40% of undergrads are at CCs: IHE article

[polly_mer]

And none of those specifically rely on any systemic difference between male and female wages. (Presumably burnout is not going to disappear with a wage increase, nor is the desire to spend more time at home raising children.)

More money for about the same effort on the job absolutely reduces burnout.  Having the money to buy out of chores and errands makes a huge difference for daily life.  Having the money to buy the first option instead of having to shop for the best bargain makes a huge difference.  Being able to purchase healthy, premade food instead of having to allocate hours to growing and then preparing food makes a huge difference.

Having flexibility in one's schedule with paid time off, even without extra money, makes a huge difference.

Having a money cushion so that an unexpected expense of even five hundred dollars is a minor annoyance instead of a catastrophe is really a difference to daily life.

But that still isn't automatically going to establish whether it's causal, since the different factors interact. For instance, if both members of a couple are equally unhappy with their jobs, but one has more interest in working part time and having more time with family, then that may determine their choices even if there is a small difference in their wages. If the wage difference is larger, then that may push things in the other direction.

The point is that the difference between male and female wages is unlikely to be the explicit major factor in the decision. It may be implicit in career and life choices, etc. in which case it's not the primary factor.

The most my husband has ever made is under $30k per year.  I currently make six figures and my husband handles the house and child.

When I was nine months pregnant and hugely unhappy with my job, I could not possibly quit because my husband was unemployed.  Somebody had to earn money and there's no way Mr. Humanities BA with clerk-level experience can replace my graduate engineering salary. 

We have extra life insurance on me because my income supports everything and Mr. Mer can probably get another job after a few years of experience or retraining as a person over fifty.

Most of the trailing spouses here are in the same boat, but it's much more likely to be a male engineer and a female clerk-type currently at home with the kids.  It's unusual for the woman to make several times more than ber husband, but it's still pretty common for the woman to make half or less income due to choosing a lower-paying field.

[dismalist]

A nurse who was a corporate lawyer in NYC in 2008 and who saw that her employer was not going to survive over the long term. She decided to switch careers. ADN from community college and she now works full-time as a nurse, with a schedule that has allowed her to have children.

Mercy, Spork!

Don't know whether I'd like a corporate lawyer as a nurse: If you don't take these meds right now, we'll sue you for negligence in contract fulfillment!

Let's hope that the woman in question just had found herself in the wrong occupation and CC enabled her to enter the right one.

Long live CC's.

[jimbogumbo]

Full disclosure: I am not at a CC. For my own fun as someone who teaches and supports Quantitative Reasoning I've tried to verify the veracity of the headline, and cannot verify the 40% figure. The only reference I can find is the Fast fact sheet. I've looked at the latest NCES data, and the best I can do without much more work (that I'm not willing to do at the moment) is for 18-24 year olds, link attached. I am quite confident that the actual number is lower than 40%, and much lower if you look at credit hours. Doesn't change what I see as the importance of more adequately funding CCs, and IMO, the upward mobility opportunities they provide.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_302.60.asp

[polly_mer]

Focusing on 18-24 year olds will miss much of the relevant population.  Try https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp. figure 5.

[jerseyjay]

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/fast-facts-and-challenge

8% of CC students already have a bachelor's degree.

I wonder if that is 8 per cent of total students, or 8 per cent of students who are pursuing a degree. I mean, I am a CC student, since I am taking a class a semester for the past two years in literature at the school I teach part time (because I am allowed to get one class a semester free). My retired parents (both with graduate degrees) have been CC students because they have taken Spanish courses. There is a reason why they are called community colleges.

I do know people who have had a BA and gone back to a CC. Usually they are people with liberal arts degrees who are taking courses for health-related jobs. When I taught at a CC, I also had a fair number of students with foreign degrees who were taking courses to be able to get a job in the U.S.

[spork]

A nurse who was a corporate lawyer in NYC in 2008 and who saw that her employer was not going to survive over the long term. She decided to switch careers. ADN from community college and she now works full-time as a nurse, with a schedule that has allowed her to have children.

Mercy, Spork!

Don't know whether I'd like a corporate lawyer as a nurse: If you don't take these meds right now, we'll sue you for negligence in contract fulfillment!

Let's hope that the woman in question just had found herself in the wrong occupation and CC enabled her to enter the right one.

Long live CC's.

Attention to detail is basically a prerequisite for many high-paying occupations. She's a good nurse and I assume she was also a competent lawyer.

I'm still dumbfounded by the number of 18-22 year old, full-time, first-time college students at non-prestigious four-year private universities who could cut the cost of their bachelor's degree in half by attending community college for the first two years and then transferring.

[Vkw10]

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/fast-facts-and-challenge

8% of CC students already have a bachelor's degree.

I wonder if that is 8 per cent of total students, or 8 per cent of students who are pursuing a degree. I mean, I am a CC student, since I am taking a class a semester for the past two years in literature at the school I teach part time (because I am allowed to get one class a semester free). My retired parents (both with graduate degrees) have been CC students because they have taken Spanish courses. There is a reason why they are called community colleges.

I do know people who have had a BA and gone back to a CC. Usually they are people with liberal arts degrees who are taking courses for health-related jobs. When I taught at a CC, I also had a fair number of students with foreign degrees who were taking courses to be able to get a job in the U.S.

I'm a community college student this semester. After a year of intending to learn a new software on my own, I finally admitted that external deadlines, assignments, and grades would motivate me. Finding that one of my honors seminar students is a classmate has been highly motivating, too.

[jimbogumbo]

Focusing on 18-24 year olds will miss much of the relevant population.  Try https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp. figure 5.

Thanks! In my defense I wasn't focusing, just unable to locate in the NCES source they cited. So head count seems pretty stable at 35%.

I'm wondering now what the actual situation is since COVID.

[ciao_yall]

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/fast-facts-and-challenge

8% of CC students already have a bachelor's degree.

I wonder if that is 8 per cent of total students, or 8 per cent of students who are pursuing a degree. I mean, I am a CC student, since I am taking a class a semester for the past two years in literature at the school I teach part time (because I am allowed to get one class a semester free). My retired parents (both with graduate degrees) have been CC students because they have taken Spanish courses. There is a reason why they are called community colleges.

I do know people who have had a BA and gone back to a CC. Usually they are people with liberal arts degrees who are taking courses for health-related jobs. When I taught at a CC, I also had a fair number of students with foreign degrees who were taking courses to be able to get a job in the U.S.

I'm a community college student this semester. After a year of intending to learn a new software on my own, I finally admitted that external deadlines, assignments, and grades would motivate me. Finding that one of my honors seminar students is a classmate has been highly motivating, too.

Lots of students at our CC have BA, even Master's degrees. They take classes to learn new skills, learn a new language, and so on. At ours the rate is pretty high because our city has a lot of people with degrees, hence that's the pool we draw from.

[apl68]

I'm still dumbfounded by the number of 18-22 year old, full-time, first-time college students at non-prestigious four-year private universities who could cut the cost of their bachelor's degree in half by attending community college for the first two years and then transferring.

Well, attending a CC seems to be a very drab, no-frills experience.  Presumably many traditional-age students feel that those frills of the four-year college experience on a four-year campus are worth paying for.  Like those student athletes we've been hearing about who pay full tuition to play on the school's non-ranked team for four years.

[polly_mer]

Focusing on 18-24 year olds will miss much of the relevant population.  Try https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp. figure 5.

Thanks! In my defense I wasn't focusing, just unable to locate in the NCES source they cited. So head count seems pretty stable at 35%.

I have a soapbox regarding the huge gap between what people picture as a typical college student and the national reality.  Many metrics start by limiting to full-time, first-time students and that's misleading.  NPR has a good article on how "non-traditional" students are now the solid majority: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/09/04/638561407/todays-college-students-arent-who-you-think-they-are

[Ruralguy]

Yet another reason why the Dinky Colleges of the country that focus on traditional students are likely to face some serious challenges with enrollment.

[apl68]

Focusing on 18-24 year olds will miss much of the relevant population.  Try https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp. figure 5.

Thanks! In my defense I wasn't focusing, just unable to locate in the NCES source they cited. So head count seems pretty stable at 35%.

I have a soapbox regarding the huge gap between what people picture as a typical college student and the national reality.  Many metrics start by limiting to full-time, first-time students and that's misleading.  NPR has a good article on how "non-traditional" students are now the solid majority: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/09/04/638561407/todays-college-students-arent-who-you-think-they-are

This quote at the end caught my attention:

One thing for sure, says Radford, is that it's probably time to coin a new phrase for nontraditional students, considering they are the new normal.

I don't know about that.  "Nontraditional" is a pretty handy shorthand term for distinguishing between "recent high school graduates without serious responsibilities attending four-year schools" from a very diverse body of people doing otherwise.  Something tells me that any replacement term would probably be more cumbersome.  The fact that "nontraditional" students, whatever we call them, are now in the clear majority doesn't make them any less "nontraditional."

Whatever the terminology, what's important is that people understand that the traditonal-profile students are indeed no longer the norm nationwide.

[Aster]

I'm still dumbfounded by the number of 18-22 year old, full-time, first-time college students at non-prestigious four-year private universities who could cut the cost of their bachelor's degree in half by attending community college for the first two years and then transferring.

Well, attending a CC seems to be a very drab, no-frills experience.  Presumably many traditional-age students feel that those frills of the four-year college experience on a four-year campus are worth paying for.  Like those student athletes we've been hearing about who pay full tuition to play on the school's non-ranked team for four years.

Yes. Outside of dedicated vocational career training functions (which CC's perform very well at), most community colleges are very much "partial-service" Higher Education entities. Most of them offer just the barest bare-bones listing of generic general elective courses. So there are few course choices available to students. This is no fun for students.

There is very little in the way of academic advising at most community colleges. This is not good for students.

There is little/no "campus life" experiential education at most community colleges. The enrichment component within the U.S. Higher Education mission is mostly nonexistent at most community colleges. Clubs. Student Activities. Extramurals. Athletics. Events. Local conferences. Undergraduate research. Independent Research. Internships. Student Work. These are all important components of a full-service institution that constitute the bulk of the university enrichment mission. Not having this is very much no fun or no good for students.

Being Open Enrollment institutions in the purest sense (if you breathe and have a credit card, you're in!) academic performance standards and norms are often lower than that expected at 4-year universities. It is common for most incoming CC students to not have taken any "college prep" high schools courses that are the norm for most incoming freshmen at 4-year universities. The math, english, writing, and science background that a lot of CC students enter with from their high school background is not at the same level as that for most freshmen at 4-year universities. For one example, many CC students might not have ever completed any high school level chemistry, biology, geometry, advanced algebra, and/or creative writing. For another example, my own personal experiences of community colleges and community college students strongly shows that the community college students complete far less analytical and and writing-based assessment compared to their peers at 4-year institutions. Those same community college students tend to also have far lower proficiency in operating Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, and this lack of use burns these students hard when they transfer into STEM majors at 4-year universities. This is not good for students.

Many faculty employed at community colleges have only the most minimum academic credentials required to teach at the college level, and perform little/no relevant academic service and/or research to maintain professional currency in their field. For example, I have colleagues at Big Urban College that are *younger than me and fresher out of their Master's degrees* yet believe that double-stranded DNA is the only kind of DNA that exists, that Biological Taxonomy is static, that our understanding of Human Anatomy and Physiology is now "complete and there is nothing new in the field so we can use 1990's era textbooks", that don't understand what a null hypothesis is or what its application is, have never published anything in their field and don't know themselves know how to design or carry out experiments, etc... It is both alarming and surprising that such a wide gulf in professional training and experiences may exist within employed Higher Education faculty, yet it is there. This is not good for students.

All things considered from what I've directly seen and experienced from both sides the CC vs. 4-year university operating models, I would (and do) strongly advise any graduating high school student to *not* attend a community college except for when they don't have good choices to do anything else. I will instead direct prospective new college students into an appropriate R1/R2/SLAC. Their odds of them successfully graduating with a 4-year degree are roughly 40% higher at our local-area R2 if they start out at that R2 (vs. transferring in later from a community college). I actually keep a hardcopy of that statistic on a wall in my office and show it to students when they ask me when they should transfer.

"Now."
"As Soon As You Can."
"Next Semester."

Much of the duality between CC's and 4-year universities appears self-inflicted to me. The two types of institutions operate mostly as independent siloes from one another. Most faculty at 4-year institutions have no direct experience or engagement with community college teaching/assessment, and most community college faculty have no direct experiences or engagement with 4-year university faculty teaching/assessment (outside of their own personal experiences as an undergraduate and the 2-3 years that they spent in graduate school). And so the faculty at each of the two institutional types begin concocting their own mythos that the other institutional type is working much like they are, and that 2+2 transfers are seamless and fine. And yet, the "community college education" stereotype persists to the general public. Locally for me, not much more than half of of Big Urban College's transfer students that matriculate to our local R2 will actually end up graduating with a 4-year degree. The rest of them drop out with a much higher frequency than that of the students at local R2 that entered there as freshmen.  It is all very interesting to observe, in a depressing sort of way.

[spork]

I'm still dumbfounded by the number of 18-22 year old, full-time, first-time college students at non-prestigious four-year private universities who could cut the cost of their bachelor's degree in half by attending community college for the first two years and then transferring.

Well, attending a CC seems to be a very drab, no-frills experience.  Presumably many traditional-age students feel that those frills of the four-year college experience on a four-year campus are worth paying for.  Like those student athletes we've been hearing about who pay full tuition to play on the school's non-ranked team for four years.

Yes. Outside of dedicated vocational career training functions (which CC's perform very well at), most community colleges are very much "partial-service" Higher Education entities. Most of them offer just the barest bare-bones listing of generic general elective courses. So there are few course choices available to students. This is no fun for students.

There is very little in the way of academic advising at most community colleges. This is not good for students.

There is little/no "campus life" experiential education at most community colleges. The enrichment component within the U.S. Higher Education mission is mostly nonexistent at most community colleges. Clubs. Student Activities. Extramurals. Athletics. Events. Local conferences. Undergraduate research. Independent Research. Internships. Student Work. These are all important components of a full-service institution that constitute the bulk of the university enrichment mission. Not having this is very much no fun or no good for students.

Being Open Enrollment institutions in the purest sense (if you breathe and have a credit card, you're in!) academic performance standards and norms are often lower than that expected at 4-year universities. It is common for most incoming CC students to not have taken any "college prep" high schools courses that are the norm for most incoming freshmen at 4-year universities. The math, english, writing, and science background that a lot of CC students enter with from their high school background is not at the same level as that for most freshmen at 4-year universities. For one example, many CC students might not have ever completed any high school level chemistry, biology, geometry, advanced algebra, and/or creative writing. For another example, my own personal experiences of community colleges and community college students strongly shows that the community college students complete far less analytical and and writing-based assessment compared to their peers at 4-year institutions. Those same community college students tend to also have far lower proficiency in operating Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, and this lack of use burns these students hard when they transfer into STEM majors at 4-year universities. This is not good for students.

Many faculty employed at community colleges have only the most minimum academic credentials required to teach at the college level, and perform little/no relevant academic service and/or research to maintain professional currency in their field. For example, I have colleagues at Big Urban College that are *younger than me and fresher out of their Master's degrees* yet believe that double-stranded DNA is the only kind of DNA that exists, that Biological Taxonomy is static, that our understanding of Human Anatomy and Physiology is now "complete and there is nothing new in the field so we can use 1990's era textbooks", that don't understand what a null hypothesis is or what its application is, have never published anything in their field and don't know themselves know how to design or carry out experiments, etc... It is both alarming and surprising that such a wide gulf in professional training and experiences may exist within employed Higher Education faculty, yet it is there. This is not good for students.

All things considered from what I've directly seen and experienced from both sides the CC vs. 4-year university operating models, I would (and do) strongly advise any graduating high school student to *not* attend a community college except for when they don't have good choices to do anything else. I will instead direct prospective new college students into an appropriate R1/R2/SLAC. Their odds of them successfully graduating with a 4-year degree are roughly 40% higher at our local-area R2 if they start out at that R2 (vs. transferring in later from a community college). I actually keep a hardcopy of that statistic on a wall in my office and show it to students when they ask me when they should transfer.

"Now."
"As Soon As You Can."
"Next Semester."

Much of the duality between CC's and 4-year universities appears self-inflicted to me. The two types of institutions operate mostly as independent siloes from one another. Most faculty at 4-year institutions have no direct experience or engagement with community college teaching/assessment, and most community college faculty have no direct experiences or engagement with 4-year university faculty teaching/assessment (outside of their own personal experiences as an undergraduate and the 2-3 years that they spent in graduate school). And so the faculty at each of the two institutional types begin concocting their own mythos that the other institutional type is working much like they are, and that 2+2 transfers are seamless and fine. And yet, the "community college education" stereotype persists to the general public. Locally for me, not much more than half of of Big Urban College's transfer students that matriculate to our local R2 will actually end up graduating with a 4-year degree. The rest of them drop out with a much higher frequency than that of the students at local R2 that entered there as freshmen.  It is all very interesting to observe, in a depressing sort of way.

1. I agree that many CCs do dedicated vocational training well and, in many respects, cost effectively.

2. I agree that the arbitrary professional and curricular siloes between CC and four-year institution faculty are counter-productive. Many states have tried to ensure that CC courses eligible for transfer and courses at four-year campuses are equivalent in quality. But I think it's safe to say that this goal has not always been achieved.

3. I disagree with the bolded part, because I don't think all undergraduates need or want a full-service university enrichment experience. University-provided housing, clubs, athletic teams, etc., which in the end come at student expense,  are not the norm in higher education outside the USA. In many countries students who attend four-year universities live with their parents; the only students living in campus dormitories are those who come from remote rural villages. And university sports teams are unheard of; athletics happens in completely separate private leagues. But more relevant to the USA, if at least 40% of college undergraduates are enrolled at CCs, presumably some of them do so because the four-year enrichment experience is simply not affordable or desirable.