A shift in the demographics of students attending community colleges began in the 1960s and proceeded through the 1970s. Prior to this demographic shift, and the ensuing curricula changes, community colleges sustained programs for socio-economic mobility of their students.\u00a0 J.M. Beach Gateway to Opportunity<\/a> <\/em>clarifies, \u201cthe students who enrolled in community colleges in the first half of the twentieth century were middle-class high school graduates who wanted to earn their bachelor\u2019s degree and enter a white collar profession.” [1. Beach, J. M. Gateway to Opportunity: A History of the Community College in the United States<\/em>. Stylus Publishing, 2011. ] Many factors contributed to this demographic shift. By the 1970s, when compared to the student populations at four year institutions, student populations at community colleges were disproportionally of low-income and minority students. [2. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985<\/em>. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991. ] The suggestions of Beach, and others imply two important things about the changes that occurred in community colleges around the 1970s and into the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n It first infers that the original students of community colleges focused on an academic curriculum that facilitated transfer to four-year institutions. It suggests that the students who were attending community college in the first half of the twentieth century came prepared for college level course work. The role of community colleges as a stepping-stone to four-year institutions also suggests that the degrees awarded at community colleges were not constructed to be the only degree obtained by the students.<\/p>\n Brint and Karabel\u2019s account examining the increase in enrollment of economically disadvantaged students allows for a second inference to be made about this changing demographic. Compared to the white middle class students that attended community college in previous generations, a disadvantaged student population represents students who need education to facilitate socio-economic mobility. This change was facilitated by the increased access to federal financial aid with the Higher Education Act of 1965<\/a> and the amendments to that act in 1972. This legislation was designed to improve access to higher education for low-income students and to promote mobility. The results were an inflation of low-income students at open-access institutions like community colleges.<\/p>\n Brint and Karabel confirm the existence of a demographic shift in The Diverted Dream<\/a>. <\/em> Their interpretation of the shifting demographic of community colleges and the reasons for its occurrence support the argument of open access policies and an increase availability of student aid.\u00a0 According to Brint and Karabel,<\/p>\n These funds, [federal student loans] combined with the growing number of open-door institutions located in or within easy access to minority populations, greatly increased the number of minority students in the nations community colleges\u2026 By the late 1970s, the major subordinate racial minorities, including blacks, were disproportionately concentrated in two-year institutions. [3. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985<\/em>. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991. ]<\/p>\n This increased access to higher education for low-income minority students is crucial to facilitating socio-economic mobility for marginalized populations. The change in community college curricula that follows contributes to the social class reproduction and is not a means of mobility for the students.<\/p>\n In 1972 The American Association of Community and Junior Colleges<\/a> (AACJC) released an annual assembly report, which demonstrates their acknowledgement of shifting student demographics and their changes in curriculum offerings in light of this shift. The report states that community and junior colleges should develop programs that:<\/p>\n In light of the changing demographics, community colleges were forced to retool their offerings, but how could any single institution achieve everything on the above list? The introduction of the many responsibilities outlined by the AACJA led to an explosion of many documented curricula changes at community colleges.<\/p>\n In the 1970s, as a result of an escalation in disadvantaged students attending community college, an increase in remedial education courses began. [5. Lombardi, John. \u201cThe Decline of Transfer Education. Topical Paper Number 70. – ERIC – ProQuest.\u201d Report ED179273<\/em> (1979): 37. ] Remedial education typically involves courses in Mathematics and English that are below college level. While the need for remedial education at community colleges highlights a problem in K-12 education, the community colleges rose to their changing student needs. They developed programs based on the missions of the AACJC and the needs of their student populations. While remedial offerings seem necessary, they do not contribute to the mobility of the students at community colleges. Today, Complete College America<\/a> reports that for every ten students seeking an Associates degree, five will require remedial education, and fewer than one of those ten will graduate in three years. [6.\u00a0 \u201cComplete College America\u201d, 2011. http:\/\/www.completecollege.org\/.]<\/p>\n Brint and Karabel submit another curriculum change that occurred during the 1970s and into the 1980s. They describe that as a response to the countries\u2019 fiscal crisis during the mid-1970s, community colleges began to make stronger ties to businesses with an increase in occupational and vocational programs. [7. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985<\/em>. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991. ] This furthers the case that community colleges contribute to class reproduction instead of upward mobility. The increase in vocational programs, at a time when baccalaureate credentials were needed to enter the professional managerial class, affected the socio-economic gains provided by community college completion in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n In the 1980s, Fred L. Pincus \u201cThe False Promise of Community Colleges: Class Conflict and Vocational Education\u201d further criticized the increase in vocational offerings. Pincus suggested that vocational offerings to community college students were an additional educational tracking mechanism that assured economic class reproduction of their students. [8. Pincus, Fred. \u201cThe False Promises of Community College – Class Conflict and Vocational Education.\u201d Harvard Educational Review<\/em> 50, no. 3 (1980): 332\u2013361. ] For disadvantaged, part-time, students, the quick track of vocational education may be glamorous, but is nonetheless a program that will assure working-class students become vocationally trained working-class adults. If community colleges promote and increase vocational offerings they are not adequately contributing to the upward mobility of their students. Instead, they are acting as vehicles of social class reproduction.<\/p>\n Kevin Dougherty, associate professor at Teachers Colleges of Columbia University is quoted by The Chronicle<\/a>, echoing earlier sentiments of Pincus.<\/p>\n Community colleges and state systems increasingly take steps to make vocational programs seem more attractive, to ease prejudice against them — by building new vocational-program facilities, and by claiming in their publicity materials that graduates can make as much money coming out of vocational programs as they could by completing a baccalaureate degree. That may be true in some instances, but on average it is not. [9. Monaghan, Peter. \u201cEducators Urged to Help Vocational Students at 2-Year Colleges Move on to Bachelor\u2019s Degrees.\u201d The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>, April 12, 2001, sec. Archives. http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/Educators-Urged-to-Help\/108231\/. ]<\/p>\n Vocational education is not the correct route to socio-economic advancement, especially in a country of limited vocational employment opportunities. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce<\/a> projection reporting suggests that by 2018, 62% of employment will require some college education with more than half of that requiring a bachelors degree. [10. \u201cComplete College America\u201d, 2011. http:\/\/www.completecollege.org\/. ]<\/p>\n The late 1990s saw an introduction of yet another program offering at community colleges: contract training. Beach explains that contract training was a response to the increasing use of technology in business. The community college took on the role of training students for specific job placement opportunities that utilized technology. According to Beach, contract training may contribute to an increase in non-credit courses and a decrease in resources for the liberal arts. [11. Beach, J. M. Gateway to Opportunity: A History of the Community College in the United States<\/em>. Stylus Publishing, 2011. ] Non-credit course work does not contribute to obtaining a bachelors degree. The argument can also be made that non-credit course work is terminal; it leads students to believe they are progressing towards higher education when the truth is they have not even begun educational advancement.<\/p>\n The expansive curricula development at community colleges over the last half-century has resulted in three major problems for community colleges. The first is the offering of extensive remedial education programs. Statistics suggest that very few students who begin in remedial programs are not likely to complete community college. One could speculate that this is due to the time required to complete a program if semesters in non-college courses are necessary prior to entering a credit-gaining program. Furthermore, students who enter remedial education classes may never be proficient enough for college level course work.<\/p>\n Excluding remedial education programs jeopardizes the open access mission of community colleges. Students who require remedial education have no higher education opportunity other than access to community colleges. Three Rivers Community College<\/a> (TRCC), Norwich, Connecticut is an example of the overabundance and inflated importance of remedial course offerings. For their Fall 2012 semester TRCC is offering one hundred and four classes with an ENGL distinction. Forty-five of these courses are courses that are pre-college level and only seven of the course offerings are of a 200 level distinction. [12. \u201cConnecticut Community College Course Search\u201d, n.d. https:\/\/www.online.commnet.edu\/pls\/x\/bzskfcls.P_CrseSearch. ] TRCC has placed a focus on remedial education.\u00a0 This does not support courses that teach and promote the higher-order thinking needed to transfer to four-year institutions. \u00a0Remedial education can and will deviate attention away from Liberal Arts and Humanities transfer programs. It creates bottom heavy institutions of higher education that are not educating at a level higher than what is offered in high school.<\/p>\n The second problem is that massive amounts of program offerings have inevitably resulted in a reduced focus on Liberal Arts and Humanities transfer programs. These transfer programs are what will assist students in obtaining baccalaureate credentials. Brint and Karabel further analyze the decline of Liberal Arts at community colleges. They quote 1979 findings of Cohen and Lombardi who state, \u201cexcept for U.S. history, Western civilization, American and State government introduction to literature and Spanish, little in the humanities remain.” [13. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985<\/em>. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991. ] Strong transfer programs into baccalaureate level institutions are necessary for community colleges to provide socio-economic mobility for their students. Limiting these programs inevitably keeps disadvantaged students in the underclass.<\/p>\n The mission constructed by the AACJC in 1972 outlines multiple directions of curricula and program development, which have led to a disorganized system. Thomas Baily and Vanessa Smith Morest \u201cDefending the Community College Equity Agenda\u201d suggest, \u201cthe public community college was so overloaded with diverse missions that it was impossible to do any of them well.” [14. Bailey, Thomas, and Vanessa Smith Morest, eds. Defending the Community College Equity Agenda<\/em>. 1st ed. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. ] Community colleges do a disservice to their students by offering too much, and not excelling at enough.<\/p>\n The third problem inhibiting socio-economic mobility for the students of community colleges is the increase in promotion and funding of vocational and occupational programs. The Contradictory College<\/a> <\/em>concludes that community colleges, \u201cwere just ineffective, non-encouraging, anti-academic, low performing, and overly vocationalized.” [15. Dougherty, Kevin J. The Contradictory College: The Conflict Origins, Impacts, and Futures of the Community College (Suny Series in Frontiers in Education)<\/em>. State University of New York Press, 1994.]\u00a0 Additionally, an ethnographic study conducted in 1990 determined, \u201cvocational education reinforced class inequalities.” [16. Claus, Jeff. \u201cJSTOR: Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), Pp. 7-39.\u201d Curriculum Inquiry<\/em> 20, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 7\u201339. ] While there may be a place for vocational education, where the correct place is, is undetermined.<\/p>\n Vocational education funding has recently been seen as an easy fix to the problems associated with creating education opportunities\u2019 for all. Recent legislation that first went to congress as a twelve billion dollar plan to increase graduation rates and transfer prospects for community college students known as the American Graduation Plan<\/a> was changed in house negotiations. The end result was a two billion dollar plan to support career training. [17. Gonzalez, Jennifer. \u201cObama Praises Community Colleges Amid Doubts About His Commitment.\u201d The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>, October 10, 2010, sec. Government. http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/Obama-Praises-Community\/124869\/. ] Although the country values and rewards baccalaureate attainment and has an existing system that the first half of bachelors could be completed by many Americans it does not fund it.<\/p>\n As previous projection statistics have shown, employment opportunity requiring a bachelor\u2019s degree is growing. When examining this change over time from the 1960s to the present, Statistical Abstract Census<\/a> data is representative of this phenomenon. It suggests that changes made from 1964 to 2010, including the increase in remedial course offerings, vocational education, and a reduction in humanities transfer courses has stagnated financial gains for associate degree completion.<\/p>\n Utilizing the median income figures by degree holding, a graph was constructed to highlight the occurrence of deteriorated economic growth by associate degree graduates.\u00a0 In 1970 the graph shows that the median income of a person holding an associates degree began to rise slightly above the income of a person who had only obtained a high school degree. By the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s the graph shows that there is little difference in the median incomes between persons with high school completion and associates degree. This clarifies that in the 1970s and 1980s there was little socio-economic mobility for community college students. [18. Division, Systems Support. \u201cUS Census Bureau The 2012 Statistical Abstract: Earlier Editions\u201d, n.d. http:\/\/www.census.gov\/compendia\/statab\/past_years.html. ]<\/p>\n The graph illustrates a second important finding. It highlights the significant economic advantage of completing a baccalaureate degree. Today, the associate\u2019s degree shows some economic advantage over a high school degree, but a bachelor\u2019s holds twice that economic advantage. This would allow students to build income-producing assets. Pathways that allow for transfers opportunities to four-year institutions must be created in community colleges to assist in the socio-economic mobility of the students. Contradictory programs like vocational education contribute to the class reproduction of already disadvantaged populations.<\/p>\n Despite the limited economic gains of completing an associate degree community college\u00a0 institutional expansion is still on the rise and enrollment continues to sore . According to Brint and Karabel, \u201cby 1980, over 90 percent of the population was within commuting distance of one of the nations 900 community college.\u201d [19. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985<\/em>. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991. ] This growth shows a commitment to educational access and opportunity in America, although is commitment enough to improve the economic trajectory of community college students?<\/p>\n An assessment of the drastic changes community colleges have made over the last fifty years illustrates a story that is contradictory to the institutions popularity. This expository focuses on how community colleges act as an additional public institution, participating in the cycle of social class reproduction. Their offerings while extensive, divert resources and attention away from the best course for socio-economic mobility. Today only thirty percent of the students enrolled in community college will complete their degree in one hundred and fifty percent of the time required to finish an associate\u2019s degree. [20. \u201cDigest of Education Statistics, 2010\u201d, n.d. http:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/programs\/digest\/d10\/tables\/dt10_198.asp. ] The open access has resulted in education for all and mobility for only a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The community college is an integral part of the equation in the American pursuit for education to function as societies\u2019 great equalizer. It has a mission of open access for all, and the affordability of its programs supports this mission. While this might seem an ideal formula for providing upward socio-economic mobility for America’s students, … Continue reading Community Colleges and the Consequences of Change<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2377"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/files\/2012\/05\/Screen-Shot-2012-05-03-at-8.28.48-PM-300x155.png\")
<\/a>CURRICULA AND PROGRAM CHANGES<\/span><\/h3>\n
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<\/a>CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGE<\/span><\/h3>\n
THE BACCALAUREATE MATTERS<\/span><\/h3>\n
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