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While finishing up my senior year of high school, I've been taking a few courses at my local community college. I can completely understand why most don't finish their degrees. As soon as I graduate high school, I'll be transferring to a university. You couldn't pay me enough to stay at this school.
 
KhanadaRhodes said:
i'd be very interested to know why community college students don't finish their degree.

I think a big portion of community college students are there for the wrong reasons, ie thinking that's just the next step.

Another big portion go in with the mentality that it's just a stepping stone to get into a university(not sure if the article accounted for this portion, reading this on my phone).

Don't even get me started about for-profit schools, I used to work for one, they are a perfect example of how some for-profit business models are completely wrong for certain goals.
 
good points, bvs. i tried reading the article, but i'm not gonna lie, it's way too long (huge pdf) so i just read what yolland summarised here.

and i agree about for-profit schools. unless we're talking 8+ years of university debt, there's no reason a person should be shouldered with enough student loans to buy a house. but hey, go go capitalism!
 
Some of those figures are not surprising, considering many community colleges in the US are High School 2.0 / holding tanks for people who have no business going to college and should have been presented many vocational training options in high school.
Community colleges ARE vocational schools; those are exactly the kinds of curriculums most of their students are working towards associate's degrees or tech certificates in. The days when you could take a shop or business track in high school and graduate well-placed to secure a steady job adequate to support a family are long-gone. Some municipalities, most notably NYC, are experimenting with retooled vocational high schools tailored towards the contemporary job market, and in fact those projects are working towards a kind of combined high school-community college model which takes 5-6 years minimum to complete. These schools are, of course, still bound by standards-based education reform requirements just like all other US high schools.
i'd be very interested to know why community college students don't finish their degree.
Inadequate advising and mentoring (both career and academic), inadequate highschool preparation, and inability to pay for the full course of study are the main reasons, according to the report.

There will always be a higher dropout rate compared to 4-years, simply because a higher proportion of these students enroll without clear goals (again, whether career or academic) and are therefore more likely to wind up concluding "Eh this isn't for me" and leaving. But at the same time it should be noted that, given the weakness of these schools' advising and mentoring systems as noted in the report, many of those students would likely have fared better given better advising. The way things are now, the students who get the best advising, direction and mentoring lavished on them are those at elite private colleges (who least need it), while those who get the least are those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It doesn't help that the entire teaching faculty at most of these schools is composed solely of adjuncts who are being paid per credit hour, so that all departmental development (curriculum, internships, interdisciplinary ventures, advising etc.) is left up to administrators, who are typically running several departments at once, so no one has a longterm stake in the programs. Add to all that poorly prepared students (I'm at a public university, and believe me it's depressing how many of our freshmen can't write a coherently structured paragraph, can't summarize the argument of a simply worded article they've just read, etc)...honestly it's probably kind of impressive that as many of these students manage to complete their degrees as do.
 
While finishing up my senior year of high school, I've been taking a few courses at my local community college. I can completely understand why most don't finish their degrees. As soon as I graduate high school, I'll be transferring to a university. You couldn't pay me enough to stay at this school.

I took courses at a private university/college an at two community colleges. During my freshman year I took some classes at the uni and some at the community college (pre-requisite courses that everyone has to have) to save money. It depends on the college and the class. I've had community college professors/courses that I absolutely loved way more than the private college counterparts, and I've had community college professors that honestly shouldn't have ever been allowed to teach. It's the same with the private college. My psychology courses in the private school were a lot more in depth and interesting, while my sociology/human resource type classes were a complete joke.

Then I moved across the country and went to a community college that recently upgraded to being a regular college. Every single one of those professors was absolutely horrible. I promptly dropped out. The local universities/private schools do not have the major I want to study in so I haven't gone back yet. I do intend to, when the time and the school are both right.

The major problems with colleges are having inadequate counseling departments, professors that should have retired years ago, classes that work against rather than with the student, and a lack of proper resources. For example, not providing the students with the materials needed for classes on campus, regardless of if the student has to pay for them or not (this was true for the interior design class I took). I had a lot of issues with college and I could go on and on about it. The worst thing I noticed about my private college was that there were a ton of students that were... idiots. They got straight As at their private high schools and did really well and were just going to college because it was expected of them. They were mostly spoiled brats. Many of them weren't even smart, they just knew how to work with the system to get good grades. It didn't really motivate me to compete academically because I just felt so above them. I know that's a terrible thing to say, but it's true. I was self sufficient by that age (living on my own) and paying for college myself and here were these kids that only got there because of handouts, not talent or hard work. They viewed college as an extension of high school, just "the next thing to do" and not as an opportunity to actually learn.

Too many people are going to college.
 
professors that should have retired years ago
my god yes. in my years of going to college (i initially went right out of high school for three semesters on a full academic scholarship, then dropped out, and am finally going back to finish my degree) i've encountered so many. fuck tenure. it's ridiculous that someone can shoehorn themselves into a sweet position and be untouchable because as the years progress they've been there for 20 years, 25 years, etc. i don't deny that there are older professors out there who still have the passion to teach and do it well, i've had some of those too. but there's many whose passion died out years ago and they only seem to be in it for the money and prestige. and yet because they no longer give a damn about actually teaching, every student they have suffers. they make no effort to learn new teaching methods and are stuck in the 60s. then when over half the class fails every semester, it must just be that the students are brain-dead, it couldn't possibly be that the professor just doesn't make the effort.

it's a big reason as to why i prefer to take classes online if at all possible, since at least at my college those professors obviously aren't the ones who'd waste time teaching something so beneath them.
 
As a generalization, the system is not in any way set up to either instill or reward a "passion to teach," for either adjunct or tenured faculty. For the former, the emphasis is on teaching the largest number of students per semester for the least amount of money; for the latter, it's on how much you publish. Most graduate programs offer no training whatsoever in how to teach. If you want a truly student-focused environment then your best bet is a small, private undergrad-only humanities college.
 
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My buddy went to a vocational school in high school and then got his certificate at a community college. They seemed to complement one another pretty well, from what he told me. He has a poor-paying job now, though, as his intended job in the union dried up, as we graduated high school right after the economy collapsed.
 
While finishing up my senior year of high school, I've been taking a few courses at my local community college. I can completely understand why most don't finish their degrees. As soon as I graduate high school, I'll be transferring to a university. You couldn't pay me enough to stay at this school.
Do the people suck or what?
 
Almost every teacher I've had has been great. But the administrative people turn the simplest things into brain surgery.
 
Moody's cuts credit ratings of 15 major banks - Boston.com

NEW YORK—Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings of 15 major banks Thursday, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, saying their long-term prospects for profitability and growth are shrinking.

The ratings agency said it was especially concerned about banks with significant financial markets businesses because those markets have become so volatile. Some of the largest European banks were also downgraded, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

And so begins Recovery Summer 3.0
 

Eh, I don't see Recovery Summer this year or for awhile.

Also see Obama's re-election chances growing ever dimmer (and I was never optimistic to begin with). Try not to gloat. The price of his loss of the election is too high (I know, I know the state of the economy is all his fault. . .).

I would be interested in hearing you elaborate on how the downgrading of these banks is the fault of the government and the Obama administration. Or perhaps, you would be arguing that the downgrading is good--let the market work it out, let the banks fail if need be, as we should have done in the first place instead of costly govt. bailouts.
 
the only thing worth noting is that Moody's has moved from being 5 years behind to now being 4 years behind
I bow my head to the geniuses working there
 
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