An article in USA Today takes a look at the growing importance community colleges are taking in America:
Community colleges train 80% of the country’s police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians and more than half of its new nurses and health care workers. They are the go-to destinations for displaced workers and immigrants seeking language and cultural skills. Community colleges are where people most often go when they need to brush up on math or English before pursuing a college degree. And they have become increasingly attractive to families who can’t afford to send their kids to a four-year school.
The article goes on to discuss how community colleges are doing more with less:
In 2000-2001, the latest year for which Education Department data are available, the nation spent $140 billion on four-year public universities and just under $30 billion for public two-year colleges. That ratio has remained relatively stable over the years.
Yet for the last decade, enrollments have been increasing faster at two-year schools than four-year schools. Today, community colleges enroll 6.5 million degree-seeking students, or nearly half (47%) of all college undergraduates. And no one documents the expanding demand nationwide for non-credit courses such as English as a Second Language and workforce training. An estimated 5 million students are enrolled in those kinds of programs, says the American Association of Community Colleges, a Washington non-profit that gets data from its 1,200 member schools.
The article even goes on to profile a Virginia Community College student:
Troy Cox, 39
Blue Ridge Community College, Weyers Cave, Va.
Transferring to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.
Cox attended the University of Oklahoma after high school, but dropped out after a year due to drug abuse. “I got clean and sober in 2005, only to discover I had Crohn’s disease. After being hospitalized for a few days, life continued on. Since I had always wanted to go back to college, I did. The professors at Blue Ridge provided the necessary tools and great teaching for me to now be graduating with a 4.0. (I’m studying psychology so that) I can help people like me solve the riddles that make our lives. I also hope to one day teach at this level. These professors all do outstanding jobs and are the epitome of what teaching is all about.”
So, have community colleges reached a turning point in our nation?
The chair of the Virginia State Board for Community Colleges and a 1985 Emory & Henry College graduate has been named executive assistant to the president of the College.
Mark Graham, a director in the Abingdon law firm of Boucher, Hutton & Graham, will serve under E&H President Rosalind Reichard. He brings to Emory & Henry a strong background in higher education administration.
The strategic plan under which Virginia’s Community Colleges have been operating since 2003 is called Dateline 2009. As suggested by its name, the plan’s six-year window is approaching an end. You can see the progress that has been made on it by visiting this dashboard.
As you can read in this VCCS news release the process is beginning for establishing the next strategic plan:
A group of VCCS officials, led by Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the VCCS, [is conducting] a series of community discussions across Virginia to understand how the colleges can improve the service they provide to students, families and businesses. A dedicated email address, ideas@vccs.edu, is also being launched to collect comments.
…The regional meetings will include business, community and elected leaders along with economic development officials, students and other stakeholders.
The email address mentioned above is open to everyone both inside and outside of Virginia’s Community Colleges. It’s an effort to ensure that no good ideas are left behind for a network of colleges that serve more than 360,000 people across Virginia each year.
So the question is what can your community college do, or do better, to contribute to your success and to that of the larger community?
VaHigherEd Podcast: Episode 12- The horticulture program at Virginia Highlands Community College provides Navy veteran Jillian Holcombe with what she calls the best educational experience of her life. One of the highlights: A recent coastal ecology research trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a life-changing trip that allowed her first-hand knowledge of ecological marvels. A blog about her experience is available on her Myspace page.
“I think I’m getting a better education right here at Virginia Highlands than I would be if I were at a traditional four-year university,” she says. She’s saving her GI Bill for when she transfers, and looking for a future career in horticulture therapy.
If you’re anything like me you grew up getting prescient financial advice from your parents like:
“Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know?”
and…
“You weren’t born in a barn. Close the front door, for Pete’s sake.” (This applied equally to heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. There’s a related directive that applies to standing before the refrigerator.)
In a Potomac News opinion piece, former college professor Gary Jacobson offers some advice to parents everywhere on how to save thousands and thousands of dollars while sending a child to college: Take advantage of the transfer agreements at Virginia’s Community Colleges!
A few months ago, Jose and Maria received Bachelor of Science degrees from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. They completed similar courses and participated in similar on-campus activities. The only difference was cost. Jose’s four years of college cost about $32,946, or an average of $8,236 annually. Maria, on the other hand, paid $55,440 or about $13,860 annually for her four-year college experience. Why the big difference?
The answer is that Jose took courses at the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) for two full years before heading off to George Mason’s main campus.
Virginia’s Community Colleges have guaranteed transfer agreements with two-dozen public and private four-year institutions across Virginia. That means you can begin a four-year degree at the college or university of your choice at the nearest community college. Jacobson goes on to say that doing so may also lead to a better education in addition to saving you money.
At John Tyler Community College, everybody knows your name. “You are not a number,” says Heather Rice, who says faculty members call her by name even in larger classes. “I feel so welcome here.”
Heather joined classmate Justina Kim and about a dozen others for a visit to the General Assembly today to share their community college experience with legislators.
“I wasn’t the best student in high school,” says Heather, who graduated in 2006. “I needed a fresh start.” Now with an associate’s degree within reach, she’s ready to transfer to VCU to complete a teacher education program and teach elementary school.
Caring faculty has also made the difference for Justina Kim, who at 22, found at Tyler the supportive environment she needed to succeed. Kim started college at University of Hawaii when she was 17, “but I found the transition to college life very hard.”
With her parents in the armed forces (her mother is currently deployed in Iraq), she found herself starting again at John Tyler, getting to know the faculty, and took a professor’s advice about majoring in business and accounting. “I love John Tyler,” she says. “The faculty relationships have made a great difference for me.” An excellent student, Justina is president of the college’s PTK honor society. She has a college transcript that will get her in anywhere — but needed the confidence and maturity to back it up.
They are just two of the students seeking to use Virginia’s Community Colleges as a stepping stone to a baccalaureate degree. John Tyler’s group was full of potential transfer students — from nontraditional students going back to school after several years to homeschooled students who find the community college atmosphere a better transition into higher education.
Transfer was also today’s theme at the community college display on the ground floor of the General Assembly Building. With guaranteed admissions agreements with more than two dozen public and private colleges and universities, opportunities abound.
Karla Boughey, legislative aide for Sen. Walter Stosch, reminded John Tyler students that it was Sen. Stosch who proposed the transfer grant legislation that provides for scholarships moving on to the four-year colleges and universities in the Commonwealth. Sen. Watkins shared his own transfer success story about a nephew, now at Virginia Tech, who turned a lack of achievement in high school around and excelled at a Virginia Community College.
Justina’s achievements are being noticed by four-year institutions. “I never thought I would be getting a letter from Cornell inviting me to apply,” she says, although she’s also considering George Washington, Georgetown, and the University of Virginia.
“As the realities of the economy are felt on both family budgets and government budgets, I expect an even greater demand on the skills and knowledge our community colleges offer. These efforts show that our colleges have the creativity and leadership we’ll need to get the job done,” said Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia’s General Assembly.
You can read the details in this VCCS press release. Community college employees and students from across Virginia will be coming to Richmond to share with lawmakers and others how innovative efforts like Middle College, Career Coaches, guaranteed transfer agreements and other are helping to ensure that more and more people have affordable access to a college education.
If you are in Richmond next week, be sure to stop by and say hello.
Transfer Grant Technical Change Bill Moving Forward
Today, SB 148 (Stosch) passed the Senate unanimously on third reading. The bill will now be communicated to the House of Delegates. SB 148 makes the transfer grant available to first-time students who started community college in the summer of 2007. (The transfer grant bill which passed the General Assembly in 2007 had applied to students who began community college a few months later, in the fall of 2007). Other clarifying amendments make certain that a student’s state financial aid eligibility is no longer reduced by the size of the grant that they receive, rewards student improvement by changing the requirement of “maintaining a 3.0 GPA” to “graduated with a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.0,” and prorates the award for students taking less than a full-time course load. In addition, the bill also stipulates that the grant award will be prorated in the unlikely event that the General Assembly does not appropriate adequate funds.
Send Your Tax Refund to the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education!
Any Virginian who is eligible for a state tax refund may soon be able to earmark some of their refund for the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education! HB 1000 (Bell) adds the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education to the list of charities and foundations that can receive voluntary contributions from Virginia state tax refunds. The bill passed the House of Delegates today on a unanimous vote. For example, if a Virginian is due a $100 refund, in the future they will be able to check a box on their tax form and send at least $1 of their refund to the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education. The VFCCE would then award the funds collected in the form of scholarships. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Scholarship Match Bill Passes Senate Committee
SB 125 (Edwards) passed the Senate Finance Committee unanimously on Jan. 30 and was heard on first reading on the Senate floor today. SB 125 will establish the Community College Match program to provide matching funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia to the foundations of the 23 community colleges and the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education.
Should the bill pass and the General Assembly appropriate the funding of up to $5 million per year, the match will be paid on the basis of one dollar of state general fund appropriation for every one dollar donated by private individuals, foundations, or corporations beginning on July 1, 2008. These funds shall be used to award scholarships to students who (i) are domiciled residents of Virginia, (ii) graduated from a public or private Virginia high school, and (iii) are enrolled in a Virginia community college. The provisions of the bill are contingent upon an appropriation of general funds in the 2008 General Appropriation Act.
The counterpart bills in the House–HB 117 (Landes), HB 512 (Dance), and HB 1293 (Athey) have been assigned to the Higher Education subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and are expected to be taken up on Feb. 4.
Samantha Hobbs is just 18, but she knows the value of an education.
Without the financial aid and scholarship opportunities open to her at Virginia Highlands Community College, “I’d be in a lot more debt….. or not in college at all,” says the Abingdon High School graduate and first year student at VHCC.
She’s delighted to be at “Highlands,” where she’s saving money and working at tractor dealership, pulling a 4.0 average and the chance to transfer to Virginia Tech to complete a degree in an agricultural finance field. “Think of all the money I’m saving,” she says, “and all the support I get at home.”
Like her peers, she’s aware of Community College Transfer Grants, which may help her cut $1,000 off the tuition at a four-year school after graduating with an associate’s degree — and she’s aware of guaranteed transfer agreements. She may transfer to Virginia Tech; her peer Ed Harris, also visiting, is already tuned into the guaranteed agreement with UVA-Wise.
Samantha grew up in agriculture; her family owns a beef cattle farm in Washington County. “Being in farming, we don’t have the best income,” she says. But she’s made the most of opportunities offered through Future Farmers of America, the Governor’s School for Agriculture, and lots of service activities at her high school — along with excellent grades. A Community Scholar, she has a full tuition scholarship to Virginia Highlands.
She and fellow students met another VHCC alum, Del. Bill Carrico. They talked about the turns a career can take. Brittany Lutzo isn’t sure about her career path; Bobby Patrick wants to earn an associate of applied science in radiography and work in a regional hospital. Del. Carrico told them he studied drafting and design at Virginia Highlands — and then went into the State Police. ”You just never know for sure what you’ll do,” he said. But it all comes around. When his drafting skills were discovered by the State Police, they put him on the accident reconstruction team where he could use his drawing ability.
Samantha’s been sure for a while she wants to stay in agriculture, and looks forward to a VHCC-sponsored trip to an agriculture economics conference at Virginia Tech later this spring. “Those are my roots,” she says. “That’s my foundation.”
Community Colleges are a critical connection between the success of individual students, employers and the communities they share. That’s the message splashed across Sunday’s edition of the Richmond Times Dispatch op/ed page.
Marshall Smith, the president of John Tyler Community College published a piece about his college’s workforce training programs. It’s an interesting read, especially if you aren’t up to speed on how community colleges are connecting young people, who don’t know what they want to do, and employers seeking qualified people to hire for good-paying jobs.
Many high school students, parents, and counselors are simply unaware of the lucrative careers available to those who pursue two-year degrees in fields as diverse as mechanical engineering, information technology, and funeral services.
Trani: Our community-college transfer students who enroll with more than 30 hours from the community college do as well as our native, first-time freshman in terms of retention rates. We love the community colleges. I think that is a good on-ramp.
Rhodes: Let me piggy back on something that President Trani said about the partnership between VCU and Reynolds. The phrase he used was “on-ramp.” The community college mission has 3 parts: (1) its transfer to 4-year colleges and universities; (2) it’s career programs — we have about 80 programs, whether you want to be a nurse, an automotive technician, or work in electronics; and (3) the third part is work-force development.
At 
Samantha Hobbs is just 18, but she knows the value of an education. 
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