COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM OF CA.   Term Paper ID:21852 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Functions, management, economics, curricula, role of state govt., relations with four-year colleges, future.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Functions, management, economics, curricula, role of state govt., relations with four-year colleges, future. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The community college has played a vital part in the overall system of public education for the United States for some time, providing students with a low-cost entry to college, with an alternative for some students, with a vocational program for those needing that type of training, and so on. The system has traditionally been an important part of the community, working with high schools and universities alike to provide added opportunity for the disadvantaged and those requiring additional classroom learning before going on to a four-year college or university. More recently, though, community colleges have been faced with many of the same financial pressures affecting other institutions of higher learning, and this along with increased enrollment has created a number of problems with which community Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. One result, as noted, was an increasein "telecourses" enabling community colleges to accommodate the overflowand an increasing number of working students by enabling them to study athome. The community college system in Californiais one of the most extensive in the nation and has long been held up as amodel, and what has been happening in that system shows the strains on thesystem today and the way in which politicians have been trying to cope witha budget crisis while maintaining some level of educational service. The 1988reforms set priorities for the community college system as follows: 1) vocational education and equally the education of studentsplanning to transfer to the California State University or the Universityof California; 2) remedial instruction; 3) continuing education or "community service" instruction.Attempts have been made starting in 1992 to change these priorities in theface of the budget crisis. INTRODUCTION The community college has played a vital part in the overall systemof public education for the United States for some time, providing studentswith a low-cost entry to college, with an alternative for some students,with a vocational program for those needing that type of training, and soon. ReferencesCohen, Arthur M. Theorigin of community colleges in local school districts also limited theirgrowth. The budget of a community college is allocated as follows: 8 percentis committed, and 2 percent can be spent on staff development, equipment,and supply purchases or on faculty trips. A less valuable change has been an increase in education by multiple-choice test, destroying the credibility of the institution's degree(Galloway, 1992, M3). These challenges are interlinked and all relate to the traditionalroles of the community college in American society. A report fromPasadena City College in 1992 showed that the college was allocated moneyfrom the state on the basis of the number of high school students itadmitted from its district, but the college actually had 52 percent of itsenrollment from outside the district, a group not including transfers dueto cutbacks in the university and state university systems. The cutbacks have been seen as an attack onthe community-college mission to provide inexpensive vocational training tostudents or to adults who are seeking a new career and who do not intend togo on to a four-year college. Thefee increases would combine with the reduced budget to cause a loweredenrolment, from 1.5 million students to 1.3 million. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1968.Rosow, La Vergne. Joseph Hankin, President ofWestchester Community College, believes this can be achieved by cooperationwith other libraries and the business community: Other libraries have synergistically joined with other community agencies to help one another deliver services either in consortia or in federations of one type or another. Jacobs (1989) calls for a nationalprogram to solve the problems associated with this endeavor: It could articulate what general technical skills workers need. Note that the budget problems of the colleges affect both of theother challenges, making it more difficult to purchase needed equipment onthe one hand, and reducing the ability of the college to serve minority,disadvantaged, and similar populations on the other. Students whodo want to transfer to four-year institutions are also being affected, andthe diminishing availability of required courses has forced many of themeither to delay their educational plans or to drop out entirely (Galloway,1992, M6). All of this is dependent on community colleges continuing theirtraditional roles: Community colleges have long been an important route for working- class Americans who want jobs that ensure a modicum of economic security. The community college wasmodeled on the comprehensive high school and was intended to serve everyonein the district, regardless of previous academic performance. Rosow describes the community college structure as an empoweringsystem that offers opportunity to those who failed to adjust during their"formative years' or who for some other reason have failed to succeed inhigh school. Rosow (1994) notes how community colleges are becoming more likefour-year colleges and so are eliminating from consideration segments ofthe population that in the past have relied on the community collegesystem: By "raising its standards" above the level of the uneducated and by increasing its tuition so that only those with dependable incomes and ample study time can afford to attend, the community college is deserting its mission of service to the full range of community members. Community collegeshave a need for their libraries just as do other educational institutions,but they must also invest in the means to integrate computer andcommunication technology to reach more people. Libraries are significant cultural institutions which deserve public funding. . "Critics Warn of Impact From College Fee-Hike," Los Angeles Times (July 1 , 1992), A3, A39.Trombley, William. and Florence B. The Depression did not slow their growth andinstead seems to have accelerated the process. Morerecently, though, community colleges have been faced with many of the samefinancial pressures affecting other institutions of higher learning, andthis along with increased enrollment has created a number of problems withwhich community college administrators must cope for the future. The community college has faced a fivepercent increase in enrolment each semester the previous year and a 25percent increase for summer classes. Plans to expand vocational education and to buy newequipment have been shelved. . Thus, the future of U.S. Giving such an opportunity, says Rosow, reflects positiveattitudes toward education and human intelligence that are uniquelyAmerican: Those who need a second chance, those who want to find a new focus, those who never had a chance, and those who are ready for some kind of enrichment are all members of our society and have come to know the community college as a place to gather to share common knowledge and air common concerns (Rosow, 1994, 8 ). Governor Pete Wilson wanted to downgradevocational education, especially short-term vocational education, whileupgrading the two-year associate of arts degree an further upgradingtransfer education. The liberal arts and practices that promote transfer can be at the heart of a college even while it remains open to all (Cohen and Brawer, 1987, xiv).However, the community college faces a number of challenges that will testthe structure under which they operate today, with the primary challengesstemming from a more restrictive budgetary environment, the need to upgradetechnology for teaching, and the challenge of various groups in societythat are being given too little attention by the educational system. Since thattime, the process has accelerated until several dozen community collegesare being founded each year: They have capitalized on the local backlash against national institutions and cosmopolitan values; on lower-middle and working- class resentment against professional exclusiveness and social snobbery at the universities; and on adult anxiety about the increasing emancipation of the young from adult supervision on residential campuses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.Galloway, Laura. The definition of "community college" andthe reasons for the community college system have been questioned given thebudgetary constraints being placed on the entire educational structure inCalifornia. They have been dependent on local property taxes, which makebudget increases unusually difficult to obtain, and they are organizedunder the aegis of school boards, which has limited them to more populousdistricts because small districts did not have enough high school graduatesto run a college of efficient size. Similarly, community colleges could beencouraged to link traditional and customized vocational education in orderto produce a workforce prepared for the challenges of the coming decades.In addition, James says what is needed is a national employment policylinked to these training initiatives, with mechanisms to help graduatesfind jobs. And a broadly skilled workforce is essential for economic competitiveness and a stable democratic society. Brawer. [and] the entrepreneurs of the community college movement have also profited from the widespread (though in some ways erroneous) belief that it costs the taxpayers less to educate a given student in a community college than elsewhere, and from the undoubtedly correct belief that it costs parents less to educate their children at home than far away (Jencks and Riesman, 1968, 482).The governing boards of these institutions have usually been locallyelected or appointed citizens, and their vision of education is usuallyless mystical and more mechanical than professional educators or collegeadministrators. Some legislatures in the 196 s movedaway from local initiative and control and divided their states into largerand more inclusive community college districts, shifting the burden ofsupport largely or entirely onto the general fund of the state andsometimes creating a single statewide board for all community colleges.This has not been a universal trend, but where it has been instituted ithas had two offsetting effects: 1) It partially removes the individual colleges from localsupervision and gives them trustees more likely to be sympathetic to theideals and ambitions of an academic faculty. THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM The public junior college started as a logical extension of freepublic high school, with the aim of providing high school graduates in agiven district with two more years of free education before they eithertook a job or entered a four-year college. community colleges could influence that of the country as a whole (Jacobs, 1989, 72). There wereonly a handful of these types of school prior to World War I, and more than1 opened in the 192 s. The state legislature addressed the issue in 1988 when itsystematically revised California's Master Plan for Higher Education, anomnibus community college reform bill signed into law that year. . While the entiresystem of higher education in California was faced with budget cutbacks,the junior colleges had felt the impact more, in part because of therequirement that all qualified students must be admitted. The system has traditionally been an important part of the community,working with high schools and universities alike to provide addedopportunity for the disadvantaged and those requiring additional classroomlearning before going on to a four-year college or university. California has long held out the opportunity for everyqualified child to attend a publicly funded school from kindergartenthrough graduate school, and one of the linchpins of this system has beenthe community college or junior college system, providing opportunities forhigher education to students whose high school grades may not qualify themfor a four-year college as yet and for students who may not yet befinancially able to attend a four-year college. As such, the community college stands as asignificant element in the American educational system, and representativesand leaders of the community college must be sensitive to the educationalrealities of those "lower schools" and the educational needs of those"establishments of higher learning" at one and the same time. It is ironic that this is coming at a timewhen corporations and businesses are experiencing a shortage of skilledworkers that the community colleges are supposed to produce. There were more than 2 community colleges at the beginning of World War II, and after the war theycontinued to increase, though more slowly until the late 195 s. for people to bury their heads in the sand and to hope the problem will go away without additional public funding is to doom some libraries to extinction, or at least truncated lives. "The Working Poor and the Community College." Phi Delta Kappan (June 1994), 797-8 1.Trombley, William. Atthe same time, community colleges were facing reduced class offerings,scaled-back departments, an increasing work load for professors, andstudents suffering from the effects of these changes. The third challenge facing the community college today is to continueproviding an alternative training ground and route to higher education forminorities and others who need this opportunity. That would enable the regions to analyze the trends and specific training needs of these industries. A federal program also could stress the need for community colleges to employ researchers to thoroughly assess the picture (Jacobs, 1989, 72)..Such a national training effort would also be able to use financialleverage to mandate that regions and states target small and medium-sizedfirms with special needs. Thebudget crisis in California has had an effect on many programs, agencies,and departments, including the educational system of which California haslong been proud. 2) It ties each college to the rules of a larger system and makes agradual redefinition of institutional purpose more difficult, alsoinhibiting ambitious administrators from exploiting local civic pride tomake theirs a "real four-year college."The movement away from direct local control and the comprehensive highschool model could eventually change the character of the communitycolleges (Jencks and Riesman, 1968, 482-483). The systems Board of Governors wanted to set theirown priorities and to work with local campuses to serve each communitybetter (Trombley, 1992, A3, A39). "Undercutting California's Education of Last Resort," Los Angeles Times (April 14, 1992), M3, M14.Hankin, Joseph. This took place in the context of a budget negotiationand was criticized as the wrong time to determine the future mission ofhigher education ("What Is a Community College?," 1992, B7). Also of concern wasthe fact that the fee proposal was in effect setting admissions prioritiesfor the 1 7 community colleges by offering preference to students who arepreparing to transfer to a four-year college over those pursuing avocational education. And it could determine which industries are key to different regions. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES The budgetary restraints noted above will be a major challenge to thecommunity college system and, as Rosow (1994) notes above, has alreadycaused many community colleges to rethink their mission and to deny theirtraditional roles. "Not by Camels, but by Computer." Vital Speeches (April 15, 1994), 397-4 1.Jacobs, James. Cohen andBrawer (1987) are generally optimistic about the ability of the communitycollege to fulfill its collegiate function: We are encouraged by the way the collegiate connection has been maintained, but we think it should be strengthened. The tension brought about by budgetary concerns has affectedcommunity and junior colleges across the country, causing many of them toinstitute changes that critics see as detrimental to their traditionalmission. These colleges have beenespecially hard hit by the budgetary crisis and have been harmed bymeasures taken to cope with it. The community colleges of California have traditionally taken up theslack when hard times hit the State University or University systems, andindeed the community colleges in 1992 were already filled to the brim, withmany being so overcrowded that increasing numbers of students were watchinglectures at home on television and venturing onto campus only rarely. The orientation has been more toward the consumer. (Rosow, 1994, 797). Pasadena City college can serveas an example, for the campus now has 13 percent more students than it hasmoney to educate. . The Collegiate Function of Community Colleges. "Training the Workforce of the Future." Technology Review (August-September 1989), 66-72.Jencks, Christopher and David Riesman. "Senate Scales Back Huge Fee Hikes for Community Colleges,"Los Angeles Times (August 3 , 1992), A3, A34."What Is A Community College?" Los Angeles Times (July 11, 1992), B7.----------------------- 1 The Academic Revolution. What has been changing the community college system is a set offorces related to the economy. . Indeed, the businesscommunity as well needs it because of the particular requirements for aneducated and well-trained workforce today, with workers well-versed incomputers and related technology. Indeed, it waspointed out that this rise in fees would make the charges to studentshigher for the community college system than the fees charged at theUniversity of California or the California State University systems. But, the public mentality seems to be that the arts, parks, recreation, education, higher education, and the libraries are frills, not necessities, luxuries, not mandated expenditures (Hankin, 1994, 399).Hankin points out that these things are not frills but investments, and thechallenge is to make the public understand this. . Cohen and Brawer (1987) see the factors shaping the community college"as a link between the lower schools and establishments of higher learning"(Cohen and Brawer, 1987, xi). The campus wasalso faced with the relatively new phenomenon of reverse transfers asuniversity and state college students returned to community collegesbecause of tuition increases or prolonged waiting periods to get requiredcourses at the other institutions. College-style academic courses would be offered for those who intended to transferto a four-year institution, terminal education programs for those whowanted only the two added years after high school, and vocational andsemiprofessional programs for those needing a salable skill. Critics charged that these fee increases would be disastrous andwould lead to a drop in enrollment of 2 , or more. Consider again the effect on the California system.The community colleges have had to deal with a state-imposed funding cap,and as a result the 1 7 community college campuses were forced to dip intotheir discretionary funds simply to handle the student load they alreadyhad. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.