Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Making Community College "More Efficient"

From today's major Sacramento newspaper:
Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to make California's community college system more efficient and increase access for students hit a road block last week as lawmakers rejected his proposal to set a lifetime limit on the number of units students can take at reduced in-state rates.
If you want to make community college more "efficient", whatever that really means,  we need to get rid of the mindset that everyone should or needs to go to college.  To reinforce that mindset, we should get rid of all so-called remedial courses at our CSU and UC campuses; a university is not the place for remedial work.  If you need remedial work, go to a JC/CC.  If you want a good basic education at a reasonable price, go to a JC/CC.  If you just want to go to college because your high school counselor said you should, you probably shouldn't.  If people see that our universities and JC's/CC's are serious places for serious study, the ones that shouldn't be at JC's/CC's at all will eventually leave--and eventually word will get around such that they won't show up in the first place.

I understand that changing the perception about "college for all" is an uphill battle, but I'm still right.  Of course, all this is predicated on making all of our colleges and universities places for serious study.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/15/5341604/lifetime-limit-on-community-college.html#storylink=cpy

5 comments:

Luke said...

Darren,

Agree that not everybody should go to college. However, JC/CCs are the perfect place for courses that those who just shouldn't be in a "regular" college will likely take, like welding or electrical work, and other "trade" type courses that would be useful to get a job.

Darren said...

I entirely agree. You can even take some "fun" courses at a JC. But don't go just because everyone is "supposed" to go.

PeggyU said...

Also, take a look a some of the GURs. Are some of those "requirements" really necessary?

pseudotsuga said...

If they want Community Colleges to be "more efficient," perhaps they can review the faculty to administration ratio. First thing to get rid of would be "Diversity" or "Sustainability" directors. Colleges should have a sufficient number of smart people to manage these things without executive salaries.

Ellen K said...

I would agree that it doesn't make sense for someone heading to certification for HVAC to be taking literature classes in order to get their credentials. There's far too much roster padding going on in all colleges. One of the biggest complaints that I hear is that some universities refuse to recognize AP test results even when a student gets a 4 or higher. My daughter's AP Chemistry course was much more rigorous than any she took in college. Ditto her English courses. But because entry level programs are essential jobs programs for grad students, universities continue to deny credit where credit is due.