CONTINUED: Career College Scapegoating Keeps Student Potential in Detention

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Community college: The anything-but-perfect solution

It’s inevitable: Any discussion of for-profit career colleges tends to turn to the comparative value of community colleges. Both types of institutions serve a student demographic that is, in general, socially and/or economically disadvantaged in some way. Yet the tuition at community colleges tends to be a fraction of what it costs to attend for-profit schools.

The Senate report, Emerging Risk?, states, “Average annual tuition at a for-profit school was about $14,000 in 2009, while tuition at community college averaged about $2,500 and averaged about $7,000 for in-state students at four-year public colleges.”

Community colleges offer many of the same kinds of programs found at for-profit career colleges, with the added benefit of having credit-transferring agreements with four-year universities. It means that students can spend their first two years at a community college for very little tuition (and little to no debt) and later transfer to four-year schools to complete their degrees. It makes financial sense—for the right kind of student.

“I think for students who are very self-directed, community college is an incredible bargain,” says Urdan. “The quality of the programs is likely just as good, and the price is clearly lower. If you know what you’re doing and you know what you want, I think community college is a better choice.

“But the mix of students at for-profit schools is a little different,” he says. “Some of them are students who probably would never, of their own initiative, get up and enroll in a community college. And the community college is not out there trying to get them off the couch and into school, at least not in any effective manner. These are students who were never going to go to community college, but they will go to a for-profit school where the folks make them feel really comfortable. They’re made to feel like they can do it, that they can get through it in a place where everybody knows their name. It’s a more nourishing environment.”

For-profit colleges have led the way in acknowledging and serving the needs of students that require more flexibility in the form of course structure, rolling start dates, evening and weekend classes, and online options. In many cases, the quality of facilities and equipment used in specific programs is also superior at for-profit institutions. When it comes to these kinds of amenities, traditional schools—as a general sector—are still playing catch up.

“For adult learners who are working and have families, they have found that the for-profits really understand their work schedule much better than any of the more traditional schools,” says Armstrong, “whether it be at the community college level, the university level, or whatever.”

Still, there is no denying the value for students able to attend community college. But there is a flip slide to the great benefits those students receive. “A community college is inexpensive for the student, but that’s because the taxpayer has put a lot of money into it,” says Armstrong.

The heavy, direct subsidization of community colleges and four-year public universities by state governments has not solved a problem in which demand exceeds supply. “The community colleges are maxed out,” says Armstrong. “They don’t have any more spaces. The states are cutting their budgets back.”

Urdan agrees. “I think what’s unfortunate is that there is a larger discussion about public policy that we’re not having,” he says. “And part of that is based on this notion that the federal government doesn’t really think about state and local subsidies as anything that concerns them. So they like to talk about how folks who lack resources should just go to community colleges.”

The increasing demand for college-educated workers in the economy leads to increasing demand for accessible post-secondary education and job training. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that public options like community colleges and state universities will ever be able to meet all of that demand on their own. In fact, their capacity to do so has only been shrinking of late. Like it or not, filling that void is the for-profit education sector.

Picking through the muck: Information in shambles

For too many students, the landscape of American higher education looks more like a gated landfill of cheap promises than the open, fertile foothills of mountainous prosperity. Absent reliable information and trustworthy guidance, college can become nothing more than another automatic rite of passage that leads to an unfulfilling life represented by someone else’s expectations.

Students and taxpayers deserve better than virtuous nagging, tired clichés, unmet vows and half-baked solutions. They are entitled to honesty, respect and unbiased information. Right now, too many truths about higher education are kept clouded by ideological deadlocks, closed minds and an unwillingness to seriously consider better methods of assessing educational quality, value and outcomes.

From a taxpayer perspective, might it even be possible that for-profit schools are a better value than community colleges? Urdan thinks so. “It is true that the repayment rates on student loans are worse for for-profit schools,” he says. “But when you look at the corporate taxes that those schools pay, and you consider the fact that their completion rates are generally better, and you look at it in terms of taxpayer dollars per graduate, the for-profit schools are a much more compelling case.”

Of course, to really prove his theory, more information will be required. We’ll need good, independent analysis of teaching quality and learning outcomes from every type of college. Assumptions, self-reporting, navel-gazing and disparaging remarks about institutional rivals should no longer be acceptable in the mission to improve higher education.

Students (and those that help guide them) should be given more dependable tools with which to compare schools and form decisions. But many colleges also must do a better job of relaying existing information, making sure it is understood, and advocating for caution when it’s appropriate. Urdan says, “Clear explanation of the financial obligation, what it’s really going to cost, how student lending works, what the employment statistics look like for that school and that job: That should all be laid out.”

Restoring the college promise

Higher education exists to help people advance in society. So it’s tragic that it too often fails. But it is also appalling to know that those tasked with informing the public and governing society either cannot or will not look at the bigger picture.

America’s patchwork of higher learning is badly sick. Blame can be placed in many different areas. But there is only one way it will ever be cured: through open cooperation and recognition of the realities of the whole situation.

“As a matter of public policy, we are trying to expand participation in the higher education space,” says Urdan. “And that involves going to non-traditional types of students and trying to get them on board and to be successful.  But some of them are going to fail.”

To be sure, colleges that employ bad practices must be dealt with in an appropriate manner. “In the ugly instances that have been brought out about for-profits, they deserve the condemnation that they have gotten,” says Tierney. “But that the entire industry should be condemned is just absurd to me. And I say all this because the largest concern for me, in my work, is increasing access for low-income, first-generation youth.”

If America is going to achieve its goals, it will have to muster the wherewithal to pull people up from the bottom, provide them with measurably good education, and foster an economic environment in which all college graduates are able to enter the workforce with financial stability.

For anything like that to happen, though, the cranky clinging on of influential people to a narrow set of traditions must be diminished. Some tried-and-true customs are helpful and should likely stay. But the conventional practices that prove to be more harmful or out of place with the realities of our time should be reconsidered in favor of newer models that can provide proven benefits.

“I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all for education,” says Armstrong. “But I do think the world is changing so enormously and rapidly that for us to assume the education of a hundred years ago is the right education is just kind of silly.”

For-profit higher education is the new kid on the block. As such, it is prone to extra scrutiny, and even bullying. However, there might be a lot to be gained if nonprofit colleges would work together with for-profit schools in pursuit of the broader goal of a truly well-educated nation of skilled, knowledgeable, creative citizens cooperating to make America, and the world, a better place.

The walls we build around different sectors of higher education will only serve to keep useless stereotypes flourishing while each “silo” of post-secondary learning eventually dies from within.

To prevent that slow death, any shameful practices must be dealt with fairly but forcefully. Yet, we also must work to tear down artificial barriers so as to allow for an open exchange of ideas and solutions that keep the best interests of individual students and greater society at the forefront in important decision making.

Until that happens, the pursuit of the college dream, particularly for the socially and economically disadvantaged, will continue to be very disappointing for too many students. Everyone must do better.

We are all born with the capacity for greatness—manifesting in countless different ways. Do we still have the humility to enable all Americans to realize their own full potential?