Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
My college participated with video submission, at bottom. Jill Biden's a community college professor, which is interesting in light of SEK's recent attack on students and faculty at two-year colleges:
Coincidentally, one of my sons, who has a Masters degree from the University of Michigan and runs a successful website design business, and I were talking about opportunities for people like him to teach young people who could benefit from the experience and knowledge of successful business people.
My son stated that U of M requires a doctorate of their guest instructors. We talked about smaller business colleges and community colleges as a good alternative and one area that is often overlooked as a pathway to a four-year degree.
In southeastern Michigan, a student can attend Oakland Community College [OCC]for about 1/7 the cost of tuition at U of M. But cost is not necessarily the only issue. The big obstacle facing community colleges is that there is a lack of a clear pathway from high school to community college to a specific curriculum in a specific university.
A student cannot easily answer the question of whether, aside from saving money on tuition, whether going to a community college will benefit him or simply waste time and money toward a longer term goal. For example, if a student wanted to major in computer science at U of M, would two years of study at OCC get him the equivalent of the first two years at U of M... and be accepted by U of M... or is it nothing more than a little nice-to-have extra training, but does nothing toward expediting the path to the degree he wants?
I do not often agree with President Obama, but in this instance I believe there is significant opportunity for community colleges to "repair" the education process in the U.S. He got a bit sidetracked in his pontification about tax breaks which really was irrelevant. Tax breaks are not the issue. The issue is creating a system in which community colleges become feeder campuses to universities in an orderly and effective way... for both the students and the universities.
Community colleges can become "filters" for students who have marginal credentials, but may have excellent motivation... allowing them to adequately prepare for the university and avoid situations such as this:
Coincidentally, one of my sons, who has a Masters degree from the University of Michigan and runs a successful website design business, and I were talking about opportunities for people like him to teach young people who could benefit from the experience and knowledge of successful business people.
ReplyDeleteMy son stated that U of M requires a doctorate of their guest instructors. We talked about smaller business colleges and community colleges as a good alternative and one area that is often overlooked as a pathway to a four-year degree.
In southeastern Michigan, a student can attend Oakland Community College [OCC]for about 1/7 the cost of tuition at U of M. But cost is not necessarily the only issue. The big obstacle facing community colleges is that there is a lack of a clear pathway from high school to community college to a specific curriculum in a specific university.
A student cannot easily answer the question of whether, aside from saving money on tuition, whether going to a community college will benefit him or simply waste time and money toward a longer term goal. For example, if a student wanted to major in computer science at U of M, would two years of study at OCC get him the equivalent of the first two years at U of M... and be accepted by U of M... or is it nothing more than a little nice-to-have extra training, but does nothing toward expediting the path to the degree he wants?
I do not often agree with President Obama, but in this instance I believe there is significant opportunity for community colleges to "repair" the education process in the U.S. He got a bit sidetracked in his pontification about tax breaks which really was irrelevant. Tax breaks are not the issue. The issue is creating a system in which community colleges become feeder campuses to universities in an orderly and effective way... for both the students and the universities.
Community colleges can become "filters" for students who have marginal credentials, but may have excellent motivation... allowing them to adequately prepare for the university and avoid situations such as this:
http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/2010/08/unqualified-students-failing-to.html
And then there is the issue of high schools...
http://www.4shared.com/file/141168472/c64de0c0/University_Model_For_High_Schools.html