Community College News

Community college enrollment is gaining steam across the country, thanks in part to the current administration's focus on these educational institutions. However, some community colleges are growing faster than others due to the programs they offer and other significant factors. We will look at some of the hotbeds of community college enrollment growth and the key factors impacting the sudden popularity of these institutions.

Reasons for Growth

There are many reasons why community college enrollment continues to grow at an astronomical pace around the country. According to a report in Community College Week, the biggest reason for the growth is the Great Recession of 2007, which put many adults in this country out of work and sent them back to school to get training in a more lucrative profession. It is no secret that an economic slowdown can increase college enrollment. However, the current economic conditions, due to the degree and longevity of the problems, have strained community colleges past the point of being able to adequately serve all the students coming to them for an education.

The Obama Administration has also played a role in the increase in community college student bodies. President Obama has called on this country to produce another five million college graduates by 2020 in response to news that the United States has fallen to 10^th among industrialized nations in terms of educational attainment. Colleges have been scrambling to answer the call as federal funding has come

Social media and social mores have once again collided in a Midwestern controversy involving a community college and four of its nursing students. A lawsuit was filed in Kansas last week by one of the nursing students, Doyle Byrnes, charging that Johnson County Community College dismissed her without due process after she posted photographs of herself with a human placenta on her Facebook page. The college said the students behaved unprofessionally, and the school's decision to dismiss them as appropriate under the circumstances. We will take a look at both sides of the controversy in this article.

How it Happened

According to a report on Inside Higher Ed, the nursing students from the college took a trip to nearby Olathe Medical Center in November. The purpose of the trip was to learn about the functions of the placenta, the organ that supplies life-sustaining nutrients to a growing fetus inside the womb. The medical center provided a donated human placenta as an example for the lesson.

During the lesson, Byrnes and three of her classmates asked the community college instructor, Amber Delphia, if they could take photographs of the placenta in question. According to a report at the Courthouse News Service, Byrnes also told Delphia she intended to post the photographs on Facebook. Byrnes said that Delphia allowed them to take the pictures, after ensuring no indentifying information about the patient would be included in the photos. When Byrnes told her about the Facebook intentions,

Community colleges have seen a significant rise in enrollment since the economic slowdown began, due in part to the need for retraining into careers that are more lucrative and recession-proof. As waiting lists for community colleges across the country continue to grow, some students are turning to vocational, for-profit colleges to meet their academic needs in the interim. Unfortunately, certain rather unscrupulous practices by these for-profit institutions have resulted in federal regulations that will negatively affect the community college environment as well.

What is the Gainful Employment Rule?

While community colleges offer associate's degrees in a wide range of subjects, they also provide specific job training in particular fields that takes less time to complete. For-profit institutions also offer these training programs to help students get through school and into the workforce as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, some of these training programs do not offer the necessary preparation in fields that are demanding new hires, leaving students without gainful employment and additional debt from their schooling that they cannot pay.

To address this concern, the Federal Department of Education has put forth a rule known as the Gainful Employment Rule. This regulation will discourage career colleges from providing misleading information about the employment prospects students can expect after completing their training. The rule targets predatory career colleges that purposely provide inaccurate industry information and encourage students to take out loans for career training that has little chance of producing a lucrative job –

Last year, President Obama announced his ambitious plan to graduate five million more students from community colleges by 2020. According to a report at WhiteHouse.gov, the President believes this goal is necessary to ensure the United States can continue to be a leader in the global economy. However, boosting graduation rates at community colleges nationwide may be easier said than done. To facilitate the process, California has developed a list of recommendations to increase graduation rates in that state, which could serve as a model for other states.

Room for Improvement

According to a Southern California Public Radio report, there is plenty of room for improvement in California community colleges today. A study by California State University, Sacramento, found that seven of every ten students do not complete a two-year degree or transfer to a four-year institution. Long Beach City College President Eloy Ortiz Oakley told the radio station, "We need to improve the education of our workforce rapidly, and community colleges are the gateway to the majority of that workforce in California."

This video explains how one community college uses data to increase graduation rates.

Finding Solutions

To help achieve that end, the Community College League of California has issued recommendations for community colleges to follow. The "Commission on the Future's 2020 Vision for Student Success" report outlines 17 recommendations designed

Recently, a debate has been raging in higher education after for-profit colleges launched attacks on community colleges. In the wake of the first and much anticipated White House Summit on Community Colleges, criticism has been circulating about the "unsavory recruitment practices" of these institutions, according to a report on Inside Higher Ed. Community colleges have also been accused of providing less-than-stellar academic quality, course availability, and individual attention to students. Now, community colleges are fighting against accusations, with a new study designed to highlight the differences between these institutions and their for-profit counterparts.

This video looks at the pros and cons of attending a community college.

Just How Similar?

The American Association of Community Colleges recently released a brief titled "Just How Similar? Community Colleges and the For-Profit Sector." The study focuses on the fundamental differences between community and for-profit colleges that make it difficult to compare the two types of institutions according to the recently used criteria. According to a press release on PR Newswire, while the post-secondary institutions may offer several standard programs, that tends to be where the similarities end. These institutions serve a widely different population, resulting in different outcomes and success rates.

Some of the differences noted in this study include:

• A higher ratio of minority students at community colleges. More than half of all Hispanic students and 40% of Black, Native American, and Alaskan Native