With today?s news focused so much on the troubled public schools and the rising cost of a college education, the state?s educational success stories are often overlooked.
While community colleges are still sometimes perceived as coming from the wrong side of the ivory tower, they are the most entrepreneurialand effective arenas for educating and training our residents. In fact, I dare say everything we do at the community college is workforce development, whether our faculty are inspiring poets or musicians, preparing a budding engineer or accountant, or providing ESL instruction to recent immigrants. We do it all. Most importantly, however, we take students from where we find them to where they want to go. “Start here/go anywhere” is a familiar refrain in the community college world.
With a mission of affordability, accessibility and quality, we consistently represent the absolute best value in education. A full-time student can attend CCBC, for example, for roughly $2,600 per year, significantly reducing the cost of the first two years of a four-year degree. This year, nearly 70,000 students are taking advantage of the opportunities at the Community College of Baltimore County to meet a variety of instructional goals. Some will start college early through our dual enrollment programs with our K-12 partners; some will transfer to one of our four-year partner institutions; some are starting a career while others are updating skills; some seek more sophisticated customized training to do targeted tasks; and many others seek to meet their special needs from a myriad of instructional menus, from basic to complex, on a 24/7 schedule.
Community colleges are nothing, if not responsive to the workforce development and training needs of their regions. They are the absolute best investment in the economic and social infrastructure of their communities. As our name suggests, we are the community?s college. And when 90 percent of community college graduates remain to live and work in the region, we can guarantee that their individual success translates into direct, continuous and growing benefits to the local businesses and communities we serve. Local businesses have the employment pools they need to increase their efficiency, competitiveness and output while the presence ofa trained labor force helps attract new industry.
The benefits of a robust economy are many jobs, increased business revenues, greater availability of public investment funds, and eased tax burdens. In fact, every dollar of tax monies spent on a CCBC education will generate a cumulative total of $20.57 worth of social savings (accrued incrementally) for as long as students are active in the work force.
While we can use such metrics to demonstrate the tremendous role community colleges play in developing our workforce, the true value of the community college is not so easy to quantify. Rather it is defined by the potential we unleash within our students and among our region. At the Community College of Baltimore County, we promote “the incredible value of education,” which implies both the economic and intrinsic benefits of lifelong learning.
Whatever a student?s age, educational background, income or aspiration, CCBC offers programs and services that literally help people transform their lives. With needs ranging from developmental education to honors programming and with backgrounds from welfare mom to doctor?s son, our students comprise a microcosm of the diversity found in our communities.
We may not get rich in the service of our mission, however, our reward lies in knowing that every day we enrich people?s lives in ways that benefit the families, businesses and communities of an entire region.
Sandra Kurtinitis is the chancellor of The Community College of Baltimore County.
