America’s community college is not prepared for the onslaught of students that would come with Democratic proposals for reforming higher education, according to a new study released Thursday.
“If we’re really interested in sending more students to community colleges, we cannot do that without seriously reforming the incentives in store for both community college administrators and students,” said Judah Bellin, the study’s author and a higher-education analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank in New York.
The nation’s 1,132 community colleges, which are nonprofit, two-year schools, are cheaper than the alternatives, making them attractive for poorer and non-traditional students looking to upgrade their skills or find a path toward a bachelor’s degree. But they also in many cases have poor performance, Bellin notes.
Only about a quarter of community college students earn their degree at their starting institution within six years of enrolling, according to the analysis. Around a fifth are still enrolled after six years, and nearly 43 percent have dropped out.
That is a far worse record than for private four-year schools and for-profit schools, even though the latter have earned intense scrutiny from analysts and the Obama administration in recent months. For-profit two-year schools graduate nearly three-fifths of students in six years.
Despite being inexpensive, more students at community colleges later default on student loans than at other kinds of schools. In 2011, the three-year student loan default rate was 21 percent, relative to 12 percent for all higher-ed sectors.
That track record conflicts with plans like the one introduced this year by President Obama, Bellin warned.
Obama would eliminate tuition at community colleges for all students who could maintain a grade point average of 2.5, having the federal and state governments shoulder the cost.
Subsidizing higher education and promoting debt-free college is a prominent goal for many Democrats, and the plans inevitably include major roles for community colleges.
Hillary Clinton would also promote eliminating tuition for community colleges. Her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has gone a step further and proposed getting rid of tuition for all public colleges.
Without major reform, Bellin warned, those proposals might not serve students. “In some cases they might be worse off than when they first came in,” Bellin said of students who might take on debt to go to a community college.
The biggest problem in need of fixing, Bellin writes, is the lack of advisory programs at many community colleges to ensure that students graduate on time.
Incoming students arrive with “big goals with little direction,” he says, and then fail to graduate. In many cases, students juggling school and a day job get lost in the mix and fail to get a degree or move on to a four-year institution.
Furthermore, the structure of student federal aid in some ways incentivizes students to stay in school without graduating, by providing support for lengthy periods of time.
Some community colleges have addressed that issue: Bellin cites Pamlico College in North Carolina, which graduates four-fifths of students within six years. Pamlico has a computer program that tracks students’ progress on assignments and alerts advisors if students are falling behind.
Community colleges need to adopt similar programs to ensure advancement to the extent that they’re able, Bellin argues. He also makes the case that they should be subject to a “gainful employment” rule similar to the one the Obama administration has promoted for for-profit schools. Such a requirement cuts off federal aid if schools fail to connect students with work.
“You should only give money to schools that have a proven record of success or that make a serious commitment to spending federal funds on these advisory programs that have been proven to work,” Bellin said.
