When I attended Barnard College in the mid-’60s, tuition was $1,600 a year, with board and room an additional $1,400. Columbia College, across the street, was the same. That was $3,000 per year for an Ivy League degree!
This year, tuition has topped $50,000 at 100 institutions, including several near D.C.: Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, George Washington, St. John’s, Washington and Lee, Richmond, American and Loyola. My alma mater now charges $53,496. College costs increased an average of 8 percent in the last year alone.
How can parents and students avoid some of the financial burden of current college costs? One increasingly attractive alternative is community college. Northern Virginia Community College, the second-largest community college in the United States, has gotten good press in recent years for its low costs and guaranteed-admissions program for many schools — including George Mason University, William and Mary, and the University of Virginia.
Compare NOVA’s yearly cost of $3,520 (in-state) or $8,900 (out of state) for 30 credit hours with almost any other alternative, and you’ll see its considerable draw. When I taught a writing course at the Woodbridge campus many years ago, I was impressed with the drive and ambition of the students. And my GMU classes are always filled with transfer students from NOVA; those students are part of what makes GMU an interesting, diverse place to be.
Many students opt to earn an associate’s degree at a community college first before transferring to a four-year institution. Grade point average requirements for guaranteed admission are usually in the B-to-B-plus range. For a Virginia student wanting to attend U.Va., that would be a considerable savings compared with $22,893 for tuition, board, room and fees.
None of this is news. Students in our area have been flocking to community colleges for decades, and transferring to more expensive institutions — with and without guaranteed-admission programs. But during the current financial downturn, this is the only way many high school graduates are able to achieve their higher education dreams.
NOVA, for example, has seen its rolls jump by 10 percent a year the last couple of years, to more than 78,000 students on six campuses. Not all are there to save money, of course. Many students enroll in community colleges so they can work toward degrees at their own pace — balancing jobs and family along with schoolwork. With employment at a premium, any advantage one job applicant has over another (including a course targeted for a specific line of work) can make a difference in getting that job.
My daughter took two years of art courses at NOVA before transferring to an expensive private art school. Now she is teaching at the community college that made her degrees possible. There are similar stories from students in every profession. Millions have discovered the not-so-secret advantages of postponing enrollment in a four-year institution.
I know these students have given my GMU classes a focus and ambition that was missing in many of my undergraduate classes. Nowhere else in the world does community college play as essential and beneficial a role as it does in the United States, and NOVA is one of our best.
