[etempleton]

It is a bit of paradox that community colleges are, in theory, what every talking head and commentator are asking colleges to be—direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only—and yet there is no other college type that is seeing a more precipitous enrollment drop off than community colleges and technical schools.

The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted by where they enroll are often two different things.

[jseliger]

I've taught at community colleges; many of the issues mentioned in the article are long-standing. So what's driving the change now?

The simplest answer is the most likely: the strong economy, including among relatively low wage, low skill workers.

[etempleton]

This is true and not well understood by many as well. Community colleges and many graduate programs often run counter-cyclically to the economy. When unemployment is high many post pone entering the job market or go back to school to up-skill and fill an unemployment gap.

Undergraduate enrollment at a 4-year school technically runs cyclically to the economy, but in practical terms enrollment remains flat at most schools.

[asynchronous]

That is the correct answer here.

[humanrebar]

...combined with the selection bias that means community colleges disproportionately enroll "relatively low wage, low skill workers" that would most appreciate "direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only".

That is, the talking heads might not be wrong about what they think community colleges are getting right.

[atty]

I think that’s missing one big piece. What people really want cheap education that ends with a degree that is as well regarded as an Ivy or good state college degree. Community colleges, for better or worse, are seen as inferior education. So they are not equivalent to simply a cheaper option of more expensive schools.

[screwturner68]

I think with the advent of online education, community colleges as not seen as necessary. Why go to Hometown Community College when you can attend almost any school online. Personally I'm a big fan of community colleges, they can be area specific and provide actual job training that online schools rally can't provide. They also turn out better students, student's that go to community colleges tend to do better when they go to a 4 year school and finally as someone who has been out of college over 30 years it's a place where I can continually retool at a reasonable price.

[kevin_thibedeau]

There is usually a path for two years of cheaper community college with transferable credits to two final years at a state university.

[causi]

Problem being that community colleges will happily lie to your face about what does and does not transfer and most community college students aren't going to lawyer up about it.

[screwturner68]

That's more on the universities end than the CC, I used to see it all the time. The community colleges would have agreements with many universities but when you'd as the uni to accept your credits they wouldn't and you'd spend 6 months fighting it. I took a calculus class at Purdue over the summer and tried to transfer it to Indiana and they flatly rejected it -same state, same class, won't accept it. Everybody has their little fiefdom and they will fight to the death to keep it.

[swagasaurus-rex]

By denying course transfers Universities benefit. Students are forced to enroll for additional quarters. The university could make tens of thousands of dollars per student on a few course transfer denials.

This comes at an enormous time and money cost to the student.

A good alternative would be to test proficiency for that class. But that’s additional work a University has little desire to do, beyond allowing for testing out of precalculus.

[Merad]

To be fair, what transfers is determined by the school you're transferring to. Then on top of that you have to match up the requirements for your major, i.e. you might have a CC science course that is accepted by the university but doesn't meet the science required by your major. I suspect there are a LOT of CC students who only have vague goals of transferring somewhere to finish a four year degree (I was one of them many years ago), and in many cases it's just going to be difficult to give them solid advice.

[VLM]

The program I successfully completed had detailed written documentation from both the CC and uni at sign up time, of exactly what needed to happen as part of the organized official admissions program. Grades had to be above C IIRC and they were very specific about exactly which "electives" we were permitted to select, such that they were not really "electives" they were just non-major required courses if you wanted to transfer in with 64 credits. IIRC I willfully took some different electives and ended up with only 48 or 56 credits but I had written documentation explaining what I did.

I do believe there is airy and non-specific marketing material about "take your calculus class at CC and transfer to some schools" in a non-specific manner that is, as you claim, sort of fictional. Or "many of our classes transfer to state-U" which in a legal sense is technically true.

[etempleton]

It isn't likely that they are intentionally lying. What is and is not accepted is dependent on the school and the other school can change their mind at any point and the community college has no control over that.

[VLM]

I did this and was 100% successful, although the article propagandizes by asking what percentage of students once considered possibly obtaining a bachelors degree in the future which I'm sure is very high, whereas I was in a specific program with a specific track directly primarily toward cooperating with the transfer schools, so our success rate was very high (something like 80% got their BS degree along with me).

Also my CC fed the state U system and three private colleges, not solely state U.

[etempleton]

Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. The reputation of the Ivy or R1 state schools are what they are because of everything they do outside of the classroom.

[humanistbot]

>The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as votes by their enrollment are two different things.

There's no "paradox" here. There's just a huge gap between two groups whose members have likely never had a conversation with someone from the other group: talking head commentators and people without even an associate's degree. The commentators are saying that people who haven't gone to college should want community college, because they believe traditional universities aren't worth it. The people who haven't gone to college don't want community college and keep taking on loans to bankroll traditional colleges. It turns out higher education is a business and consumers love frills no matter what the sector is, but especially if they don't have to think about paying it back.

[VLM]

The only vote that matters is college graduate HR personnel, and their vote is that CC and associates degrees are lower than worthless, literally a waste of time, would be more likely to hire with two years of entry level or minimum wage work than with an associates degree.

Any CC student whom is motivated by employment is flushing their money down the toilet if they're on a track or a program.

I was in a transfer program along with several other kids and that program worked very well, but "most" people paying for CC are wasting their money.

The non-credit courses are, however, a good deal and an excellent way to learn and skill up. Note that paying 100x as much to make those courses "credit" courses is worthless if the degree or cert granted is considered worthless in the workplace. And the institution cannot stay in business if everyone takes non-credit courses instead of being on a very expensive "associates degree" or "certificate" path.

[etempleton]

This is true. Community Colleges can be a great tool if you know how to use them. The best value is to go two years to a community college that has automatic acceptance to a 4 year state school. You then get to finish your degree at what may be a fairly prestigious state school.

The other way to use Community Colleges is to focus on something that has a very specific certification or outcome just by finishing the certificate or degree program.

An associates degree from a community college by itself has minimal value.

[mike50]

ASN degree still have some value. Decent technician programs for Engineering Technicians (not car repair or similar). The only way to get a real electronics technician nowadays is through a two year degree program.

[crop_rotation]

> is what people say they want and what they actually want as votes by their enrollment are two different things.

This is a universal truth about everything though. What people say and what they do are not guaranteed to be same.

[HPsquared]

"Stated Preference" vs "Revealed Preference"

[legitster]

Somewhat counterintuitively, I personally found that the quality of instruction at community college vastly exceeded that at a university.

Most cc teachers were not tenured - they were often experienced industry professionals who taught as a hobby. And the ones that were prized and retained were the ones who had exceptional teaching/lecture ability.

At a university so many professors are basically just the middle-management of academia - hired because of their research or experience managing grad students.

[taftster]

This is exactly right. At a community college, you're likely to find an adjunct professor who is an expert in their field teaching on the side more for the fun and altruistic aspects of education.

At a normal university, you end up taking classes from "professional" professors with no actual industry experience who are unlikely to be native English speakers. These professors copy & paste their notes, assignments and exams, cheating their way through teaching, hardly able to go off script or explain a concept beyond their intended lecture area. I've literally taken several classes (at the graduate level even) where the entire curriculum, lecture notes, assignments, exams were copy-pasted from other teachers or schools.

Of course, I believe there are some highly reputable universities and reputable professors. But the vast majority of PhD professors teaching at middle to low tier schools are hardly really teaching.

I'll take a class from an adjunct who is passionate about teaching even if they are somewhat just winging it. At least their heart and experience are in the right place.

[mjburgess]

The issue is network effects, though, right?

If community colleges could attract the best teachers (etc.), and provide the kind of education as stated, then perhaps they would be what people want.

The problem is the incentives of workers, academics, students, the state, etc. are not aligned.

Most students probably do want the best practical education to get them into the workforce effectively -- but those who can provide that education have no incentive to.

The best industry professionals are in industry, the best academics are researchers.

[screwturner68]

CC actually do have some of the best teachers, they may not have some of the best research professors you get at a high-end school but they are actual teachers as opposed to grad assistants or a research guy who really doesn't want to teach. Further, even at your high-end schools most of the teachers are contract workers no different than any other college. I take classes at a CC down the road, the guy that taught one of my classes also teaches at two other universities, one that's a top 10 uni and another that's just an expensive private school -same teacher,same class, wildly different cost.

[CydeWeys]

Community colleges flat out can't afford the salaries that the best require. That's not network effects, that's a market effect.

[professoretc]

Some CCs actually pay better than 4-year schools. There's a lot of competition to get tenure at a university, which can drive down salaries.

[CydeWeys]

How common is this "some" though?

[etempleton]

A college or university's reputation is based on a number of things, just one is the quality of education that is provided. The Ivy league is the Ivy League because of being in a shared athletic conference and because those schools are some of the oldest in the nation.

The biggest drivers of reputation of have little to nothing to do with the quality of instruction. Below are probably the largest drivers of reputation in ranked order:

1. Athletics

2. Research

3. Notable alumni

4. Notable campus beauty / landscaping / facilities

5. Appearances in popular culture (movies, tv, etc.)

6. Outstanding instruction in a particular discipline for decades

[VLM]

"the people" are not "the best", they don't need to hire top 1% ivy league only, to teach 100% of the taxpaying public whom pay for the CC.

The local CC paid TAs the same at 2 year CC as at 4 year state U. Odd that they charge differential tuition to students while paying the TA the same. I had a programming grad student TA and a History grad student TA who both commuted to also teach at the 4-year down the road 30 miles.

[than3]

Having just short of 15 years of personal experience with this I can say with certainty, the issue is accountability.

There simply is none, and what's considered fraud in any other industry is just business as usual.

[redman25]

I’ve taken side classes at a local community college that were honestly more rigorous and better taught than the four year school I attended for my bachelors.

[BitwiseFool]

I believe this is also due to a perception problem. Name recognition is important when it comes to college degrees and there is a stigma against community colleges.