As enrollments soar and state aid vanishes, community colleges reconsider their role, By David Harrison, april 11, 2011, Stateline.org: “Jud Hicks got the email late one evening in January. The following day, it said, the state House of Representatives would release a budget proposal cutting off all state money to four community colleges. One of those was Frank Phillips College, a small school in the Panhandle town of Borger, where Hicks has been the president since early this year. ‘We had no idea,’ he recalls. ‘You had students saying, what do I do? I guess my grades won’t transfer.’ News reports suggested that without state funding, the four community colleges would have no choice but to close. In Borger, a windy plains town of 13,000 people, where oil refineries and chemical plants are the main employers, that would be a devastating outcome. But the impact would be felt well beyond Borger. If Frank Phillips College were to close, the residents of a 9,300 square-mile area – roughly the size of New Hampshire – would be left without a single college or university. That scenario no longer seems likely…”
Tag: Community colleges
Michigan Education System
Decade of change: Education system deals with fewer students, more poverty, less control, By Julie Mack, January 5, 2011, Kalamazoo Gazette: “Michigan educators found they had some learning of their own to do in the past decade, and the subject was ‘change.’ People leading both the K-12 systems and the colleges find themselves in very different places at the start of 2011 than they did 10 years ago, working through an unprecedented transformational period. Districts statewide have about 200,000 fewer students – but more children from impoverished homes – as the economy took its toll and competition with charter schools and choice plans offered parents other options. And the federal and state governments claimed more of a role in decision-making, leaving fewer things for local districts to control. Meanwhile, public universities and, especially, community colleges, enjoyed tremendous growth despite a gradual decline in state assistance – made up by nearly doubling tuition during the decade. But as state officials look to education to pull Michigan from its economic doldrums, they can point to some success…”
Homeless College Students
Homeless – and going to college, By Randy Furst, December 28, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “When he isn’t attending classes, chances are Christopher Sparks, 32, is hunkered over a computer in the library at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). He’s in his second year there, majoring in computer support and administrative network. Sparks does not study at home because he does not have one. He sleeps at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light homeless shelter on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. His bed is a mat on the floor with 80 other men. ‘I hate it, but I have to survive,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t wish this situation on my worst enemy.’ College officials and advocates for the poor say the economic downturn has spawned a phenomenon they’re only beginning to measure and understand: college students with no stable housing, who sometimes show up at homeless shelters…”