Texas Ed Spectator

In general, I don’t think “starting off” at a community college to get a four year degree is a good idea for most people. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of the education quality at community colleges but rather a recognition that unless a student is especially focused and motivated, his or her chances for graduation are slim. However, a recent story in the Express-News reminded me that for many, the community college may be the only viable option.

Nonetheless, San Antonio College only has a 11.7% graduation rate for a four year degree in six years. If you find yourself at SAC for financial reasons (and the tuition is significantly lower than that of four year institutions) take advantage of the Presidential Honors Program.

Presidential Honors Program

A limited number of students are selected for this program every fall and spring semester. High school applicants are evaluated on the basis of high school GPA and class rank, SAT and/or ACT test scores, teacher recommendations and weight of academic load (number of math, science, social science, and humanities courses). Selected students are given a full scholarship (tuition and books). Those entering the program then take a mix of honors courses, contract courses, and regular courses to fulfill the requirements of the Honors program and of the students’ major. Graduates of the program can enter degree programs at universities in any field. The Honors program also helps place its students in universities and often can help students gain scholarship continuations into the Junior and Senior year.

Such a program is one way to get the attention and support you need to make it to the four year college. Some community colleges actually have agreements with other colleges where students in their honors programs can directly transfer into the four year university’s program. And given the graduation rate at some four year colleges, the honors programs is another way to prevent falling through the cracks.

The University of Texas at San Antonio’s six year graduation rate is only 30.2% compared to 75.1% for the University of Texas at Austin. Surely, however, the students in UTSA’s honors programs must have a higher graduation rate? Furthermore, the eligibility requirements for UTSA’s Honros College aren’t exactly daunting: graduation in the top 20%, ACT of 24, SAT (M+V) 1100.

I suppose this comes across as a back-handed compliment to the programs. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that you can get a great education at either of these schools. But you would certainly be maximizing your resources if you pursued the honors options available at less selective schools.

Unfortunately, these programs can be hard to find. The honors program link shows up after the second click on the UT Austin website. It takes four clicks on the UTSA page and that’s only if you know to click on “Student Information Bulletin” and then “Admission to Colleges and Special Programs.” As for the program at SAC, so far I’ve only found it by doing a search on the website. I don’t know what links into it. Maybe it’s the administration’s way of keeping down enrollment.

In any case, for all those students who aren’t likely to get into UT Austin because of the top ten percent rule, there are probably some excellent honor programs which would serve them just as well.

Carlos Guerra is my favorite Express-News columnist but talk about cherry-picking data.

MySA.com: Carlos Guerra

Studies show that students who start out in community colleges and go on to earn BAs tend to graduate at higher rates — and with higher grades — than students who start at universities. But about four of five new community college enrollees also need help — and sometimes, a lot of it — to make them “college ready.”

I’ve no doubt that the students who do go on to earn BA’s graduate at a higher rate since they have shown incredible perseverance by making it out of the community college system. The latest figures from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board lists the six year graduation rate for Bachelors in fiscal year 2005 as follows:

Northwest Vista: 16.7%

Palo Alto: 9.6%

San Antonio College: 9.9%

St. Philip’s: 4.9%

These numbers are nothing to write home about. Ultimately, they should be used to demonstrate the need to put more resources into our community college system and make the transition from two year colleges to four year institutions much more seamless.

The Washington Monthly has created a ranking of community colleges along with it’s other college rankings. Five Texas colleges make the list including Northwest Vista College. We just need to figure out how to help more students at community colleges make a successful transition to a four year university. I don’t know exactly what sort of initiatives that might require but I’m pretty sure cutting state funding for community college employee health benefits isn’t one of them.

Technorati Tags: community colleges, Carlos Guerra, graduation rates, Perry, Veto, rankings

After veto, governor proposes more money for community colleges

Trying to quell unrest over his June veto of $154 million for health insurance for community college employees, Gov. Rick Perry is proposing a unique solution: More money. Lots of it.

Maybe people are actually going to blame Perry for increases in local property taxes. Looks like he’s back-peddling quite a bit.

After veto, governor proposes more money for community colleges

In June, Perry vetoed the health insurance money because he and the community colleges disagree how the costs should be split between the state and local taxpayers and students. Several senators said they were unaware of the governor’s concern or the prospect of a veto. Perry’s staffers testified that most of the discussions were at staff levels, not with lawmakers.

And the staff just didn’t bring it to the lawmakers’ attention? I still haven’t seen a plausible explanation as to why Perry slashed the funding. Which political constituents did he think he was pleasing with his veto? He (or rather fellow Republicans) is just now finding out how much he has pissed people off.

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry, Texas, community colleges, health insurance, veto

I’m not sure what they think they will accomplish.

MyWestTexas.com – Texas Democrats threaten retaliation for Perry’s veto

Meeting today in Washington, the Texas Democratic Congressional Delegation is so perturbed about Gov. Rick Perry’s veto of $154 million in community college funding that it may consider reprisals, spokesmen said.

The 12-member group sent an angry letter to Perry June 25 and will wait for an answer before deciding what to do, but Higher Education Act reauthorizations and federal grant funding are the obvious options, they said.

As far as I can tell, Republican members of the legislature aren’t happy with Perry’s veto. Why would he worry about what some Democrats think? They might cut funding to more college students? He’s already shown he doesn’t care.

Technorati Tags: Community Colleges, Rick Perry, health insurance, funding

2-year colleges: Veto on funds makes cuts likely | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas Southwest

However, the governor said that in their budget requests submitted last fall, community and junior colleges tried to pass off as state-paid employees a large number who are paid with locally generated funds. Mr. Perry didn’t specify how many, though he said because of mislabeling, districts sought $126 million too much.

He lopped off the second year of their appropriation for group health insurance, which was an amount $28 million higher. He said the campuses have enough money to make ends meet.

Mr. Perry also said in his veto proclamation that two-year colleges “falsified their appropriations requests.”

If this were really true, shouldn’t the attorney general be involved and these presidents be charged with something illegal? We’re talking about 50 community colleges that apparently got together to falsify their budgets. Where are the conspiracy theorists when you need them?

Maybe it’s Perry who has “falsified” his reasons for attacking the community colleges and raising local property taxes.

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry, Community Colleges, health insurance, budget

I guess health insurance for college employees is now considered pork.

MySA.com: Metro | State

Among Gov. Rick Perry’s flurry of vetoes last week, a $154 million cut in health insurance for community college faculty has stunned college leaders across the state and sent them scrambling to make up for the loss in already-tight budgets.

Though the cut won’t take effect until 2009, Texas’ 50 community colleges will probably start planning for the losses now, and could be forced to raise tuition or local property taxes, cut staff, or charge employees more for insurance, said Steven Johnson, director of external relations for the Texas Association of Community Colleges.

“It’s a big hit,” Johnson said.

In his written comments about the veto, Perry accused colleges of falsifying budget requests to get more money than they deserve, a charge that incensed college leaders and lawmakers. He said the state should cover insurance only for employees paid with state money, which excludes those paid with federal grants or funds from other sources.

Perry’s office did not return a call seeking clarification.

 

Johnson and McClendon say the funding equation was hashed out during countless hours of budget discussions. In fact, they said, an early version of Perry’s own proposed budget included the health insurance money.

This really is bizarre. Perry can’t even point to this as being a pet pork project of specific campus. He’s hitting all community colleges at once. What is he thinking?

This is the person who wants the state to issue a bond for $3 billion to fund cancer research. Where does he think he’s going to get the people to do the research, import from out of state?

This is the person who wants to provide voters with some sort of property tax relief. Where does he think the community colleges are going to get the money to make up for the cuts–the good fairy?

I guess Perry is really going to need more money for his statewide business slush economic development incentive fund. Any company that requires high skilled labor will be able to use the money to move qualified workers in from out of state.

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry, Community Colleges, Health Insurance

College has been popping up in my life lately. My son would be a freshman in high school so I’ve been thinking about things like transcripts, dual credit, and how the heck we’re going to pay for it. Since he can take dual credit classes for free, I would like for him to try a class or two at our local community college, San Antonio College (SAC). But I think it would be a mistake for him to start his college career at SAC with the intention to transfer to a four year university later. Why? Because it’s highly unlikely that he would ever make the transfer.

Let me explain. First, I know that community colleges provide an important avenue to higher education for a lot of people. Like my mother. After immigrating to the United States and getting her GED, she took classes at the local community colleges. She went full time the year I was a senior in high school and then transferred to a four year private university to complete her degree.

I have a friend who dropped out of high school, got his GED at SAC, and eventually graduated from UTSA. I have another friend in her thirties who started with some remedial classes at SAC and is now transferring to UTSA.

These people all have something in common that I think was a critical factor in their success at actually completely a four year degree–they all knew what they wanted. They weren’t taking classes to figure out what they were interested in or to decide if they even like college. They were doing it for very specific academic and financial reasons.

The people I know who started at SAC because they weren’t sure what they wanted to do in college and didn’t want to spend the money to start out at a four year institution never finished. The very attributes that made SAC valuable to my mother and others, undermined those who were less certain about the purpose of college.

It’s easy to work part-time or even full-time while attending SAC. Maybe you could use the extra money and you don’t take a full load. Maybe your boss sees you as a full-time employee and doesn’t care about you needing to meet with a professor during work hours. Maybe without being inundated in an academic culture, it’s easier to give in to distractions.

Since you don’t know what you want to do in college, you don’t pay attention to which classes transfer and which don’t. You fail some classes because you didn’t drop them in time and it affects your gpa and ability to transfer. The money you might have saved is lost when you have to repeat classes because you couldn’t find the time to fit it into your work or study schedule.

This isn’t just me bad mouthing SAC or community colleges in general. I actually took my two required government classes in summer school at SAC and I thought the professors were very good. But I knew exactly which classes I could take at SAC and have them transfer. I wasn’t trying to figure out what I wanted out of college, I already knew.

Less then 13% of students in 2005 transferred from SAC to a four year institution. This number has actually declined since the year 2000. Less than ten percent of the students actually receive a Baccalaureate degree or above within six years. So who do you think make up most of that ten percent–non-traditional students who have returned to school with a goal or younger students trying to figure out what they want to do?

Many people would say then why spend more money to send these students to a more expensive, four year university? Because they do a better job of focusing their students on academics and graduating them. Granted, a 50% graduation rate in six years is nothing to brag about (I think UTSA’s is in the 30% range) but that’s better than ten percent.

As for it costing more, there’s also more financial aid available as well. And which costs more, a student flunking out after a year at a four year institution or a student spending two or three years taking a classes at a community college before dropping out to work full time?

Then there is a role model effect of being on campus and interacting with other students who are about to graduate and are interviewing with employers that is missing from community colleges. It can be a lot harder to see the payoff taking classes here and there with people you won’t see again after the class is over.

Ultimately, college is what you make of it. And community colleges like SAC play an important role in providing opportunities for higher education that simply do not exist in other countries. It may be the only financially viable means for a person to start college. But if you think starting off at a community college is a way to save money while getting pre-requisites out of the way and figuring out what you want to do, you’re going to be wrong somewhere around 80 to 90 percent of the time.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has a Higher Education Accountability System available online. Some of the SAC information is at http://www.txhighereddata.org/Interactive/Accountability/CC_Success.cfm.