Community Colleges to keep students enrolled and progressing toward a degree despite the personal challenges
In Oklahoma and nationwide, community college essentially is a dead end for most students who enroll wanting to propel themselves to a bachelor’s degree and the benefits it can bring.
Getting students on a pathway to a bachelor’s at a four-year institution is one of the primary missions of community colleges, education experts say. Research shows that nationally, about 80 percent of students in community college enroll with that intention. Most need remediation. Oklahoma’s success rate of 17 percent is actually higher than the nation’s, at 14 percent. By contrast, the six-year graduation rates for the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University are around 70 percent when accounting for transfer students.
Margaret Lee, dean of developmental education at Tulsa Community College, said it’s up to community colleges to keep students enrolled and progressing toward a degree despite the personal challenges those students may face. Many come from high-poverty neighborhoods.
“Students who drop out at (TCC) don’t go to TU, OSU or anywhere,” Lee said. “They are likely to never be back. If we don’t succeed at a community college, they are often lost to higher education.”
Gary Davidson, executive director of the Oklahoma Association of Community Colleges, said while there is room for community colleges to improve, the state needs to provide more funding to make that happen.
“While I think we have done an incredible job, you can’t expect us to keep improving with the resources available to us,” Davidson said.
Total funding for community colleges has climbed for most of the past decade, driven in large part by tuition and fees paid by growing numbers of students. A total of $343 million was budgeted this fiscal year but has dropped because of budget cuts. That number encompasses all revenue sources, the largest being tuition, fees and state appropriations.
The enrollment gains were spurred by the Great Recession, which caused more people to return to school to improve their job skills, education officials said. Those numbers fell in recent years but spiked again in fiscal 2015, reflecting the oil and gas downturn.
State appropriations for the colleges have been relatively flat for a decade and, when adjusted for inflation, have declined. This year, the budgeted state share of total funding was 42 percent, or $145 million, the lowest amount since 2012.
http://kgou.org
Getting students on a pathway to a bachelor’s at a four-year institution is one of the primary missions of community colleges, education experts say. Research shows that nationally, about 80 percent of students in community college enroll with that intention. Most need remediation. Oklahoma’s success rate of 17 percent is actually higher than the nation’s, at 14 percent. By contrast, the six-year graduation rates for the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University are around 70 percent when accounting for transfer students.
“Students who drop out at (TCC) don’t go to TU, OSU or anywhere,” Lee said. “They are likely to never be back. If we don’t succeed at a community college, they are often lost to higher education.”
Gary Davidson, executive director of the Oklahoma Association of Community Colleges, said while there is room for community colleges to improve, the state needs to provide more funding to make that happen.
“While I think we have done an incredible job, you can’t expect us to keep improving with the resources available to us,” Davidson said.
Total funding for community colleges has climbed for most of the past decade, driven in large part by tuition and fees paid by growing numbers of students. A total of $343 million was budgeted this fiscal year but has dropped because of budget cuts. That number encompasses all revenue sources, the largest being tuition, fees and state appropriations.
The enrollment gains were spurred by the Great Recession, which caused more people to return to school to improve their job skills, education officials said. Those numbers fell in recent years but spiked again in fiscal 2015, reflecting the oil and gas downturn.
State appropriations for the colleges have been relatively flat for a decade and, when adjusted for inflation, have declined. This year, the budgeted state share of total funding was 42 percent, or $145 million, the lowest amount since 2012.
http://kgou.org
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