Council’s work is done through its TRIO programs—federally funded programs that aim to help fund and motivate disadvantaged students, from 6^th grade up through university. There are more than 2,800 programs nationally, providing academic tutoring, mentoring, counseling and financial guidance—anything to help students succeed in their academic environment. Some of the key programs are:

• Educational Opportunity Centers – With 124 centers helping 195,000 students across the United States, this is the most wide-ranging of the Council’s programs. The centers are mostly dedicated to helping students navigate the sometimes tricky and treacherous waters of higher education, advising them on their college choices and steering them toward the financial aid program they are likely to benefit the most from.
• Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement program – For students who want to become college teachers or attend doctoral programs, this program provides mentors and research opportunities. With 201 currently active projects, this program has an exceptionally high impact, with 91% of its enrolled students pursuing doctoral studies into the second year.
• Talent Search – For students in grades 6-12, Talent Search is the program to turn to for help with college admission requirements, finding scholarships and applying for financial aid. Because it intervenes early, this program has had great success helping more than 363,000 students better understand their educational opportunities, with 79% of participants admitted to post-secondary institutions.
• Upward Bound – When advice and funding isn’t enough, this program steps in to fill in the gaps for college-aspiring students who don’t have the necessary educational background. Upward Bound offers remedial classes in literature, math, science and many other subjects after school, on weekends and during the summer. By giving students access to the training they missed, this program allowed 93% of its participants (who stayed with it through graduation) to get accepted at colleges across the nation.

Conferences & Seminars

But the TRIO programs are just how the council interacts with students. It also offers annual conferences, workshops and seminars for educators and program administrators, to help keep TRIO running smoothly and ensure that everyone participating is up-to-date on the information they need to continue to help students. Attendees are welcomed to share their experiences with other attendees, giving presentations and outlining techniques they’ve found effective. There are also opportunities to gain more funding for your branch of TRIO program, and access to upper-management advice about how to improve your organization.

The Council also offers an annual Student Leadership Congress. Attendees are Upward Bound and Talent Search participants, nominated by program directors and staff. The attendees must be prepared for an intensive program—it’s not for the faint of heart—designed to develop leadership skills and help students further develop the programs they represent.

On a smaller scale, the council also offers professional training classes, both through in-person workshops and via online “webinars,” which allow participants to stay home and still get the necessary training.

If you’re worried that financial strain or a learning disability will limit your educational opportunities, look no further than the council for opportunity in education. Just locate one of their thousands of campus locations, and you’ll be well on your way to a post-secondary education.

*Photo courtesy of wiki commons.

Historically, transferring from a community college was a laborious effort. Many times, strict rules hinder transfer students from graduating in a timely four years because of messy transfer requirements. For example, Josie Showers, a University of Louisville transfer, could not graduate on time because the University required all students to take a mandatory pre-algebra class, despite the fact that Josie has completed much more advanced math classes.

A common misconception is that community college students tend to be underachieving students who would have nothing to contribute to four-year universities. On the contrary, many community college students have adequate training to succeed in their respective focuses. Furthermore, community college transfers provide a unique socioeconomic demographic which traditional programs tend to neglect.

College Transfer Initiatives

The Community College Transfer Initiative is funded by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, a private foundation designed to help students reach their potential in education. So far, the initiative has invested $6.8 million in several four-year programs to improve the transfer process from community colleges. Currently, the initiative has funded the following universities:

• Amherst College
• Bucknell University
• Cornell University
• Mount Holyoke College
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• University of Southern California

This initiative marks a stark contrast from other programs in the sense that it promotes transfer programs to elite universities around the US. Currently, only about 6% of all transfer students make it to such universities. Thanks to initiatives such as the CCTI, however, elite universities are reaching out to transfer students as a means of diversifying the campus.

New Jersey is looking to reform how the state regulates transfer credits. In 2007, legislation was signed to make transferring credits an easier process. According to the legislation, universities in New Jersey must allow for associates degrees to be fully transferable given a student is accepted into the program. According to David Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, this legislation is a big shift in New Jersey’s education system due to “a lot of resistance on the part of senior institutions”.

The state of Michigan has a similar legislation which facilitates the easy transfer of community college credit to four-year institutions. The Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars & Admission Officers (MACRAO) transfer agreement provides a statewide template for transfer requirements. For example, the requirements include 30 semester hours covering English Composition, Science and Math, Social Science, and Humanities.

What You Can Do

Given the many initiatives and greater attention given to improving the transferring process between community colleges and traditional universities, there are several ways for you to improve your chances of seamlessly transferring to the university of your choice. Here are some resources to get you started:

• 10 Tips for Transferring from Community College
• Advice for California Community College Transfer Students
• Improving Student Transfer from Community Colleges to Four-Year Institutions (PDF)
• Community College Transfer

Although budget cuts to prominent four-year universities receive the most media attention, community colleges as a whole have also realized a significant cut to their budgets. Reducing budgets to educational institutions which are primarily known for providing skills for budget-weary students forces community colleges to increase tuition rates. Furthermore, budget cuts at four-year universities forces many students to opt for two-year programs, further driving up the demand for limited community college space. This article will look at how community colleges and students have been affected by the budget cuts to the education sector.

Not so Cheap Anymore

One of the most obvious changes affecting colleges and students is the rising cost of education. With colleges receiving less funding from state revenues every year, community colleges have had to pick up the slack through increasing tuition and/or per-unit rates. Many community colleges are reeling from the budget cuts, and below are just a few examples of a nationwide trend:

The Community College of Beaver County will lose about $500,000 (10%) in state funding in 2011 as a result of new budget legislation. Translating to a reduction of 2.5% of the college’s operating budget, the college is considering cutting courses starting Fall 2012. Furthermore, trustees have approved a $2.50 increase per credit hour and $3.00 increase for the technology.

In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick is expected to announce a shift in the way the state allocates its grants to the education sector. Instead of funding programs by number of students enrolled, the state will be looking into funding programs which show initiatives to improve graduation rates and boost academic performances.

Community colleges in California are experiencing district-wide budget cuts. For the 2011-2012 school year, California community colleges will take a $400 million budget cut for all schools in the system. This has caused schools to raise credit hours by $10/hour, about a 25% increase in tuition rates.

Tight Spaces

In addition to increasing tuition prices, community colleges have also been scrounging up scarce facility space and faculty time to account for the increasing number of students. In California, Ventura College, Moorpark College, and Oxnard College are all being bogged down with higher enrollment rates. At Moorpark, students were forced to wait in line for parking permits in order to be able to get to class. Ventura County Community College administrators reported that they were forced to turn away college-ready students due to high application rates.

Solutions?

Luckily, community colleges are adapting to the budget changes. California State Universities have been working with community colleges in the state to improve the transfer process between the two institutions. By streamlining the transfer process, education chancellors project potential savings of about $160 million a year.
The State of Missouri has turned to private means of funding parts of its community college systems. Realizing that community colleges developed many capable employees for AT&T’s operations in the region, the telecommunications company announced a $130,000 fund which will support 13 community colleges around the state.

Finally, Nevada community colleges are considering requiring high school diplomas (or equivalent) for all students entering community colleges. Although this is in direct response to higher enrollment in light of lower state funding, the shift could cause several positive changes in the school district. Students without high school degrees will be catered to based on their level of education, while community college graduation rates will increase since students will be more qualified for their positions.

About the Award

The eventual winner of this award will receive $700,000 in prize money, which is a huge windfall for a community college given the current budget crisis. Runners-up also receive prizes, with the total prize money adding up to $1 million. Given the size of the potential winnings, it’s probably no surprise that the selection process is quite lengthy and rigorous. It’s broken into three rounds, which work as follows:

Round One

Only 120 Community Colleges made the eligibility list in the first round, which was released in April, 2011. Eligibility was determined based on three basic criteria:

1. School performance: student scores and graduation rates were the primary factors here. Essentially, this point is looking for schools that have low drop-out rates because they encourage their students to finish and get a degree or certificate.
2. Improvement: the award is intended to help schools improve even further, so colleges that show stagnation don’t qualify. In this case, excellence means always looking for ways to be better.
3. Equity: colleges that only accept and serve middle or upper-class students tend to have better test scores and graduation rates, but that practice could be conceived as discrimination. To encourage schools to reach out to impoverished and disadvantaged students, the Aspen Prize requires that colleges have high completion rates for poor, minority or learning-disabled students.

The 120 eligible colleges were measured against this criteria in the first round by the Data and Metrics Advisory Panel, which worked with the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems to sort through the 1,030 candidates. Data on the schools was collected from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the Census Bureau. The three above categories were weighted equally, though scores were adjusted for schools with a disproportionate number of minority or part-time students in order to avoid punishing them for reaching out to disadvantaged student populations. Additionally, the number of selected schools in each state was limited to half of the schools existing within that state, so that no one location would be disproportionally represented.

Round Two

Currently, the selection process is in the second round, during which the Finalist Selection Committee (made up of education researchers, policy experts, and former community college presidents and faculty) will narrow the 120 eligible schools down to only 8-10 finalists. Their decision will be announced in September 2011, and it will be based on the following criteria:

1. Completion Outcomes: Ensuring that students are encouraged in a direction that will earn them useful qualifications, such as an associate’s degree, relevant certificate or transfer to a four-year college.
2. Labor-Market Outcomes: Ensuring that the college not only provides certifications that improve the student’s chances of employment, but also keeps track of graduate employment rates and uses that data to improve future outcomes.
3. Learning Outcomes: Ensuring that the university actively seeks out new and better ways to educate its students, based on student census data and assessments.

The 120 selected colleges are not automatically entered for consideration in this round. They have to apply to be included, which can be done online. This is the first part of the process that colleges have participated in directly, as the first round was done entirely with data provided by other sources.

Round Three

In the last round, the 8-10 finalist colleges will be scrutinized the hardest. This section is based entirely on qualitative data, which will be collected when researchers from the RP Group visit each campus and evaluate them on site. Data will be collected through student, faculty, administrator and community partner interviews, then recorded on a rubric. All of the information will then be submitted to the Prize Jury, made up of former elected officials and other business and educational leaders, who will select the winner and the three runners-up. The winners will be announced in December 2011.

Criticism

Though the Aspen Prize has support from the U.S. government, there has also been quite a bit of criticism from the peanut gallery as the process moves forward. Inside Higher Ed, one of the premier online news sources for higher education, asked the question: Whose Top 10%?, arguing that “the selection process unfairly attempts to rank and compare community colleges using data systems that are inadequate to the task.” The argument mostly focuses on the quantitative measures of “learning outcomes” and “labor-market outcomes,” neither of which are areas that have been successfully measured in the past, mostly due to the difficulty of defining success in either category.

Community College Spotlight also chimed in, pointing out that while recognizing college excellence is a noble goal, ranking schools ultimately only causes problems among those who don’t get recognition. Similar debates have always arisen around college rankings, such as the controversy around Washington Monthly’s Top 50 list, first created back in 2007 and re-released in 2010.

Obsession with Four-Year Schools

Pressure to attend college in the United States has lead to a population where “some college” is seen as an academic failure. Popular culture has ingrained the idea of attending a 4-year college into the national psyche, and now it’s traditional institutions or bust. However, this system isn’t just flawed—it’s completely unrealistic. Not only are 4-year schools more expensive than 2-year schools, making attendance nothing short of a distant fantasy for low-income families, but even if everybody could afford skyrocketing tuition rates, the system isn’t designed to handle that volume of students. Everybody can’t go to a prestigious university—there simply isn’t room. Additionally, not everybody is qualified for four-year schools, and the pressure to go has resulted in higher college drop-out rates than the US has seen in a long time.

But as it turns out, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While traditionally bachelor’s degrees have been viewed as a ticket to job security and higher starting salaries, the truth is that associates degrees are just as good in many fields, and students are far more likely to complete them. The problem, then, isn’t with the students and their ability to be successful, but rather with the perception of what it takes to be successful in today’s world.

And while it’s true that having a bachelor’s degree leads to higher average salaries than an associate’s degree, some of the other statistics are surprising. For example, the increased cost of attending a four-year college, particularly prestigious, private institutions, nearly outweighs the salary increase, resulting in lower returns on investment than for students attending two-year universities. Not to mention the starting salaries, which leads us to….

Starting Salaries

If you went into debt trying to pay for a four-year school, you probably comfort yourself with the assurance that a bachelor’s degree will earn you a higher salary after college. However, it might be time to re-think that idea, because as it turns out Those Community College Graduates Have Higher Starting Salaries Than You. The reason for this is simple: they have applicable skills. Because community colleges and technical schools are essentially vocational institutions, the skills they focus on teaching grads are more immediately applicable than the skills learned at four-year schools. While philosophy majors from Harvard are struggling to figure out what they’re actually qualified for, community college graduates are having a relatively easy time slotting into jobs as mechanics, assistant medical practitioners, dental hygienists, and many other in-demand positions that pay well. Because community colleges focus on applicable skills, graduates are more prepared to enter the work force than those graduating from four-year schools.

Even among elite schools, the numbers are surprising. While prestigious schools like Harvey Mudd and Princeton have high mid-career salaries, a degree from one of these institutions guarantees nothing. Some graduates of these universities make less than students attending community colleges in the same area. It just goes to show that elite colleges don’t produce the best-paid graduates.

Job Prospects

In terms of raw job availability, community colleges have an even bigger advantage over four-year-college graduates. Because bachelor’s degree recipients are largely interested in white-collar jobs, which are the positions that disappear first when faced with economic decline, those with associate’s degrees are having far better luck finding employment that is both to their liking and pays well. In fact, the job market is looking so good for associate’s degree holders, Lansing Community College in Lansing, Michigan offered to give tuition money back if grads don’t get jobs, full-time, within the state, within a year of graduation.

The fact is, there are tons of good jobs out there for two-year college grads, lots of them higher-paying than those four-year grads can get. Here are just four of them:

1. Radiological Technician: For those without the time or means to go to medical school who still want to work in healthcare, this is a great career track to follow. A two-year associate’s degree is usually all you need to get your foot in the door, after which point doctor’s offices or hospitals will put you into a training program so that you can learn to handle the sophisticated equipment you’ll be using. On average, radiology technicians earn $50,000/year.
2. Electrician: There’s a lot of book work involved in becoming an electrician, as you have to learn quite a bit of both physics and math, as well as understand your city’s electrical codes, but a two-year degree is usually enough. And once you’re qualified, you can work just about anywhere—private homes, industrial buildings and commercial enterprises all need electricity just to function. This is a job that’s never going to go out of work, and median annual salary sits at a comfortable $45,000/year.
3. Plumber: If you’re worried about job security, this is a great field to get into. Plumbers don’t just clean drains—they are responsible for installing and maintaining a variety of different pipe systems in just about every type of building, including nuclear power plants, which means they will always be in demand. While a two-year associates doesn’t qualify you to be a plumber, the additional years you’ll have to spend as an apprentice typically fall under union contracts, so you’ll be paid during those years rather than having to pay. And your salary? You can expect around $45,000/year.
4. Mechanic: It may be a stereotype, but it’s hung around for a reason. Mechanics make, on average, $35,000/year, and they get to spend their time working on fancy cars, which lots of people like to do for free. Additionally, the training it takes to be a mechanic can take as little as six months to a year, although it’s more normal to spend two years alternating between school and hands-on training.

So if you were worried that attending a two-year school would hurt your chances of a bright future, you can relax. The people who went to prestigious four-years are the ones who should be anxious.

Mission Statement

The AAWCC is not shy about their mission statement—it’s plastered across the top of every page on their website: “the American Association for Women in Community Colleges is dedicated to changing women’s lives through leadership and education, thus strengthening our colleges and communities.” Their goal is to train women to be leaders in their communities, and to promote advocacy and affirmative action. By making sure that women get the necessary education, and know how to stand up for themselves both in the workplace and on a federal level.

History

The AAWCC got its start in 1973, with a EPDA-funded workshop called “Woman: Her Challenge to the Community College.” The workshop was directed by Eileen Rossi (Community College of San Francisco) and Jan Brandstrom (Lane Community College, Oregon), and held at the City College of San Francisco, CA. For four weeks, women from Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona attended the workshop from 9 AM to 9 PM, and the things they learned were so valuable that they couldn’t let it go.

When the workshop ended, the women banded together and formed the American Association of Women in Community and Junior Colleges: Western Division, which became a council of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC, the largest community college association in the United States; it’s now called the Association for American Community Colleges, or AACC). The process of becoming a council required national participation, so letters went out to women all across the nation, resulting in 200 new members from 21 states.

Eileen Rossi served as the association’s chairwoman and its representative on the AACJC board until 1977, at which point association leadership was put to a vote and has remained democratic ever since. For the first few years, the AAWCC focused on creating fairly priced material that women could use in presentations and lectures, to educate community college women about the value of their education and how to be a leader in their communities. As the organization became more financially stable, they turned toward helping women on a larger level, creating advocacy groups and organizing job lists to help woman graduates find employment. It now even extends into Canada, though the headquarters is based in Greeley, Colorado.

Chapters

Because the AAWCC is a national organization, it is quite expansive, and does most of its work on a regional level. There are ten different regions in the AAWCC, as follows:

1. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, directed by Sarah Bedingfield
2. New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico, directed by Linda Martin
3. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C., directed by Dr. Deborah C. Fontaine
4. Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, directed by Dr. Margaret Venable
5. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, directed by Gladys Hardnick-Bouyer
6. Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
7. Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, directed by Dr. Elizabeth Lindquist
8. Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Colorado, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Canada), directed by Carol Hoglund
9. California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii, directed by Dr. Sarah Perkins
10. Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia and Yukon, Canada, directed by Julie Huckestein

The regions are further broken down into chapters, which reside at specific colleges. Because chapters are local, they’re a great way for AAWCC members to participate and gain education without having to commit to working on a national level. Most chapters have their own events and services separate from the national organization, though they share the same mission and goals.

Services

The AAWCC provides a number of resources and services designed to help empower women and get them where they want to go. Probably the most important service offered comes in the form of scholarships. AAWCC scholarships exist on both the national and regional levels, and the monetary amount varies. On the national level, they offer the National Regional Scholarship (one for each region), the Leaders Program Scholarship (for one participant in the Leaders program) and the AAWCC Doctoral Scholarship (awarded to two participating graduate students). You have to apply well in advance for these scholarships, so take a look at the form and be sure to get your things together in time if you think you qualify.

Events

The biggest event in the AAWCC repertoire is the annual awards, which are granted each year to the women who have done the most work to support the association and its cause. The award everyone is gunning for is called the “Woman of the Year Award,” which was instated in honor of Mildred Bulpitt—a woman who also won “Woman of the Decade.” In order to qualify for the award, recipients must be instrumental in improving the world of two-year colleges for women, and considered a role model for women across the nation. In 2011, the award went to Dr. Sandra L. Kurtinitis, President of the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland.

Other awards include the Carolun Desjardins CEO Award to Outstanding Service and Support to AAWCC, the AAWCC Program Award, and the AAWCC Chapter Award, which goes to a specific chapter of the AAWCC that has stood out in excellence during the year. Another regular event is the LEADERS Institute workshop, which occurs annually and helps women explore their roles as leaders in the educational community.

If you’re a woman interested in helping your community college, the AAWCC is a great place to start. Look for your local chapter, or maybe even start one yourself, and you’ll be well on your way to making higher education better for yourself and for other women.

The History

In the 1950s, the United States went through a period during which everyone was pushing for equal education, citing the American ideals of equality and fairness for all. College enrollments skyrocketed, with nearly 60% of high school graduates going on to colleges. However, the new-found equality raised questions about the purpose of college, and who was qualified to enter it. People began to worry that colleges would be overwhelmed with the “wrong” sort of student, which would prevent more qualified students from getting the education they needed.

As a result of this attitude, schools like the City University of New York (CUNY) began to exclude students with poor grades, at one point limiting their student population to those who did better than 85% of their classmates. The economic gap between college students and those who went straight into the work force was the most telling factor, but it manifested as a racial separation, with only 2% of students at CUNY who weren’t white in 1962.

But after race riots in Harlem in 1968, during which discontent inner-city students burned an auditorium at CUNY’s Harlem campus, the unassuming Chancellor Albert Bowker took over CUNY and broke down the barriers. He started the “College Discovery” program, which helped prepare disadvantaged kids for college while paying them to attend classes, and eventually threw open the college’s doors to anyone with a high school diploma or a GED in 1970. The response was overwhelming—CUNY had to rent extra spaces for classes, teachers had to share desks and some students had to study in phone booths, as the libraries were full-up.

The move was met with much criticism, particularly from those who had already been burned by the high school system, which actively pushed minority students away from college-track classes. Ultimately, it stood the test of time and open admissions became the standard for community colleges across the nation.

Getting Rid of It

But with the rising price of tuition at four-year schools, more and more students are turning to community colleges, which is putting the system under quite a lot of strain. All across the country, community colleges are over capacity and struggling to stretch their budgets to accommodate everyone, and there are more budget cuts on the horizon. Cut-backs in federal education grants alone are limiting low-income student opportunities, but the real threat is coming from the universities themselves: they may have to close their doors to meet budgetary constraints.

In California in 2010, 140,000 students were turned away from community colleges over the course of the academic year, with thousands more wait-listed and unsure of their educational outcome. Even enrolled students are struggling to get classes, with some camping out overnight in order to sign up for summer classes early in the morning. And it probably comes as no surprise, considering that the state budget for community colleges was cut by 8%, resulting in 200,000 students with no funding from the state at all.

The same is happening in New York, where LaGuardia community college had to close applications for the 2010 school year at the end of July, leaving thousands of students planning to apply in August out of luck. Record enrollment rates are simply too much for community college systems to handle, and the only answer is to close doors that previously stayed open for all—or else risk losing funding altogether, which some states are threatening.

Keeping It

Unfortunately, ending open admission policies at community college is a step backward in our struggles as a nation toward equality. While it’s true that community colleges can’t handle the sheer volume of students trying to enroll, closing the doors means denying many inner-city and low-income kids the opportunity to elevate themselves in our society. Most ethnic minorities in community college, especially those taking remedial classes, aren’t there because they aren’t “college material,” as some might argue, but rather because their high schools didn’t push them toward challenging material. If we don’t Respect the Community College Equity Agenda, higher education could quickly re-segregate the way it has in the past, only the “deciding” factor would be college readiness rather than actual ethnicity.

Even highly motivated and smart low-income students are taking the brunt of grant cuts, as described in this Start Tribune (New York, NY) article: Aid cuts may close door to college. With funding for community college grants and scholarships getting lower every day, even those inner city kids who are “college ready” aren’t guaranteed a place for purely financial reasons. This is part of the reason ethnic minorities have lower graduation rates than their more affluent, generally white counterparts: they can’t afford to keep attending. Having an educated population benefits our country in a number of ways, but cutting grants for community colleges works against that. Funding for higher education ought to be a priority—not one of the first budgets to get cut, as seems to be the case.

A Solution?

There isn’t an easy answer to the problem of over-enrollment at community colleges. While putting a time-limit on enrollment might work now, soon students are going to figure it out and apply early, and then colleges may have to start being more selective. Open-door policies at community colleges were instrumental in leading this country out of segregation, and closing those doors might very well send us right back in. But as long as the economy stays the way it is, and the budget crisis keeps looming, higher education is going to keep losing support. That means fewer educated people entering the work force, which in turn has a negative impact on our economy; it’s a chicken-and-egg sort of conundrum.

Fortunately, all is not lost yet, and many community colleges still have their doors open. Check out this list of Colleges that offer Open Admissions to see if there are any in your area.

*Photo by Richard Croft, courtesy of wiki commons