A paper released recently by the Community College Research Center reminds the champions of MOOCs and other online initiatives of one very important detail: Not all students prefer an online education; many higher education students still want in-person discussions and on-the-spot feedback.

But that’s not to say it will stay that way.

The CCRC paper is based on a small survey of cContinue Reading »

The bad news continues for Erie, Pa.

I wrote about this lakeside city last year, detailing failed efforts to establish a community college in the town formerly known for its manufacturing prowess. While a lot of those industrial jobs moved abroad, the ones that are left are more technical, requiring credentials and training beyond high school. Without a community college, Erie workers onContinue Reading »

Deep Springs College has intrigued me ever since I first read about the singular institution in a mass-mailing sent to me as a high school student. The tiny, all-male, two-year college is located on a cattle ranch and alfalfa farm in an isolated valley in California’s high desert. The 26 hand-picked students at Deep Springs study great books, work on the ranch, and govern the institution to a sContinue Reading »

Over the past fifty years, few states have been able to harness the power of higher education to drive growth and improve the quality of life for its residents quite like California.

The state set its course in 1960, by adopting a Master Plan for Higher Education that landed it on the cover of Time magazine. The plan spelled out who should be guaranteed access to which state institutionsContinue Reading »

What do we mean when we talk about “going to college?” The answer is that we mean many different things. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that. Our higher education system is vast and varied. But in practice, the definition deficit can be a problem when it comes to public discussion of postsecondary education. Too often, we just talk past one other.

Here’s the example I’ve had inContinue Reading »

Los Angeles student Norphesa Jones, 34, schleps 20 miles by bus between two community college campuses two days a week in order to take the prerequisites she needs to become a nurse. And 19-year-old Charity Hansen is stuck taking a single class at Pasadena City College this semester because the others she needs are at capacity.

We know that the longer students languish in their postseconContinue Reading »

Community college enrollments dropped in the fall 2011 for the first time since 2007. It’s a decline worth noting since American community colleges are the most important educational safety net for low-income and first-generation college students preparing for or retooling themselves for the knowledge economy. And yet, the media and policymakers paid little attention to the data, released late Continue Reading »

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is starting a series of roundtable discussions focused on revamping higher education in his state. The first question, he says, should be to the business community: “What are you not getting from us that you need?”

While that question is important, it’s really what follows that counts. Communication between community colleges and their local businesses is vitalContinue Reading »

The cost of college for students goes up every time they’re placed in a remedial course or they lose credits because of a transfer, says Teresa Lubbers, Indiana’s Commissioner for Higher Education. “It is abundantly clear that whatever we’re doing in remediation isn’t working,” she said, while testifying at the U.S. House Education and Workforce Development subcommittee hearing. She encouraged Continue Reading »

By definition, community colleges are hyper-local institutions that aim to serve and support their local workforce. Some community colleges do that by training more welders and machinists; others produce more healthcare assistants, like dental hygienists; and still others mainly serve to funnel students to nearby four-year universities.

Given the diversity among missions, should these twContinue Reading »