Community colleges get 2nd failing grade
O.C. Register 2/12/07
Unsurprisingly, a new study concludes that by increasing access to the two-year public schools, the 109-campus California Community College system's good intentions also resulted in the unintended consequence that three-fourths of students seeking degrees and certificates fail to obtain them.
The question now is, will colleges suffer new unintended consequences by correcting what went wrong?
The policies adopted to increase access are blamed, in part, for the failure of students to earn two-year associate of arts degrees and certificates and bachelor's degrees after transferring to four-year colleges, according to the study, "Rules of the Game: How state policy creates barriers to degree completion and impedes student success in the California community colleges."
College trustees successfully removed "barriers to access," the study found, "but these access-oriented policies have had the unintended consequence of inhibiting completion."
The "troubling trend ... could have profound repercussions for the future of the state," according to the study by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, at Cal State University Sacramento. One consequence, the study asserts, is that growing demand for information-age workers will be unmet.
"Without big gains in educational attainment, especially among the growing Latino population, the state's per capita income will soon fall below the national average and the average education level of the California workforce will decline," the study concluded.
A previous, unrelated study last year found community colleges dramatically underperforming in turning out students with two- or four-year degrees. That study, by the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco, noted many students come to community colleges ill-prepared.
The more recent study's co-author, Nancy Shulock, said in an interview the unintended consequences can be corrected by establishing standards for students.
Community colleges have shied away from requiring students to undergo orientation, take prerequisite classes and even enroll in remedial classes when needed, Ms. Shulock said. The hesitancy stems from fear colleges will be sued for racial discrimination as occurred in 1988, she said.
Although the lawsuit never reached trial, colleges backed off imposing many requirements.
Consequently, students whose only requirement to enter community college is that they be at least 18 years old, now also face few requirements once in the system, even educational assessments and counseling to overcome deficiencies.
"No matter how 'cheap,' access without an equivalent commitment to student success conveys false hopes to students and the state," the study concludes.
The study recommends removing "policy barriers to completion," by funding community colleges based on students' completion of courses, not merely enrollment, beefing up remedial instruction with part-time instructors and setting "clear standards" for incoming students "about what it takes to be college-ready."
Ms. Shulock conceded that imposing such solutions runs the risk of new, unintended consequences, such as lowering instructional standards to keep students in class longer and discouraging access by requiring students to be "college ready." How can community colleges avoid more unintended consequences?
"The way to guard against that is, we are thinking about it," Ms. Shulock said.
Perhaps merely being aware that unintended consequences can occur will ward them off. But someone must have foreseen the disastrous effects of lowering standards to increase access, and that didn't avoid those consequences.
It may be possible for the community colleges to have quality (degreed graduates) or quantity (unfettered access). But the law of unintended consequences may well preclude having both.