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More Latinos filling community colleges
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Katy Sorto gets help with homework before class from her friend Thalia Navarette in the fall of 2008.
TEXT OF STORY
KAI RYSSDAL: Forget the Ivies and the big name public universities. Community colleges are increasingly where it's at in higher education. In the face of enrollment cuts and tuition increases, a lot of students are staying closer to home. People who've lost their jobs are enrolling, trying to start new careers. And minority students, Latinos especially, see community colleges as a good first step.
Emily Hanford of American RadioWorks has our story.
Emily Hanford: If you want to find Latino college students, go to your local community college. This is where most of them begin. Community colleges are inexpensive and easy to get into. In fact, you don't apply -- you just sign up.
That's what Katy Sorto did. Her ultimate goal is a bachelor's degree, but her plan is to spend two years at a community college, then transfer.
Katy Sorto: I'm nervous, I'm just nervous.
It's Katy's first day of classes at Montgomery College, a community college just outside of Washington, D.C. Katy's not sure she's ready for college. She says her high school wasn't very good; she didn't learn much.
English professor: All right, so this is EL 101. Everybody in the right place?
Katy's first class is English. She was placed here based on the results of a test all students take when they enroll. Turns out this is an English as a second language course, which surprises me.
Katy was raised in El Salvador, but she's been going to school in the United States since sixth grade. The other students in this class have been in this country a few months, a few years. But when I ask Katy if she thinks she's in the right class, she says yes, it's exactly what she needs.
Sorto: The people there is with the same condition as me. It's good.
Katy says in all her years in American public schools she never learned to read or write well in English. Most students who come to community college are not ready for college-level work. More than 60 percent have to take some sort of non-credit or remedial class.
James Rosenbaum: They're in college buildings, but they're in college buildings taking high school courses.
Northwestern University sociologist James Rosenbaum studies community college students.
Rosenbaum: It sort of gradually dawns on them that they're not getting credit. But when they learn this, it's a big disappointment.
And many of them drop out. Community colleges typically lose half their students in the first year. Rosenbaum says the problem -- especially for minority students from poor communities -- is that graduating from high school does not mean they're ready for college.
Rosenbaum: Students pass high school exit exams and three months later they show up at college and they're told, you're not ready for college-level material.
English professor: Was it grammar you wanted to talk about?
Sorto: Yeah.
This is Katy Sorto's problem. By the middle of her first semester in college, she's struggling to keep up. So she's come to her professor for extra help.
English professor: You have good oral English that you draw from when you're writing, but then you have the verb mistakes.
Sorto: That's my problem.
Katy says she now regrets not working harder in high school. True her school wasn't very good, but she freely admits she could have done better. And the fact that she didn't do very well puts her at great risk of never getting a college degree, according to sociologist James Rosenbaum. He says high schools aren't pushing students hard enough.
Rosenbaum: We tell students, "If you can squeak by we'll promote you to the next grade. If you can squeak by, we'll send you to college even."
It's the irony of the "college for all" attitude. Anyone, everyone can go to college now. But if everyone can go, and there are community colleges that will take you no matter what your grades or test scores, then why work hard in high school?
English professor: OK, this word is pronounced "alternate." Can you say it with me?
Class, together: "Alternate."
English professor: How would you clap it?
Katy Sorto made it through her English class and is now in her second year of community college. But she still has several more remedial classes to go before she can start earning credit toward her diploma. At this rate, it will take her at least four years to get what she thought would be a two-year degree. But Katy says she's determined to do it.
I'm Emily Hanford for Marketplace.
My one and only son will leave for college in 2-1/2 yrs. I am pleased that he attended a Catholic private elementary school where the academic bar was set higher, the study skills were imposed, the discipline enforced. He now attends a public H.S., enrolled in some honors courses, and is trying to choose his classes to match a possible career choice, with my and a counselor's assistance. Parental involvement is mandatory, even coupled with counselor assistance. I had been thinking that perhaps a local community college would be/could be the first step for him after H.S., then on to university, to make certain the "money is well spent" and he continues to be a serious student. However, after reading Rosenbaum's piece I am leaning on applying to a university rather than community college. Even bright, intellegent students vie for higher education. I am pushing him constantly toward the best paths life has to offer him. These community college students who must first complete remedial non-credit classes are still enriching there lives, although it may take them twice as long to receive a degree; then, as they "get educated", they can pass down a higher level of learning to their children in their next generation. Each generation can and should improve over the previous one.
As the Baby Boomer generation dies off, their population bubble will get replaced by, presumably, a bubble of immigrants. If that theory is true, then the amount of consumers in America will not decrease, but stay the same.
What helped the American economy in the past was, the consumer was a worker, making that product, and earning the paycheck to pay for that product made, at the same time. As computers replaced the worker, easily-availible credit replaced the decreasing paycheck.
So, if there is a new bubble of consumers, according to this article, not getting a higher education...does anyone want to predict what this means for a future economy?
As an academic advisor at a regional university in eastern Washington state, I recently tried to help two bewildered Hispanic males. They left this quarter without college degrees. They did not receive the instruction and guidance they needed years ago. I concur with essentially all of the prior 1/7 and 1/8 comments on your excellent two-part article. This complex issue needs more attention, debate, and action -- ideally from within the Hispanic community itself. Thank you for your timely stories. Mary Benham, Academic Advisor, Eastern Washington University. (I lived in Guadalajara, Mexico, as a teenager. I attended an American-style high school--in English. However, I value everything I've learned from Mexican culture/Latino culture).
I teach at a community college in Houston, TX. The majority of our students are Hispanic. Many have been educated for years in the US, but because they speak Spanish at home and outside of school--even at work--their English skills are poor. And for better or worse, in the US, college is in English. If high schools want to prepare students better for college and for middle-class jobs, they need to put more emphasis on English language skills: speaking, reading, and writing in English.
Some of these students have tried surviving in the job market with only a high school diploma, and they find that they can't support themselves (and their children) on minimum wage jobs. That is why they are in college. But many can't do college work either. It's very frustrating for them.
I think that we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage so that people who are doing necessary and useful work--work that doesn't require a college degree--can feed and house their children adequately.
As a middle school teacher and previous high school counselor, I appreciate your thoughtful and accurate report. I am sorry to say that it is not only poor and/or minority students who are lacking motivation and drive. It begins early and many have no goals for which to aim. Many seem to think everything will be handed to them or it will suddenly become easy when then are ready to begin trying. I wish I knew the answer, certainly for many drugs and socializing become their priority. For others, it is a little difficult and just not worth the effort if it takes work. Instilling a work ethic in our children, making them accept responsibility, families need to get a handle on their babies or we will lose many of this generation. It is so sad.
Jennifer Thompson says, "It's frustrating to fail a student; however, if more teachers had the courage to do so, perhaps we wouldn't see so many remedial English and math students at the college level." I agree, but at the high school level, especially in poor and underperforming schools, there is a lot of pressure on teachers to make sure that students pass. If too many students fail, it is viewed as a failure by the teacher, not the students, and sanctions can be imposed on the teacher. Theoretically, we're supposed to grade on achievement relative to state learning standards, but in actual practice attendance and cooperation play major roles in the grading equation.
As an adjunct instructor at a local community college, I can tell you first hand that many students are totally unprepared and some just plain uninterested in school.
It's frustrating to fail a student; however, if more teachers had the courage to do so, perhaps we wouldn't see so many remedial English and math students at the college level.
The whole "everyone gets a prize, even if they didn't come in first place" mentality has spawned a whole generation of students who think just showing up is good enough.
It - clearly - isn't.
As a community college counselor, I appreciate your thoughtful and accurate report about community colleges and the students that attend them. I just wish that we could avoid pointing the finger at our high schools. Those of us in higher education understand that our public schools are attempting to serve an enormously changed student population, within an equally altered social context, with inadequate resources and a mandated curriculum that devalues the expertise of trained educators and leaves their hands tied in the effort to address the needs of students. In fact, you go on to acknowledge the difficult issues that students face and that are more to the point.
By the way, I plan to share this piece and use it in a high school outreach activity.
Sadly, many of us working at community colleges are realizing that students just aren't prepared to be in college, even a two-year college. The leap is too big for many. Some in faculty, staff, administrators in our community have a hard time hearing the message your story so explicitly tells, although it is a message, if listened to, serves our students better. I hope your story reaches as many education decision makers as possible. Also, this is another reason why cutting out options for kids and compelling "everyone" to get a college degree isn't always the best idea for "everyone." Some students find more happiness as adults and as contributing citizens doing something that requires a kind of apprenticeship or a different sort of training than what a college degree offers. We should reconsider the Western European approach to higher education. Thanks for a timely story
