1/3 of Community College Students Have Disappeared

[Wahoo Redux]

Hechinger Report: 'The reckoning is here': More than a third of community college students have vanished

Advocates for community colleges defend them as the underdogs of America's higher education system, left to serve the students who need the most support but without the money required to provide it. Critics contend that this has become an excuse for poor success rates that are only getting worse and for the kind of faceless bureaucracies that ultimately prompted Camara to drop out after two semesters; he now works in a restaurant and plays in two bands.

As a former CC student and then a PT CC adjunct, I am not sure I buy all this.  But anyway, discuss.

[downer]

Fits with much of my experience. The nursing program at my CC seems strong with determined students. But other classes I can easily expect 1/3 to drop out. This semester I have a class where less than half will pass. Obviously there's a mismatch between plans and outcomes. I'm not sure whose fault it is or what can be done. Not my job.

[Wahoo Redux]

We were told that half our classes would disappear by midsemester.  This happened every time.  I do not know why anyone would blame the schools, however.  My experiences at CCs led me to believe that they were testing grounds for lost souls; it was the nature of having cheap classes open to absolutely anyone.

[kaysixteen]

Random questions:

1) These are open enrollment places, right-- more or less all comers are admitted, and no one tries to ascertain whether any given student is likely to have a hope of passing?

2) When half of the students flunk, is there ever administrative blowback rained down on the prof?

3) Are these classes, in the main, really of post-secondary academic level?

[lightning]

It's nuts that community colleges get dinged for students who do not finish their degree programs. Most students who transfer to 4-year colleges, prefer not to wait until they finish their associates degree, before transferring. They transfer when it is most opportune, and that time does not necessarily involve nor need to involve the completion of an associates degree. Similarly, some students get jobs in the same field as their degree program. Those students are simply not going to wait until they finish their associates degree or certificate program, before they accept a job. They will bolt for the job in their area of training before finishing a degree or certificate program in their area of training.

For the above two examples, non-completion of a degree should be celebrated as a success  story of a community college--not a failure of a community college. But I get it--bureaucrats run community colleges, and they have to have their easy way of determining success, and tracking completion rates and other tangential measures is a heck of a lot easier than tracking real student success.

As for Camara, he had no chance. Why? Camara's quote sums it up.

"In high school, he said, "it's like they're all working to get you through." But at a community college, "it's all on you."

With that kind of ingrained helplessness, Camara had no chance at succeeding, and the Community College had no chance of "supporting" him. Camara's story is not an example of the failure of the community college. Camara's story is the failure of Camara. Camara would have failed at a 4-year college, too.

[Hegemony]

He's also misinformed if he thinks that in high school, they're all working to get anyone through. They're all so overworked that they're just trying to stay afloat. High school students fall through the cracks all the time. They may not actually drop out, because the consequences of not having a high school diploma are worse than not having an A.A. But they stagger through with D's. Trying to get extra help from a high school is an exercise in frustration.

[ciao_yall]

The opportunity cost for students is too high.

They can earn $20+ per hour working, or spend 150 hours per semester taking one class plus doing homework. Will financial aid give them $3,000? How are they going to pay their bills and support their families?

[marshwiggle]

He's also misinformed if he thinks that in high school, they're all working to get anyone through.

It would probably be more correct to say that "in high school, they're all working to pretend that you have succeeded".

[AmLitHist]

As I finish my 19th FT year at my CC, I agree with all here.

I'm teaching a late-start/12-week Comp II. It barely made, with 8 students. One student withdrew immediately; one is on older woman planning to be a nurse, which I'll believe when I see it (she's here on the 12-year plan, and isn't particularly literate); three are in their second semester of academic probation and will soon be suspended, as they aren't attending or turning in any work; one young woman could have passed easily, but simply disappeared; one came in with a stellar 0.63 GPA, has come to only 4 classes and slept through most/all of those; and one is a HS student who, if he works his butt off, might get a gentleman's C (though I'm not optimistic:  he can write, but he's just flaky and might or might not do the work over the next 5 weeks). I've been down to just the same two students attending for the past 3 weeks; Thursday, only one showed up, and she just popped in to tell me she wouldn't be in class that day.

There's a very strong possibility that this will be my first section with no passing grades, not even any D's, in my career. It isn't representative of all my sections (I have a truly wonderful LVL class right now), but it's not all that exceptional, either, for me or for my colleagues. I fully anticipate all hell will rain down on me from our a-hole VPAA and campus president, neither of whom have ever set foot in a classroom with our students. 

When I started here, I generally would have a 50-60% pass rate based on the original 25 student enrollment in a section of Comp I or II. Over the past 10 years, that rate has dropped precipitously and steadily, so now if I have 4 or 5 students (of 20 enrolled) who pass, I'm lucky. That's pretty consistent with my department's numbers (since the "easy-A" faculty have all retired). Most of us have around 50% of original enrollees disappear, either withdrawing or just ghosting; of the remaining 10-12 students, probably 3-4 might still show up, but either don't turn in any assignments or remain as functionally illiterate by the end as they were when they started (and this is in Comp II, not just Comp I).  Again, this is clearly all faculty's fault. /sarcasm/

I can't retire fast enough (though realistically, financially, I can't do so for another five years at least). Our campus is the worst of the four in our district; I'm in the process of applying for a transfer to our inner-city location, which serves a large immigrant population and has far surpassed my current place in terms of quality of students in recent years. Fingers crossed that I can get it, though I'm not optimistic. My next best hope is another VSIP, which is also doubtful.

Our feeder schools aren't even babysitters anymore; they're holding pens to keep kids off the streets for 8 hours a day. K-12 students can't take textbooks home to study--the books can't leave the classroom. Years ago, the state used to have two designations: those who worked and earned the grades got a HS diploma; those who just showed up X number of days a year and didn't cause major discipline problems but didn't earn the grades got a completion certificate.  Now, anybody who shows up that required number of days for four years gets a "diploma," regardless of whether they learned a damn thing or not. In some of the schools in our area, they can meet that requirement by showing up and sitting in a police-controlled "alternative schooling" room within the school building--this is offered as an option to going to a juvenile detention facility for those with arrests deemed "minor" (but often for offenses involving guns and/or violence). Being in "alt HS" adds to a student's street cred--they brag about beating the system and getting to play video games or sleep, rather than having to sit through boring classes.  But they come out with the same credential as the straight-A student who worked their ass off for four years.

TL; DR version:  as my late office-mate used to say, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.  But we're expected to, every damned day of the year--and when we don't, it's our fault.

[downer]

What factors influence students' ability to succeed?

Does having to pay for a course act as a filter, so less committed students don't sign up in the first place? And once students have paid, that gives them some incentive to not waste their money?

I teach online asynchonous, for which students need a good deal of self-motivation. Assignments are not difficult, but do take some work. I've adopted a more severe late policy, not accepting late work except in exceptional circumstances, mainly because the new LMS makes it difficult to keep track of late-submitted work. Doing work on time is not a skill that most students have at the CC. I think a lot of students obviously should not be signed up for my course. But they don't get any good advisement.

[Wahoo Redux]

Random questions:

1) These are open enrollment places, right-- more or less all comers are admitted, and no one tries to ascertain whether any given student is likely to have a hope of passing?

Correct, at least in my experience.  And a great many of the people who go to CCs are taking classes out of general interest, not necessarily as degree or career students.  Many are testing the waters because they do not know what else to do with themselves.

2) When half of the students flunk, is there ever administrative blowback rained down on the prof?

No, at least in my experience. 

I was actually told that half of my students would disappear by the chair of the department when they hired me. 

3) Are these classes, in the main, really of post-secondary academic level?

Well...kind of.  As example: while I taught PT at a CC I was a graduate student teaching freshman comp at an R1: we were expected to teach 4 major assignments; at the CC it was 3 major assignments, and the criteria were considerably easier.  I taught mostly the same classes, just one was easier than the other. 

As a student, one of the most difficult professors I ever had, also a great teacher, was an art history professor.  I had my BA at this time and simply wanted to know more art history.  The class was great and I still have the textbook.

Also as a CC student I had the single laziest teacher I have ever had.  One cannot say for sure, but I cannot imagine this person surviving a truly academic institution.  This person's students were almost all adults simply looking for a creative writing class for something to do, and they were okay with writing poems on the fly in class and then chatting for an hour.

Overall, the classes were much, much easier at CC although still a tad more difficult than secondary school----at least in my experience.

[downer]

It's not as if there's any definite measure of what secondary education is meant to achieve, despite all the regulations and standardized tests. There's massive variation from one place to another. If you go to a good private prep school, you will engage in material at a more advanced level than at many colleges, at least regarding the first and second year courses.

I've seen a good deal of close-to-open enrollment institutions and other places. The more prestigious places have on average more demanding courses than the open enrollment places. But there's massive variation from professor to professor everywhere. It's amazing what some faculty get away with.

[Antiphon1]

In looking at the number of students enrolled in higher education overall, the total number of undergrad enrollees has dropped by around 2.2 million since 2010.  The question is why.  I strongly suspect the reason is a combination of lower population, increased immigration/student visa regulation and increased cost/lower funding. 

I'm at a CC. Our numbers are lower, particularly dual credit students, because the local 4 year universities are busily scooping up the low hanging enrollment fruit.  In my state, high schools are required to offer 12 hours of dual credit to their students.  If the students take their first semester or more in high school from a 4 year school that also sweeten the transfer deal to dual credit students by offering tuition discounts, the best students will choose to skip the CC route and go directly to a 4 year school. 

Further, research seems to indicate persistence and success rates strongly correlate to personality traits and values found most often in middle  and upper class families.  These traits include dependability, personal accountability and persistence.  It's not that lower income families don't have these traits.  These families generally focus these traits on acquisition of more practical and immediate needs like paying the water bill or buying food. 

It's hard to make a fair comparison or even get a clear picture of the causes of the enrollment drop if we don't take into consideration all the factors acting on the potential students.  As a current faculty member, I can say unequivocally that the quality of my students is at best a very mixed bag.  Local students are mostly the students who have no other options due to low performance/poor preparation.  Dual credit students as long as they are juniors or seniors are hands down  some of my best students.  The early college high school students are a disaster.  The athletes vary, but by and large are better prepared than the local high school grads.  So again, the question is why.  I don't think we really know, yet.  I do think we can make some educated estimations based on data and observations, but that's about the best we can do at this time. 

[Caracal]

Random questions:

1) These are open enrollment places, right-- more or less all comers are admitted, and no one tries to ascertain whether any given student is likely to have a hope of passing?

Correct, at least in my experience.  And a great many of the people who go to CCs are taking classes out of general interest, not necessarily as degree or career students.  Many are testing the waters because they do not know what else to do with themselves.

2) When half of the students flunk, is there ever administrative blowback rained down on the prof?

No, at least in my experience. 

I was actually told that half of my students would disappear by the chair of the department when they hired me. 

It does seem like attrition is a different issue when the price is so much lower and the student population is so different. Students who bail out of community college aren't likely to end up with massive debts. If you can successfully get some students who do want to go to 4 year colleges and have the capability to do that, to succeed, then that's good.

[downer]

My community college does not have an add/drop week at the start of the semester. I don't know why, but it does mean that students cannot drop a class in the first week even when they don't like the course. It's as if the admin want to make it more likely the students won't succeed.

Sometimes I send out the syllabus and even make the course available to students in the weeks before the course starts so they can drop and switch to a different course if mine looks like a bad fit for them. That's partly selfish, since I would prefer to have fewer students, but I figure it might also help the students.