Community Colleges and the Economy

Paul Edwards

Let’s be honest, folks. Even before the current recession, American students and their families were finding it harder and harder to pay for higher education. There are mountains of statistics which indicate that college costs in the U.S. have gone up much faster than real wages. If you’re currently in the college search “game” you already know that higher education is painfully expensive. In the current recession, with corporations cutting jobs and banks lending less money, things are even harder on the average would-be college student.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the average cost for a four-year degree doubled between 1981 and 2000, and doubled again between 2000 and 2007. Also according to the DOE, the average annual in-state college tuition and fees for the 2007-08 school year (nationwide) were $5,685 for public four-year schools, $20,492 for private four-year schools, and $2,017 for public two-year schools.

I’m here to talk about that third category — two-year public schools — otherwise known as community and junior colleges. There are four advantages I would like to point out about community and junior colleges in general, though don’t be surprised if I give specific examples of my own favorite, Colorado Mountain College.

The first advantage a two-year college offers is affordability. Colorado Mountain College, for example, offers the lowest in-state tuition of any academic college in the state. The other Colorado two-year colleges have similarly low costs, and few four-year schools even approach the low cost of attending at a community college. At CMC, our activity fees are lower than four-year schools, and our residence hall and meal plan costs are equivalent to or less than the big universities. In general, parents and students will find that two-year schools almost always fall into this “most affordable” category — all over the U.S.

I would argue that quality of education is the second advantage two-year schools offer. In my experience, lower-division undergraduate courses (including most or all the classes the average student will take their first two years) are roughly equivalent from college to college — from the University of Colorado to CMC, if you like. In other words, Algebra I is Algebra I, no matter where you take it. Individual instructors vary from school to school, but the subject matter is essentially the same for general education, lower-division courses.

Keep in mind that during their first two years, students attending a research university will not be doing cutting-edge research, nor probably even taking classes from the same professors who are doing that research. Furthermore, professors at community and junior colleges choose to work at small, two-year schools because they enjoy less bureaucracy, less pressure to be famous in their field and smaller class sizes.

Which brings me to the third advantage of community and junior colleges: We tend to have a higher ratio of teachers to students than our four-year counterparts. At CMC, the student-to-instructor ratio is 12:1. While a freshman here might have 20 students in her English class, she will not have 50, 100 or (gasp) 500. Virtually all the educational research out there indicates that smaller class size is better for students’ learning.

The fourth advantage that two-year schools offer is accessibility. This has two sides. Two-year schools offer “open enrollment,” which means that virtually all high school graduates are automatically accepted when they apply. In addition, students who complete two years in good standing at a community college have a much better chance to be accepted at one of those prestigious research universities than do students directly out of high school do. This is contrary to popular belief, but true nonetheless.

Why? A successful two-year transfer student is proven college material. Statistically, once a student has completed two years, they are much more likely than students straight out of high school to complete two more years and finish their four-year degree. Four-year schools know this, and give a high rating to two-year transfer students. Any parent or student who has been frustrated in their attempts to get into a prestigious four-year school should heed this advice: Go to a two-year school, save money, get a strong foundation in the basics and then transfer to the big school.

For most students, the practical choice is their local community college. At Colorado Mountain College, we also get large numbers of out-of-state students — in fact, our out-of-state tuition is often cheaper than in-state tuition at four-year schools in a student’s own state of origin. Certainly, each individual must make their own decisions to fit their own needs, and for some this may mean going straight to a four-year school. But if you do make that choice, make it for the right reasons — not because of negative misconceptions you may have about community and junior colleges.

Paul Edwards is an admissions counselor at Colorado Mountain College, which has seven campuses across north-central Colorado, including residential sites in Steamboat Springs, Leadville and near Glenwood Springs. He was born at the Air Force Academy Hospital in 1966, and still has many relatives living in and around Colorado Springs.

More Articles: