EMERGING CHALLENGES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES

ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges

EDO-JC-02-07

In just above a century, the American community corporation system has expanded from a single institution to above one thousand colleges serving almost half of all learners enrolled in public higher education. While community communitys have adapted successfully to waves of changes above the years, a unique combination of demographic and sodoeconomic changes predicted for the nearest decade promises to challenge the resilience of these low-cost open-access institutions.

This digest is drawn from "Next paces for the Community College" (New Directions for Community associations Spring 2002) and summarizes three overlapping challenges facing bodys in the coming decade: educating a more diverse scholar body, assessing student outcomes, and maintaining the educated workforce extremityed to meet the increasingly manifold needs of the students and institutions.

Educating a More Diverse learner Body

Community communitys typically serve students from a wider range of sodoeconomic backgrounds, ages, horizontals of academic preparation, educational aspirations, work and family responsibilities, and horizontals of English fluency than do four-year institutions (Williams). Mirroring the changing demographics of the nation, the community society student body will continue to extend in size and diversity above the next decade. Community association programs and services will be called on to adapt to what Helfgot calls a "continuing wave of the beneaths " a student population increasingly compos of "the underprepared, the underrepresent the underachieving, the underclass" (as cited in Williams, p 68)

Remediation

Almost half of all scholars entering community colleges enroll in at least individual remedial course. One recent research indicated that 60 percent of this remedial population are traditional-age learners enrolling in college immediately after high academy graduation (as cited in Oudenhoven p 39) The other 40 percent are adult scholars who may be pursuing personal interests, preparing for transfer, upgrading piece of work skills, or preparing to change careers. While many pupils require some remediation, 80 percent of the remedial population emergencys only one or two courses, with math the greatest in quantity common area of remediation (Oudenhoven) The stamp and extent of remediation emergencyed varies by students' socioeconomic, academic, and cultural backgrounds as well as by dint of their educational objectives.

The shoot forwarded increase in the number of underprepared learners raises concerns that limited society resources may be overwhelmed by means of demands for remediation and that other desirable association programs such as transfer programs, career and occupational programs and noncredit and continuing education offerings may be adversely affected. more [i]or[/i] less taxpayers or state boards of education argue that remediation should not be tendered in college, saying that the public is being charged twice for what should have been learned in high academy and that remediation "dumbs down" the corporation curriculum. Others argue that as lengthy as colleges admit underprepared pupils they are responsible for providing them with the help that they ne Remediation is central to the emerging assessment and accountability motion in higher education, and exhibits one of the more important educational, social and economic issues in the United States today (Oudenhoven)

Assessing pupil Outcomes

The ultimate purpose of assessment of pupil outcomes is to improve teaching, learning, and delivery of services to learners Assessment is increasingly linked to accreditation, accountability, and performance funding in higher education (Seybert). Assessment of learner outcomes in community colleges throw backs the greater diversity of the scholar body and the broader educational mission of these institutions. In particular, community association assessment measures tend to focus around learner learning outcomes in the major academic areas public to most community colleges, including transfer programs and career and occupational programs.

Transfer Outcomes

The transfer function has been a primary constituent of the community college mission since two-year bodys were first created. At the state horizontal transfer outcomes can serve as a measure of these institutions' educational results providing a perspective by which stakeholders can assess the effectiveness of community associations in baccalaureate degree attainment. Three core indicators are typically used to assess the transfer function: the number of learners who transfer in a given year, the transfer rate (usually defined as the number of "student who transfer" divided by means of the number of "students who could have transferred" above a particular time period), and the academic performance of pupils after transfer (Alfred, Ewell, Hudgins, and McClenny as cited in Seybert). belonging to all methods of defining and tracking these indicators have proven elusive and questions remain as to whether simple calculations can adequately show increasingly complex, nonlinear student transfers among high gymnasium community colleges, and four-year institutions (Townsend).