More than a third of community college students have vanished

https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/more-than-a-third-of-community-college-students-have-vanished/

 

Maybe, its the trend, many small shops banished, large shops go out of business or scale down because customers are using on line shopping.
I don't rule out that more students earn degrees on line colleges and not necessary go to community colleges.

 

56
Serah Louis
Sat, April 22, 2023 at 9:00 AM EDT



Is the degree worth the debt? Over 40% of US college grads said their degree wasn't worth it in the end — here are 3 simple ways to give yourself an edge in the job market without one
Burdened with a staggering amount of student debt and limited job skills, more people in the U.S. believe getting a college degree may no longer be the hallowed cornerstone of the American dream that it once was.


In fact, 42% of Americans with a four-year degree said it wasn’t worth it, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll. This is 10 percentage points higher than previous years.

So, with more Americans feeling more skeptical over the benefits of higher education, their next might be diving straight into the job market.

But how do you compete with other prospective employees who do have those academic credentials?

Americans are skeptical about the importance of higher education
The survey also revealed that 56% of Americans think earning a college degree is a bad bet, since graduates often find themselves floundering in the aftermath without specific job skills and a large amount of debt to pay off.

This skepticism seems to be strongest among those aged 18 to 34, which could signal an important turning point in the sustainability of higher education for future generations.

Undergraduate college enrollment dropped 5.7% from fall 2019 to fall 2022, according to a 2023 report from the National Student Clearinghouse.

 

I've lived through a time when higher ed. was for the few. And a time when it was considered to be for pretty well everyone. Maybe there will be a new time, when it's in the middle (again.) Back years ago, home ownership was an achievable goal for many. Now it's not. Many young adults seem condemned forever (or at least until they inherit) to living in the basements of homes their parents were able to buy, long ago. Maybe, with less debt resulting from higher ed. - home ownership might be an achievable goal for more people, and emphasis will be placed on it.

A change in priorities. I think that'd be good.

 

My alma mater community college enrollment dropped 50% from 2012 to 2017 and was at its lowest around 2020 to 2021 with numbers as low as the enrollment in 2003! We had an enrollment of close to 12000 students at its peak but the decline happened when we removed our open enrollment status with only accepting students with reading exam entry standards of atleast high school level.

 

Sounds to me like the college might well have been enrolling a very significant number of students with iffy-at-best chances of success. That was a common fault with some infamous for-profit chains (and stand-alone schools) - Corinthian, ITT and the like. I have to wonder what those who ran things were thinking. Was the enrolment standards change forced on them, or did somebody / somebodies at the top just have a bad night with their conscience(s) and make the decision voluntarily?

 

I believe it had a lot to do with increasing retention rates because the graduation rate at the time was under 20%. This change happened when the former president retired and the new president took over. The school had their own academic success division up till about 7 years ago when at the time I taught there housed all remedial courses. It ran courses in developmental reading, writing, and mathematics with these subjects having upwards of 3 to 4 remedial courses each with levels as low as middle school level subject matter. Over 90% of admitted students had to take courses in that department and since they have been taken over by the University of Arkansas system, that division has been abolished with the subject courses now belonging to their on subject departments. Many of the courses have been revamped to allow for remediation courses to be taken as co-requisites with college courses so students don't spend two or more years stuck in those courses.

I can attest that I taught Basic Mathematics for a year and a half which was the lowest mathematics course and Pre-Algebra Skills which was the second lowest. The Basic Math course was Adding, Subtracting, Multiplication, and Division with no Algebra whatsoever! This was equivalent to 6th and 7 grade mathematics and the failure and drop-out rates were the highest at that level. They eventually got rid and that course because Pre-Algebra Skills and Basic Mathematics were the same except for there were no variables like the Pre-Algebra Skills course.

 

Wow! That's different to my day! Very simple back then - sink or swim. I was a very poor math student in my youth, although later, I scored straight A's in 3 college math courses in my 40s and 50s. In my last 3 years of high school, I had an extra subject (German) that gave me sufficient credits to get my HS diploma without passing Senior Algebra.

If I hadn't earned those extra German credits, I'd still be there, for my 64th year of trying to solve quadratic equations.

 

Practically nothing is unattainable. Somebody always gets to be President. Harvard grants Ph.Ds. But home ownership (at least here) comes a lot closer now than it did. It used to be, you had a job and a couple of thousand dollars, you filled out some forms and you were a shoo-in, provided you weren't a deadbeat. I know. I was there, in 1972, when I bought a 3-bed brick bungalow for $18,500. And again in 1985, when I bought a very small, bachelor-size house, with a workshop and a nice yard, for $30K. A bungalow similar to the one I purchased in 1972, for $18,500, one block away, is currently listed for $829,000. There is just no comparison to former days.

Nowadays, around here, down payments are six figures and a lot of (formerly) commonplace houses are priced in seven. Steve - I believe you have learned a bit lately about the real estate market in Western Canada (and were surprised.) Your statement about attainability (for young people, at least) falls really, REALLY flat, this side of the border. East or West.

 

Thanks - all I hoped to achieve.

 

Sounds familiar. Not in Canada, but I know someone who has saved up a good chunk of change and it's still not enough for a decent place. Six figures in liquid assets and it's still not enough for a down payment on anything but a relatively small apartment in an inconvenient location. They're thinking about giving up their well-paying job, taking a significant pay cut, and moving somewhere with cheaper housing. Somewhere that they actually have the money to buy a home outright, or nearly so.

 

I'm told Iowa is pretty good, that way.

 

And I know another DI member is building a cabin in the remote wilderness. Both these guys will have nice, quiet places to work on their doctorates -- which happen to be at the same Uni. Cheers -- and I wish every success, to both.

 

There are a bunch of places where housing is (relatively) cheap. Unfortunately, this also tends to be where incomes are lower. So, the houses are proportionally the same cost relative to income. These days, if you want to buy a home, your best bet is probably to get a high-paying job in an expensive city and save every penny you can. After about a decade, with a lot of luck, you can move to your preferred location with cheaper housing. That's kind of insane.

 

There's also this way, per Dustin:

"My getting out of dodge was when I moved from a suburb of Toronto to this tiny town in Iowa! I was able to get my driver's license and nearly triple my salary by coming here so I'm pretty pleased. Thanks to the much lower cost of living I was also able to buy a house and finish my Bachelor's degree ahead of schedule too." (emphases mine - J.)

"I think America provides unlimited opportunity to some, in exchange for many people who get no opportunities. As opposed to Canada where the top don't do as well as the American top, but the bottom also don't do as badly as the American bottom."

It's here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/so-what-are-you-reading.42566/page-71#post-545206

 

And in countries like Canada, workers at all levels don't have obtaining healthcare as an issue. It is automatic.

In America, you can go bankrupt because of healthcare or just decide to die early due to a lack of treatment.

I know the UK and Canada have issues with healthcare in a different way. The UK has had several stories of people dying waiting for ambulances for hours. Canada infamously recommended assisted suicide to a veteran who was a para Olympian (who was shocked and had no medical or emotional need to kill herself).

 

Some students claim that for them in was a waste of time to attend a community college.

I don't think this way as I know many who benefited for it. Our daughter studied FT in such community college and after 2 years transferred to state university where she earned her bachelors degree.

But there are cases when due to possible bad planning the universities reject to transfer classes from community colleges. I have no idea.
how wide spread this problem is.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/waste-time-community-college-transfers-043010995.html

COLLIN BINKLEY
Mon, May 1, 2023 at 12:30 AM EDT

"First came the good news. After taking classes at a community college, Ricki Korba was admitted to California State University, Bakersfield, as a transfer student. But when she logged on to her student account, she got a gut punch: Most of her previous classes wouldn’t count.

The university rejected most of her science classes, she was told, because they were deemed less rigorous than those at Bakersfield — even though some used the same textbooks. Several other courses were rejected because Korba exceeded a cap on how many credits can be transferred.

Now Korba, a chemistry and music major, is retaking classes she already passed once. It will add a year to her studies, plus at least $20,000 in tuition and fees.

“It just feels like a waste of time,” said Korba, 23, of Sonora, California. “I thought I was supposed to be going to a CSU and starting hard classes and doing a bunch of cool labs.”"