Nearly 50 percent of all of Maryland?s undergraduates attended community colleges last year, continuing the slow but steady growth of the schools? popularity and credibility.
According to Maryland Higher Education Council enrollment figures, 48 percent of all undergraduate students in the state were taking classes at a community college ? just more than the national average of 46 percent.
The popularity of community colleges results from their lower cost and the changing requirements of the work force, said H. Clay Whitlow, executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges.
“Instead of the old paradigm that everybody has to complete high school, now we have to think about everybody having to complete ?grade 14,? ” he said. As manufacturing jobs decline in the state, a higher education is more important to getting middle-class jobs.
The growth is also helped by the gradually changing image of community colleges, Whitlow said.
Many still struggle with the old moniker of “junior college” and the implication that the education there is inferior to a four-year institution, he said.
“The people who have those negative views are mostly those who haven?t been there,” said Craig Clagett, vice president of planning, marketing and assessment at Carroll Community College. “As more people go to community colleges and experience it, those views are disappearing.”
Like their four-year counterparts, community colleges are more concerned with tuition costs and state funding. Where funding for community colleges was once split evenly among students, states and counties, the state?s share has been decreasing and shifting more burden onto students with higher tuition, Whitlow said.
“[Raising tuition] goes against our mission to be affordable and accessible,” Clagett said.
Community colleges in Maryland will likely continue to get a larger share of the state?s students, Whitlow said.
Officials anticipate that more than 58,000 new students will enter colleges and universities in the next five years, with the state?s largest-ever graduating class expected in 2009, he said.
Community college tuition cost per credit:
» Harford: $75
» Baltimore City: $78
» Anne Arundel: $86
» Carroll: $92
» Howard: $105
» Baltimore County: $112
