Diverse Issues in Higher Education
February 6, 2013
By Cherise Lesesne
Although the economy has slowly begun to piece itself back together,
several new college graduates and incoming college students still have found
themselves at a disadvantage in finding employment while holding liberal arts
degrees, and thus, have continued to incorporate graduate school as a
stepping-stone to either enter or elevate their career pursuits. Yet, instead
of opting for admissions into some of the nation’s most prestigious and
respected four-year institutions, many students have chosen community colleges
in order to market themselves as competitive and qualified job candidates.
Traditionally attributed with their prevalent role in accommodating
minorities and students from lower-income households, community colleges have
become esteemed higher education programs within the last five years, servicing
students from various backgrounds. With the community-oriented design of the
two-year colleges, particularly in their tailored curriculum to accommodate the
high demands of STEM careers, such institutions are reinventing themselves as
the leaders of technological education.
“A lot of the STEM fields are occupationally defined programs that lead
directly to employment. With many of our two-year associate programs, students
enter our colleges and immediately begin studying in the field that they plan
to work in,” said Chris Mullins, program director for policy analysis with the
American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
The customized studies that students encountered at community colleges
has attributed largely to the surge of post-graduate students that the two-year
institutions have begun to withhold. According to the National Post Secondary
Student Aid Study (NPSAS), 8 percent of students entering community college
already completed some form of higher education, whether they received a
bachelor’s, master’s or sometimes even a doctoral degree. In the study, NSPAS
estimated that approximately 849,000 students received associate degrees during
the 2009-2010 academic year, which is a 50.4 percent increase from the last 10
years. Among the rising numbers of associate degrees awarded, there was a 105
percent increase in STEM-related fields during the same academic period.
Mullins explained that a large majority of students seeking advanced
training in STEM careers have found community colleges advantageous, especially
in the networks that they have gained from the school’s direct links to local
employers. “By having connections within local industries, it helps to make
sure our programs are in line with employer expectations, especially since
education is a large part of employment,” Mullins said.
Not only have community colleges been strategic for career placement in
STEM fields, but the economical advantage of the associate degree programs in
comparison to the baccalaureate programs have reverberated as strong selling
points for many students. The low costs of community colleges, averaging around
$3,000, compared to the $7,000 admission cost of four-institutions, have allowed
many students from low-income and middle-class families the opportunity to
partake in higher education in STEM fields, according to data from NSPAS. In
addition to saving on tuition fees, students in STEM fields with an associate
degree received similar salaries to those with a bachelor’s degree. The Bureau
of Labor and Statistics estimated that an entry-level aerospace engineer
holding an associate degree was liable to make an average income of $58,000 in
2010, which in some cases ranked well over the entry-level salaries of
graduates holding a bachelor’s degree.
As community colleges have assuaged the financial barriers for students
interested in pursuing STEM careers by offering lower tuition rates and higher
salaries, the institutions have created a strong incentive for students to
study STEM subject areas. As a result, the institutions have contributed to the
nation’s interest of creating a competitive technical education and workforce.
Celeste Carter, lead program director for the National Science Foundation
(NSF), explained that the nationwide initiative of higher education in creating
a globally competitive education system relies heavily on creating easier and
more accessible pathways into STEM fields. For this particular reason, both the
NSF and the AACC have joined forces to develop technological programs that
cater to community colleges. Their main program, entitled Advanced
Technological Education, is a congressionally mandated program that looks
specifically at community colleges to create partnerships between scientific
and technologically based companies and institutions.
“The idea being that to remain globally competitive, the United States
needs a qualified group of candidates entering the technical workforce. ATE
(Advanced Technological Education) is about technician education; it has to be
done in partnership with industries,” Carter said.
In regard to the education program, Carter elaborated, “It provided
students with programs that have been developed, almost all the time, a
collaboration with the scientific industry so that students graduating either
with an associate degree, or oftentimes just a certificate, have a real pathway
into these technical fields.”
According to Carter, many community colleges tend to hire industry
experts to teach as adjunct professors. As a result, the education that
students at such institutions receive is reflective of the authentic demands in
rigorous STEM fields.
“The main mission of community colleges has always been centered around
teaching, particularly teaching students what job skills are needed within
their communities. So, having these industry experts provides students with a
window into the industry, while also allowing those already employed students
to refresh their skills within the industry” Carter noted.
While community colleges, because of their economical benefits and
industry-specific curriculum, have acquired the responsibility of operating as
leading institutions for technological education, these schools also face
several challenges in serving STEM education. Historically, the two-year
institutions have always been underfunded, and thus, have been unable to
adequately support the enrollment growth that they tend to encourage. According
to Walter G. Bumphus, president and CEO of AACC, the financial disposition of
many of the institutions has inhibited the developmental education of community
colleges as dysfunctional. Bumphus said, “Degree and certificate completion
rates are too low and that attainment gaps across groups of students are
unacceptably wide.”
Bumphus further explained, “[Community college leaders] know that
student and academic support services often are inadequate. They know that student
career planning is too often uninformed and that the gap between the skills
needed locally and the training offered on campus is often uncomfortably
large.”
As a result, Bumphus recommended that community colleges focus on three
areas in order to progressively move forward as leading technological
institutions. First, community colleges should redesign the student’s
educational experience. This can be accomplished by “increasing completion
rates of students earning community college credentials [certificates and
associate degrees] by 50 percent by 2020, while preserving access, enhancing
quality and eradicating attainment gaps associated with income, race, ethnicity
and gender,” noted Bumphus.
Secondly, Bumphus recommended that the institutional role should be
reinvented by increasing college readiness and implementing preparatory
technological education programs at younger education levels. His third and
final recommendation for community colleges was to completely reset the system
level of the institutions. Community colleges should begin to target public and
private investors as a mechanism to increase financial support, which is a
common practice among the administration of four-year institutions. In
resurfacing and almost erasing the faulty system of two-year institutions,
administration can begin to evaluate the deficiencies and continue to create
effective policies for a school that prepares students for jobs with
family-supporting wages.
Bumphus predicts that by recognizing the challenges, and also the
opportunity at stake in creating a more globally competitive technical
education system and economic system, community colleges can reclaim its role
as an effective institution serving the local population.
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