Increasing Opportunities for Community College Students

Parents Forum
1

<p>“Eight highly selective colleges and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation have agreed to spend nearly $27-million to improve access to a four-year education for community-college students from low- and moderate-income families.”</p>

<p>“By virtue of receiving a grant, each college will become part of the foundation’s five-year study that will track their effectiveness in recruiting and retaining high-achieving community-college students.”</p>

<p>“One overall objective of the program is to increase enrollment of the students by a combined total of 1,100 at the participating colleges over the next four years. Currently, only 10 percent of students at the top 146 selective colleges come from the bottom half of the socioeconomic scale, according to the foundation’s statistics.”</p>

<p>“In addition to providing students with the necessary financial aid, each college will develop a partnership program with community colleges in its state.”</p>

<p>The eight colleges chosen for the program are Amherst College, Bucknell University, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Mount Holyoke College, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Southern California.</p>

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2

<p>I think this is a great initiative, but isn’t it a little sad that PUBLIC universities have only 10% of their students from the the lower 50% socioecon group. I wonder if the percentage at the publics is not a little higher, and if so how much higher.</p>

<p>Although, thinking about my state, growth in second tier publics, and improvement in their academics has led to situations where if the kids can afford tution, but not living expenses, they can live at home cheaper OR if they can’t afford either, and need to work some, it is much cheaper to go to the commuter school. All factors that concentrate the wealthier students at the more traditional residential schools.
When I graduated from HS, 30 years ago, it was very common for girls to get married straight out of high school, go to junior college in our hometown, then transfer with their husbands to the university for the last 2 years for teaching or nursing. They tended to take year round classes, and try to finish ASAP - no finding yourself. Now the liberal arts oriented junior college has folded into the local technical school, and the emphasis is on 2 year associate degrees, I don’t know how many people follow the traditional 2 years of basic classes, then transfer route.</p>