More than a third of community college students have vanished | Hacker News Reader

More than a third of community college students have vanished

seattletimes.com

45 pointsvellum68 comments

It is a bit of paradox that community colleges are, in theory, what every talking head and commentator are asking colleges to be—direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only—and yet there is no other college type that is seeing a more precipitous enrollment drop off than community colleges and technical schools.

The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted by where they enroll are often two different things.

> is what people say they want and what they actually want as votes by their enrollment are two different things.

This is a universal truth about everything though. What people say and what they do are not guaranteed to be same.

"Stated Preference" vs "Revealed Preference"

I've taught at community colleges; many of the issues mentioned in the article are long-standing. So what's driving the change now?

The simplest answer is the most likely: the strong economy, including among relatively low wage, low skill workers.

That is the correct answer here.

...combined with the selection bias that means community colleges disproportionately enroll "relatively low wage, low skill workers" that would most appreciate "direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only".

That is, the talking heads might not be wrong about what they think community colleges are getting right.

This is true and not well understood by many as well. Community colleges and many graduate programs often run counter-cyclically to the economy. When unemployment is high many post pone entering the job market or go back to school to up-skill and fill an unemployment gap.

Undergraduate enrollment at a 4-year school technically runs cyclically to the economy, but in practical terms enrollment remains flat at most schools.

I think that’s missing one big piece. What people really want cheap education that ends with a degree that is as well regarded as an Ivy or good state college degree. Community colleges, for better or worse, are seen as inferior education. So they are not equivalent to simply a cheaper option of more expensive schools.

There is usually a path for two years of cheaper community college with transferable credits to two final years at a state university.

Problem being that community colleges will happily lie to your face about what does and does not transfer and most community college students aren't going to lawyer up about it.

That's more on the universities end than the CC, I used to see it all the time. The community colleges would have agreements with many universities but when you'd as the uni to accept your credits they wouldn't and you'd spend 6 months fighting it. I took a calculus class at Purdue over the summer and tried to transfer it to Indiana and they flatly rejected it -same state, same class, won't accept it. Everybody has their little fiefdom and they will fight to the death to keep it.

By denying course transfers Universities benefit. Students are forced to enroll for additional quarters. The university could make tens of thousands of dollars per student on a few course transfer denials.

This comes at an enormous time and money cost to the student.

A good alternative would be to test proficiency for that class. But that’s additional work a University has little desire to do, beyond allowing for testing out of precalculus.

To be fair, what transfers is determined by the school you're transferring to. Then on top of that you have to match up the requirements for your major, i.e. you might have a CC science course that is accepted by the university but doesn't meet the science required by your major. I suspect there are a LOT of CC students who only have vague goals of transferring somewhere to finish a four year degree (I was one of them many years ago), and in many cases it's just going to be difficult to give them solid advice.

The program I successfully completed had detailed written documentation from both the CC and uni at sign up time, of exactly what needed to happen as part of the organized official admissions program. Grades had to be above C IIRC and they were very specific about exactly which "electives" we were permitted to select, such that they were not really "electives" they were just non-major required courses if you wanted to transfer in with 64 credits. IIRC I willfully took some different electives and ended up with only 48 or 56 credits but I had written documentation explaining what I did.

I do believe there is airy and non-specific marketing material about "take your calculus class at CC and transfer to some schools" in a non-specific manner that is, as you claim, sort of fictional. Or "many of our classes transfer to state-U" which in a legal sense is technically true.

It isn't likely that they are intentionally lying. What is and is not accepted is dependent on the school and the other school can change their mind at any point and the community college has no control over that.

I did this and was 100% successful, although the article propagandizes by asking what percentage of students once considered possibly obtaining a bachelors degree in the future which I'm sure is very high, whereas I was in a specific program with a specific track directly primarily toward cooperating with the transfer schools, so our success rate was very high (something like 80% got their BS degree along with me).

Also my CC fed the state U system and three private colleges, not solely state U.

I think with the advent of online education, community colleges as not seen as necessary. Why go to Hometown Community College when you can attend almost any school online. Personally I'm a big fan of community colleges, they can be area specific and provide actual job training that online schools rally can't provide. They also turn out better students, student's that go to community colleges tend to do better when they go to a 4 year school and finally as someone who has been out of college over 30 years it's a place where I can continually retool at a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. The reputation of the Ivy or R1 state schools are what they are because of everything they do outside of the classroom.

The issue is network effects, though, right?

If community colleges could attract the best teachers (etc.), and provide the kind of education as stated, then perhaps they would be what people want.

The problem is the incentives of workers, academics, students, the state, etc. are not aligned.

Most students probably do want the best practical education to get them into the workforce effectively -- but those who can provide that education have no incentive to.

The best industry professionals are in industry, the best academics are researchers.

Community colleges flat out can't afford the salaries that the best require. That's not network effects, that's a market effect.

Some CCs actually pay better than 4-year schools. There's a lot of competition to get tenure at a university, which can drive down salaries.

How common is this "some" though?

CC actually do have some of the best teachers, they may not have some of the best research professors you get at a high-end school but they are actual teachers as opposed to grad assistants or a research guy who really doesn't want to teach. Further, even at your high-end schools most of the teachers are contract workers no different than any other college. I take classes at a CC down the road, the guy that taught one of my classes also teaches at two other universities, one that's a top 10 uni and another that's just an expensive private school -same teacher,same class, wildly different cost.

"the people" are not "the best", they don't need to hire top 1% ivy league only, to teach 100% of the taxpaying public whom pay for the CC.

The local CC paid TAs the same at 2 year CC as at 4 year state U. Odd that they charge differential tuition to students while paying the TA the same. I had a programming grad student TA and a History grad student TA who both commuted to also teach at the 4-year down the road 30 miles.

Having just short of 15 years of personal experience with this I can say with certainty, the issue is accountability.

There simply is none, and what's considered fraud in any other industry is just business as usual.

A college or university's reputation is based on a number of things, just one is the quality of education that is provided. The Ivy league is the Ivy League because of being in a shared athletic conference and because those schools are some of the oldest in the nation.

The biggest drivers of reputation of have little to nothing to do with the quality of instruction. Below are probably the largest drivers of reputation in ranked order:

1. Athletics

2. Research

3. Notable alumni

4. Notable campus beauty / landscaping / facilities

5. Appearances in popular culture (movies, tv, etc.)

6. Outstanding instruction in a particular discipline for decades

>The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as votes by their enrollment are two different things.

There's no "paradox" here. There's just a huge gap between two groups whose members have likely never had a conversation with someone from the other group: talking head commentators and people without even an associate's degree. The commentators are saying that people who haven't gone to college should want community college, because they believe traditional universities aren't worth it. The people who haven't gone to college don't want community college and keep taking on loans to bankroll traditional colleges. It turns out higher education is a business and consumers love frills no matter what the sector is, but especially if they don't have to think about paying it back.

I’ve taken side classes at a local community college that were honestly more rigorous and better taught than the four year school I attended for my bachelors.

The only vote that matters is college graduate HR personnel, and their vote is that CC and associates degrees are lower than worthless, literally a waste of time, would be more likely to hire with two years of entry level or minimum wage work than with an associates degree.

Any CC student whom is motivated by employment is flushing their money down the toilet if they're on a track or a program.

I was in a transfer program along with several other kids and that program worked very well, but "most" people paying for CC are wasting their money.

The non-credit courses are, however, a good deal and an excellent way to learn and skill up. Note that paying 100x as much to make those courses "credit" courses is worthless if the degree or cert granted is considered worthless in the workplace. And the institution cannot stay in business if everyone takes non-credit courses instead of being on a very expensive "associates degree" or "certificate" path.

This is true. Community Colleges can be a great tool if you know how to use them. The best value is to go two years to a community college that has automatic acceptance to a 4 year state school. You then get to finish your degree at what may be a fairly prestigious state school.

The other way to use Community Colleges is to focus on something that has a very specific certification or outcome just by finishing the certificate or degree program.

An associates degree from a community college by itself has minimal value.

ASN degree still have some value. Decent technician programs for Engineering Technicians (not car repair or similar). The only way to get a real electronics technician nowadays is through a two year degree program.

Somewhat counterintuitively, I personally found that the quality of instruction at community college vastly exceeded that at a university.

Most cc teachers were not tenured - they were often experienced industry professionals who taught as a hobby. And the ones that were prized and retained were the ones who had exceptional teaching/lecture ability.

At a university so many professors are basically just the middle-management of academia - hired because of their research or experience managing grad students.

This is exactly right. At a community college, you're likely to find an adjunct professor who is an expert in their field teaching on the side more for the fun and altruistic aspects of education.

At a normal university, you end up taking classes from "professional" professors with no actual industry experience who are unlikely to be native English speakers. These professors copy & paste their notes, assignments and exams, cheating their way through teaching, hardly able to go off script or explain a concept beyond their intended lecture area. I've literally taken several classes (at the graduate level even) where the entire curriculum, lecture notes, assignments, exams were copy-pasted from other teachers or schools.

Of course, I believe there are some highly reputable universities and reputable professors. But the vast majority of PhD professors teaching at middle to low tier schools are hardly really teaching.

I'll take a class from an adjunct who is passionate about teaching even if they are somewhat just winging it. At least their heart and experience are in the right place.

I believe this is also due to a perception problem. Name recognition is important when it comes to college degrees and there is a stigma against community colleges.

When I decided to go to grad school in Econ I had to take all the math classes I didn’t take during my undergrad years. Community college was the obvious choice. I had 2 really good professors and one hack. This was from 2002-2005.

I also tried to take a “fun” class each time I took a math class just to break up the grind. Creative writing was an eye opener. Most of the stuff turned in was dreadful, sometimes in style/substance but especially in effort. Short stories meant 2 paragraphs for a lot of them. The final story of the semester was supposed to be the culmination of the class. I turned in a 7 page story. While several people were enthusiastic about reading it for critique most were not. One guy even told me, “I’m sure it’s good but dude, I’m never going to reading anything that long.”

I asked the prof about the lack of effort and awful results from the class. I was in a BFA program in film and photography for undergrad and the critique sessions were intense. Part of what drove us, me at least, was fear of embarrassing myself in front of everyone with lousy work. This creative writing class was an elective and presumably the people that signed up for it should have been at least interested in the topic.

She said that you have to understand that most of the people there were really pushing themselves to be at college at all. Most had never developed successful academic habits or understood what it takes to seriously engage with a topic. “That’s why they are at community college instead of a 4 year school” was left unsaid but was clearly implied.

I’m of the opinion that marginal students, either in skill or interest, are more likely to just not try college at all these days instead of wasting their money and time. That’s actually a good thing IMO.

This is very similar to my experience. Most of the students who actually tried were international students.

I was always dumbfounded when I saw how people just couldn’t care less. Its as if they already predetermined this is isn’t worth it or they’re not good enough idk.

Advisors were also awful, they would actually encourage you to not finish ur degree in 2 years and take longer.

>“You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number and run from office to office and see if you can figure it out.”

>“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month.

State schools are like this too.

So is dealing with city approval processes. For instance when starting a physical business requiring building permitting.

I haven't had to deal with that but I always guessed it was worse.

>if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else

That sounds like the ideal response, doesn't it?

We talk about kids not being prepared for the real-world, and this seems like a good example. The first student graduated high-school with a 4.0 GPA, but can't figure out what classes he should take? Some of us went to college pre-email; there was no way to communicate but going office to office to resolve issues..

If I had to guess, the low college completion rate and "employers [being] “lukewarm” about the quality of community college students who do manage to graduate" both stem from grade inflation.

Broadly speaking, a lot of people have either never known or (speaking for myself) have largely memory holed how terrifically difficult it was to connect to the one person who knew the answer to something or to get information about most things generally.

The details don't matter but years ago we had some international family financial transaction that needed an appropriate stamp from someone. A notary wasn't good enough. I was sort of out of options at that point until someone pointed me to one our executive admins who knew what was needed. Today the answer is probably a Google away.

Yeah, pretty much. It turns out earning top marks at taking orders for 12 years doesn't equate to the ability to identify challenges, think outside the box, and execute.

>That sounds like the ideal response, doesn't it?

Ideal would be like a competent concierge, but that simply doesn't exist for the non-wealthy.

Absolutely. The article makes it sound like problems with poor advising are confined to community colleges. That's ludicrous.

And it's not just state schools. When my wife went back to RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology, an expensive private school) to study photography, nobody there could even answer questions like: What courses do I need to graduate? Knowing that might be useful!

A lot of the student management systems used at many schools are extremely antiquated. Degree requirements are expressed in ways that make it difficult or impossible to create tools to help students plan their schedules and stay on track to receive their degree on time. Registration can make it hard for students to enroll in courses they need to complete their program. Many advisers are doing their best, and come up with hacks and workaround to try and help individual students, but access to advising can be limited and advisers are also affected by the poor data and tooling.

And of course, it's worth pointing out that universities are positioned to benefit from student mistakes. Didn't realize that you needed that course to graduate? See you next semester! Make sure to bring your (or your family's) checkbook. I'm sorry you couldn't register for that popular course as an undergraduate! Have you considered our MS programs?

These problems are not limited to community colleges.

College faculty offices, both in community college and in university, are some of the most inept people I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. Financial aid, admissions, counseling, all of them. That alone is enough to drive you mad then add on top the other stress of being a student and it's no wonder people are just saying no thanks.

I went to my state school under a low income program (EOF, Educational Opportunity Fund). I found all resources available to me as valuable, and I wouldn’t have graduated on time had it not been for their services.

I’m generally a cynical person, but I can’t be cynical about the administration of the EOF program because everyone I interacted with under that program excelled at what they did. They didn’t need to go above and beyond for the poor students, but they did.

My wife briefly (a couple of semesters) tried to go through a software development curriculum at our community college, which is apparently decently funded as community colleges go.

Having gone through a 4-year Bachelor's in Computer Engineering at an ABET accredited university, the community college program was pathetic by comparison. There was one professor who seemed to have his shit together and worth the money. The rest were clearly half-assing it, assignments were poorly explained, grading was ludicrously pedantic (red marks for number of spaces on indentations in hand-written HTML), and the curriculum didn't structure prerequisites adequately so if you didn't know any better you'd be learning how to use a command line for the first time while someone is trying to teach you about RLC circuits with Arduino. It was quite bizarre, and they were clearly mostly dealing with the dregs who couldn't make it in a more serious university or in industry.

I guess I can't blame them, I can't imagine a community college teaching position pays all that well. But the only reason to go through that program is to do the bare minimum required for 2 years to trade up to a superior four year program at a major university, and you'll probably have to do a lot of remedial work when you get there.

I was at a community college for a couple months after high school before leaving for a full time job. Frankly, it just felt like high school, except I paid for it directly.

I’m sure there are very good community colleges all across the nation, unfortunately, education isn’t something you can really shop around for.

I don't know if that was the schools issue or what is going on in higher-education in general. I've been out of college for over 30 years but I like to take a class every year to learn things -I like a classroom setting. The first time I did this it was at the local CC and the prof was really behind the times are far as what is going on in industry, I learned a lot of good basics but I felt bad for the other students because they were learning stuff that was relevant 5 years ago. That said the students were fucking horrible, they were on their phones or playing games on the computers and didn't contribute or pay very much attention. The prof didn't seem to care and gave everyone an A because he didn't want to figure out Virtual Box. I've taken other classes at other universities, some of the best in the country and I'm not particularly impressed some are good and others are indifferent, like so many things you get out what you put in and you can't rely on a prof to inspire you.

Perhaps not "inspire", but if you can't rely on the prof for adequate direction and explanation what the hell are you paying for?

I remember when I first started out on my college academic path I tried a semester at a community collage. I don't recall the name of the class but it was something to do with computers. I figured start off with something I'm already good at and see what I get out of the experience.

It became apparent very early that I was much more advanced than the instructor. So much so that I realized this person was woefully unqualified to teach anyone anything about "computers". I remember the day when he looked at me and out of earshot of the other students said something to the effect of "Don't tell anyone OK?".

My next semester I made sure was at a proper four year college for CompSci.

I don't look back unkindly at my experience as a whole for that community college, it just makes some of the issues in the OP article ring true. Smart people will know the quality of education they're receiving especially when they're having to pay for it.

The headline reads like the setup to a true crime podcast. It took me a moment to figure out what they were actually trying to say.

I thought it was more like the premise to a Lost derivative TV show

I'm glad I'm not alone, this is where Reddit would've shined, someone always nails the comment like these.

I had a wonderful time at community college! (It helps that my community college had an amazing service department).

Even for people who don't finish a degree, it's still a great place to get exposure or make connections. And it's much cheaper to find out college isn't for you at community college.

Transfer programs though are a mess. The culprit are the 4-year universities - who actually punish you for not coming directly from high school. Your application is deprioritized, the requirements are much more stringent, and no one is there to help you.

That depends on the school. I went to Monroe Community College which worked with Rochester Institute of Technology to craft its CS program. MCC uses the same material as RIT. In this case transferring is very easy.

> Transfer programs though are a mess

Depends on the state. IGETC [1], the transfer program from California community colleges to the UC system, was very straightforward back in 2007-2009. Cal had a few dorm buildings specifically for transfer students. Each UC even provided stats on the admission rate for each major.

[1] https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requi...

I took advantage of a similar transfer program in WA state (about which this article is written) but it was not at all straightforward. The state colleges only had so many openings they made available to transfer students, and the application process was worse in many ways.

Part of the issue they won't tell you is that you can apply as a transfer student with basic admissions requirements, but to actually get into some of the specific undergraduate programs had their own admissions requirements.

I was in a weird situation where I got accepted to the college but not into the undergrad program I had been working towards. AND ON TOP OF THAT you couldn't transfer in as a sophomore - you had 6 months to declare a major or you got kicked out. So you were forced to find ANY program at the college that would accept you.

(So as much as people have bad experiences with community colleges, I personally had a much worse time at the university level)

True, the UC system also has the issue where there are general transfer requirements (IGETC) but then each major has its own requirements on top of that.

Universities are about a few things:

1. Education - Inspiration and job training 2. High-achieving peer groups 3. Prestige and signalling 4. Fun and independence

Online courses do #1 better than CCs. Dorms are essential to #4, so CCs miss out on it. There is no prestige associated with CCs and the titular community isn't especially high achieving.

What value do CCs provide ?

I guess it's a fairly low cost degree of some sort that I assume has more value than a list of MOOC certificates, evening classes, and maybe an industry cert or two in the case of IT. But there are a variety of lower cost options and I'm not sure where a community college degree sits in the hierarchy and in terms of cost/benefit.

They are stepping stones to 4-year degrees for many people. As the article mentioned, most people in CCs are planning to graduate from a university, but stuff happens.

They have some incredible transfer opportunities, where you can get half the cost of a state school for pennies on the dollar.

Though I don't entirely agree, your premises are incorrect.

1. Online is not inherently better than a CC. A CC is not entirely in person, either.

2. High achieving peer groups are not necessary. They simply need to be good enough

3. Prestige and signaling is relative - again this is adjusted to the community. A community where there are not schools could still benefit from a CC.

4. You could certainly fun at a CC, but you're right that the dorms help a lot.

Some may not like this opionion but...

I have worked at a community college. In my experience, the majority of the degrees or certificates emparted by said college do not really carry any marketable skills. Instructors are older, for the most part and not computer literate. Covid-19 forced a great number of them to either retire early or killed them off. Departments are always fighting the state for a small piece of the budget to stay afloat and not cut staff. I've found that most instructors are only there for their paychecks.

A good indicator of how bad things have gotten is the fact that post-secondary schools like community colleges and private schools regularly send out department reps to perform outreach at high-schools just to increase their enrollment numbers. A young mind's brain is very malleable afterall.

I have been doing some research on vocations and community college courses in USA. It’s hell. Most of them don’t make their curriculum easily accessible. They don’t show the price. They treat visitors like some sort of corporate funnel where they take personal information up front like contact info etc and then say “they'll get back to you later”. As a potential international (Canadian) student, I haven’t heard back yet. This is terrible experience. Contrast this to Canadian colleges like Centennial, Humber, Conestoga, etc. Their websites are clear and easy to navigate, you can find the curriculum you’ll be studying and the price you’ll be paying with no sales funnel wall. I don’t get it. Why is USA education system such a joke?

Quality of education was the real issue for my son compared to when I attended the same school.

I was taught by local business leaders and real human instructors while he was 'guided' through many online sessions using computer-based curriculum. This strategic change dramatically lowered his interactive learning opportunities and made success very difficult. Frankly, it was the one of the most disappointing thing I had ever seen.

Ultimately, he gave up and switched to a technical school and moved on with his life rather than dig a mountain of debt for nothing.

People vote with their dollars and their feet.

I’ve done few math pre requisites at community college. In my experience, the educators care a lot about the students. They are very helpful.

Great topic. Lots of mixed feelings. This thread is becoming generally negative on community colleges (CCs) so I will balance it out with my overwhelmingly positive experience.

Graduated HS in 2007. Was not ambitious in HS whatsoever. Soon after graduating I realized I needed to get my shit together. Education was the best bet at that time. My grandpa was a CC guidance counselor so the CC path was acceptable and familiar in my family. I never actually got much formal guidance counseling from him by the way. The first semester was disorienting but isn't all big change in life? I got much more confident that I could transfer once I discovered IGETC [1]. Every CC class was clearly marked to show what IGETC area it fulfilled. The UCs even provide statistics on the transfer admission rate for each major. My family was poor on paper so I got a lot of financial support. $5K to $10K per year in grants. I actually had $2K in savings purely from grants by the time I transferred to Cal! I chuckle a bit at UC kids taking on $50K in debt for lower-level general education whereas I ended up getting paid $2K to do the same! I transferred on-time, in 2 years. I pretty much had to devote my time to studies, though. It was very lonely. Continuing to live with my mom sucked. I regret not finding ways to socialize productively more during CC. But you can totally find concentrations of ambitious, high-performing peers. The advanced STEM classes had a lot of serious academics for example. I met some sharp people working on the school newspaper who probably went on to significant success in life. The professors were high-quality in general. Most had graduated from Stanford or UCs (colleges in the University of California system) themselves. They were totally focused on teaching us rather than doing research like most UC professors. When you get to CC it's really clear right away that a lot of students will not transfer even though that is their stated goal. Some just have too much life responsibility: needing to balance studies with full-time work to support a family and pay bills, etc. That is a tragedy. There were quite a few spoiled kids who probably subconsciously knew they would never really need to make a big career for themselves and weren't motivated for reasons like that. There were a lot of peers who unfortunately just had bad mindsets about education. You could tell that they didn't accept they needed to start being uncool and start reading a lot of books. There were a lot of peers who unfortunately were probably just bewildered by the bureaucracy of schools and just couldn't figure out the system and weren't being encouraged to persist at their studies. A lot of the students who don't transfer or get a degree as intended are up against some combination of those factors. Some of those problems are solvable by CCs. Others are deep-rooted and I don't think it's reasonable to expect CCs to fix them. Maybe we should just set the expectation that a lot of CC students won't transfer or get a degree simply because they are catering to "at-risk" populations. All-in-all CC was a smashing success for me in terms of sparking my passion for learning and providing an affordable foundation for career success.

[1] https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requi...

The paintball wars can be brutal.

In all seriousness, the comments in this thread make me wonder if the show "Community" wasn't as much commentary as it was comedy.

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