Why Community College

After faithfully serving our country, members of the armed forces may contemplate their next career move. If you are considering attending a community college to further your training and education, you are in store for good financial news! There are a variety of programs and scholarships specifically designed to help fund veterans pursuing higher education.

Federal Funding for Veterans

Before you enroll in a community college, it is important to verify that the campus qualifies for veterans assistance. For example, Kennebec Valley Community College in Maine has received approval from the Maine State Approving Agency for Veterans Educations Programs, which qualifies their veteran students to receive aid under the GI Bill. You can always contact the financial aid office at the community college you are considering to verify that they are eligible for funding from the GI Bill.

The federal government provides many funding opportunities for veterans looking to further their education. Some of the programs include the Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty, the Montgomery GI Bill – Selected Reserve, as well as the Reserve Education Assistance Program. However, depending upon your eligibility, the Post 9/11 GI Bill may be the best option. To compare which program would be ideal for you, utilize the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Benefits Comparison Tool.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill is specifically available to veterans who served for at least 90 days on or after September 11, 2001, and received an honorable

Many teenagers look forward to finishing high school and beginning college as the time when they can finally escape their parents. But for an increasing number of American families, the start of a teenager’s college career is coinciding with a parent’s return to the classroom. For these families, attending college becomes a multi-generational affair.

While some teenagers might cringe at the idea of being in a class alongside a parent, others are finding that sharing the experience of community college with Mom or Dad provides unexpected benefits alongside its inevitable challenges.

Why Parents and Children are Increasingly Attending Community College Together

A recent Chicago Tribune article notes that the increase in parents and students who are sharing the same community college campus is a result of two social forces:

1. The recession is driving many working adults to return to school to pursue a new degree. According to the Tribune, Illinois’s Harper Community College has seen the population of adult students jump by 17.5 percent this semester from spring 2009.
2. Tighter family budgets are causing more high school graduates to start taking courses at more affordable community colleges rather than going immediately to a more expensive four-year college or university.

This video offers tips for parents going back to college.

The Benefits of Parents Becoming Students Themselves

Parents who attend community college along with their adolescent children often find unexpected benefits.

Despite a tough economic climate driving record numbers of adults to enroll in vocational and post-secondary education, California’s community colleges experienced a surprising drop in enrollment. The state’s community colleges recently announced that they enrolled approximately 1 percent fewer students during the 2009-10 school year than the previous academic year.

This comes after five consecutive years of surging enrollment (at an average growth rate of five percent per year) at California’s community colleges. Because California’s education system is, as the Sacramento Business Journal notes, the nation’s largest higher-education system, an enrollment decrease of 1 percent is significant. Enrollment for 2009-10 lagged behind enrollment for the previous year by nearly 21,000 students.

California Community Colleges’ chancellor Jack Scott announced the surprising decline in enrollment to reporters on February 24, prompting the inevitable question of why enrollment would be declining during a time with high rates of unemployment and swelling numbers of high school graduates.

This video looks at the causes of declining community college enrollments.

Lack of Resources, Not Lack of Demand

The short answer to the question of why enrollment at California community colleges dropped this year is a lack of resources. As the Silicon Valley Mercury News reports, California’s community college system has faced an 8 percent budget cut during the 2009-10 year. In his announcement to reporters, Scott said that budget cuts have forced

Although women were at one time excluded from many institutions of secondary education, in recent years, they have established themselves as a majority presence on two-year and four-year college campuses. According to a December 2009 Washington Post report, women make up 60% of higher education students nationwide, primarily because men are more likely to drop out of school, join the military, or go to prison.

However, the tide may be beginning to shift at community colleges, where male enrollment has been on the increase. Inside Higher Ed reports that for the first time in years, community colleges have experienced enrollment of male students either equal to or above their enrollment of female students.

A Spike in Male Students

Randolph Community College, in North Carolina, experienced an increase of 68% in first-time full-time male enrollment from Fall 2008 to Fall 2009, bringing the current male population at the community college up to 37%. Meanwhile, in Washington State, Lower Columbia College noted that full-time male student enrollment was 36% higher in Fall 2009 than it had been in Fall 2008.

This video offers ten tips on how to succeed in college.

Inside Higher Ed reports that Kent Phillipe, the director of research at the American Association of Community College, notes that the group’s recent studies show that the number of male students at community colleges has grown

Despite all of our society’s socioeconomic progress, there still exists a major performance gap between students of different ethnic and income backgrounds. A recently published report paints a disturbing picture of how minority and low-income students are performing in community colleges.

The report, titled “Charting a Necessary Path” and prepared by the Washington, D.C. based nonprofit group the Education Trust, indicates that students from historically underrepresented backgrounds – defined as students of African-American, Latino, and Native American descent – as well as students from low-income families, complete associate’s degree programs and transfer to four-year degree programs at significantly lower rates than their peers.

This video looks at why minority men have difficulty completing their educations.

Few Minority Students Who Enter Community College Attain Bachelor’s Degrees

The press release accompanying the study reports that although 80 percent of freshmen entering community college intend to eventually earn a bachelor’s degree, only 7 percent of low-income and minority community college students attain a bachelor’s degree within ten years. As the press release explains, low-income and minority students are “overrepresented in terms of enrollment” in community colleges but “underrepresented among completers” of community colleges.

Low Rate of Transfer to Four-Year Institutions

The rate at which historically underrepresented minorities transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions is also worrisome, according to the report. Only 12 percent of students from underrepresented minority groups transfer to bachelor’s degree programs