Community College News

Community colleges across the country are growing by leaps and bounds for a variety of reasons. Some displaced workers are returning to school to gain additional training in industries that are currently hiring. High school graduates who are unable to afford tuition at a four-year university are now looking to community colleges as a viable option – at least in the short term. Finally, the focus on community colleges by President Obama has resulted in more Americans considering this option for continuing their education.

While growth at community colleges is good news for the schools and students nationwide, the additional enrollment has posed a problem for some schools that simply don’t have the space to accommodate a larger student body. The answer for some has been to look for ways to expand their campuses to allow for more classrooms and more student opportunities. We’ll take a look at a handful of the community colleges that are preparing for the expansion process this year.

Location, Location: New River Community College Looking for a Place to Expand

New River Community College is one school that is literally bursting at the seams. According to a report in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, this West Virginia school is feeling the growing pains of an expanding student body. The school is eyeing a number of locations in the community to grow the current campus they share with Mercer County Technical Education Center on Stafford Drive.

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Community colleges have traditionally adopted an all-inclusive policy when it comes to the students who want to earn an associate degree or professional certificate after high school. Unfortunately, the willingness to let all students into the programs, regardless of their high school academic records, has left many community colleges across the country with dismal completion rates, compared to many of the four-year institutions that carefully screen applicants prior to admittance. Some schools have met this problem head-on, developing remedial programs that actually work to keep college student in school until graduation. Some of the states where these schools are located recently received a financial boost from Complete College America, a non-profit organization solely committed to increasing community college completion rates nationwide.

The Problem in Texas

Texas is one of the states in the country that has struggled with getting community college students all the way to graduation. According to a report in the Texas Tribune, 48 percent of community college students in the state require some form of remedial education or additional assistance to get up to speed academically so they can handle the rigors of higher education. Nearly 38 percent of those students do not measure up in their math skills when they graduate from high school – a fact that directly impacts a student’s ability to succeed in college. To help many of these students, colleges currently offer remedial math classes to bring them up to par.

The events of 9-11 made their mark on the lives of every American, as well as others around the globe. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of 9-11, and community colleges are finding unique ways to commemorate the date. While many of the events are scheduled for campuses in the state of New York, where the World Trade Center tragedy occurred, other colleges around the country are also hosting events to remember those who lost their lives, family members, first responders, and others whose lives were changed forever on that date. We’ll take you to some of the campuses that are planning special events across the nation.

Cayuga Community College to Display Piece of World Trade Center

Cayuga Community College in New York is proud to be home to one of the few remaining pieces of the World Trade Center today, according to a report at YNN. The school will display an exhibit that includes the artifact, titled the New York Remembers Tribute. The exhibit will also showcase the role played by the college during the events of that fateful day. While emergency crews headed out in mass to save those trapped in the World Trade Center rubble, Cayuga’s NASA Center took in information from satellites on 9-11 and passed that data along to the police and firefighters working at Ground Zero. During the early hours of the tragedy, these photos were the only information workers had to use to navigate the wreckage that just hours

With an unemployment rate of over 10 percent and 34 percent of the population considered “functionally illiterate,” any employment training program that is introduced to the city of Washington, D.C., should be a welcome addition. That must have been Wal-Mart’s philosophy when it announced that the company would partner with the city to launch a three-year, $3 million pilot program to train a new workforce of 2,000 D.C. residents. There is no doubt that Wal-Mart is hoping to gain some goodwill from the city through its efforts, but there are significant benefits to the residents struggling to make ends meet in the town.

New Training at the Local Community College

The new program introduced by Wal-Mart would provide 2,000 D.C. residents with essential retail training to help them land jobs in the industry. In the past, many retail companies have gone outside the city limits – to Maryland and Virginia – to find qualified workers to staff their stores. With this new program, more qualified applicants would be found right in the community, assisting a population with high illiteracy and unemployment rates to improve the standard of living within the city.

This video describes one of Wal-Mart's many community initiatives.

According to an article in the Washington Times, the $3 million contribution by Wal-Mart would be split between the new Community College of the District of Columbia and the Community Foundation for the

Community colleges have traditionally served students of all ages and from all walks of life, unlike other postsecondary schools, which primarily cater to high school graduates. The recent Great Recession impacted enrollment at community colleges across the country, although until recently, the precise areas of that impact were not yet known. A new study has helped clarify some specifics of how the recession has impacted enrollment at community colleges nationwide.

About the Study

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center conducted this study primarily to determine how the recent recession impacted college enrollment and persistence patterns. The study looked at thousands of institutions nationwide to determine the number of first-time students under 21 who enrolled in a postsecondary institution for the fall term between 2006 and 2010. According to a report at Inside Higher Ed, this report is designed to be the first in a series of reports titled "Signature Reports" by this organization.

What the Study Found

The study "Understanding the Recession's Impact on U.S. College Enrollment and Persistence Patterns" found that a larger number of students chose community college after high school. However, the larger numbers in this area did not seem to detract from enrollment at private colleges since these schools did not suffer the losses that many expected throughout the recession.

Dr. Don Hossler, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, told Fox that some of the findings from the study were not what researchers expected to find. Dr. Hossler said,