While the Complete College Report raises some important issues and concerns, one danger of such reports is that they present a blanket of data with little or no explanation or analysis. There's more to these numbers, and to the lives of the people those numbers represent than the surface conclusions highlighted on the report pages.
For example, the report correctly notes that increasingly the average post-secondary student is older and likely to be going to school part-time due to family and/or job responsibilities. What the report does not appear to take into consideration is that many of those older students who come to the community college, are not seeking to graduate. Some come just to take those remedial courses. Others just want to take a few courses to help them on their current jobs or to help prepare them for another. Many of our students transfer to other schools or to universities before they complete their associate degree programs, without waiting to graduate. To accurately measure whether community colleges are properly serving their students, requires additional metrics than just standard graduation rates and times.
I've watched many of the students at our community college fight to stay in school because of pressures and challenges in their lives for which we as an institution could give them little help. We are in a rural area, and transportation is a major issue for many of our students. So is reliable, affordable internet access. Before the budget cuts, the school had organized bus routes throughout our seven county service area, but that's no longer possible. These adults often have to interrupt their education to care for elderly parents or young children: a situation made even more stressful when they are also working jobs that provide little or no health care benefits or paid sick leave. I've had more than one student, usually Black, who was working a minimum wage job and trying to go to school have to quit because the employer deliberately shifted their work hours to interfere with the students' attempt to better themselves. Then there are the ones who are struggling with family problems, physical or substance abuse, and years of self-doubt. That they come to school at all is often an amazing testament to their determination and perserverance.
Many reports have noted the increasing numbers or percentages of students in remedial programs at postsecondary institutions. What usually goes unmentioned are at least two other correlating factors. One of those factors is the increasing number of people seeking college education who in years past would not have even attempted college, or didn't require college for decent paying jobs.
The second factor is that most of our public high school graduates have now come through school systems that are test-focused not learning focused. How ironic is it that many of the students colleges say require remediation for what they "should have learned in high school," have a trail of standardized tests results behind them that say they were taught those things and knew them at some point. As another important report from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards recently pointed out: student achievement (what's measured on most standardized tests) is not the same as student learning (what they need to succeed in school and life).
The problems the report highlights, however, are real and do demand attention. But we should not continue to fall into the trap of responding to symptoms rather than solving root problems.
Cross-posted at National Journal.com
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