Higher Education Woes

We need an education make-over. This is a conclusion that I have come to after quite a bit of reflection, observation, and discussion about student performance and opportunities for higher education. I don't know what the education in other states is like, but in California there is definitely room for improvement.

Students aren't what they used to be. Perhaps this observation is skewed by my naive outlook on life and the academic achievers that I was encouraged to associate with when I was younger, but it seems like students as a whole don't seem to care as much about reaching academic goals. Sure, everyone wants to do well in life and be in a successful career, but I'm beginning to wonder if students have mentally disconnected the line between academic success and career success and don't feel that the latter is dependent on the former. Could it be that in their view good grades do not equal a good job anymore? Considering that we are limping out of a recession, that's not such a surprising conclusion for students to have made, especially if they or others close to them were experiencing unwanted unemployment and had a degree. If college is not seen as a valuable investment (as many of us have been told all our lives), then students are not going to clamor to get in. They will choose other paths, perhaps career training schools that advertise preparing individuals for entry-level positions and promise to assist students with finding jobs (not all of them deliver, and I have other issues with career school, but that is for another time and place). Perhaps it's not that the students have changed, but getting the bang for your buck in college has. Well, maybe so, but I don't think that's the whole story.

Education isn't what it used to be. Students in K-12 are not being as prepared for college and higher education as they could be (used to be?). Believe me, I do not blame the teachers. I was a teacher once, so I lived the challenges that they face in the classroom everyday. It's hard to make your students college-ready when your classroom is over-populated and daily lessons are completely taken over by pacing guides and district-mandated subject schedules that define how long teachers are allowed to spend on one area--and if students don't get it, too bad you have to move on. I know that seems unbelievable, but that was the situation I dealt with when I taught in a district in Northern California. So knowing that, it's not hard to accept that students are not being prepared. Not every teacher or even every district deals with like situations, but they exist. So by the time students get to high school, many of them are struggling because they didn't understand everything they should have in their K-8 classes. They enter high school already behind. They may graduate high school but they are not college-ready when they leave because they've missed important concepts or opportunities that help to build their critical thinking and reasoning skills, among other academic abilities. They are not by any means stupid or dumb...just absurdly unprepared. I see it everyday working with the students I do. I see students that are unable to think through a problem, even one that I would deem relatively simple; students that are very computer illiterate (what happened to giving them the chance in K-12 to familiarize themselves with the computer?); and students that don't know how to take notes or even write coherently. Writing skills, computer skills, critical thinking skills...all of these skill areas are supposed to be a part of every student's K-12 education. And perhaps for the majority of students it is happening, but I feel as though too many students are falling through the cracks. Education isn't what it used to be in California. Years ago, California ranked high among all the states (I want to say in the top ten, but I can't find the data) in terms of K-12 education; now, it ranks 33rd and performs poorly in several key areas.

One more piece of the puzzle still needs to be acknowledged. Let's face it: the cost of higher education isn't what it used to be. Every year, tuition for higher education rises, even for the state-run colleges and universities that are supposed to be "affordable" for students. The current cost of tuition and fees for California residents at UC Davis, a university I attended for two years before transferring to another, is $13,902. It's almost three times that much for out-of-state or international students to attend. When I attended the campus, tuition was only a fraction of that (my parents wrote the checks, so I don't have the receipts for the exact amount). That figure, as shown on the page I linked to, doesn't even include the other costs for school: health insurance (if you don't have proof of insurance through a parent), books, room and board, and other expenses. It adds up very quickly and means that students from low-income families have to take on substantial debt in order to attend school. What compounds the problem is that many students are finishing in 4 1/2 or 5 years, rather than 4. So that $33,073-per-year price tag noted on that same page I linked to just went from $132,292 for four years (as long as tuition doesn't continue to increase) to $148, 828 for 4 1/2 years or $165,363 for five years. You can buy a nice house in some parts of the country for that kind of money. For many students, taking on that much debt isn't an option. It's an insurmountable price tag for education, something that all students attending public school didn't have to pay for until knocking at the gate of California's public colleges and universities. This goes back to the idea of value I touched on above. What is the education one gets at the public colleges and universities worth? Is it worth the all-expenses-included-$33,073-a-year price tag? Is it worth more? Less? I think that more people are starting to say "less" and choosing other options. Could we start to see more growth in career training schools or other alternatives that focus on career opportunities rather than education? I don't know. Even many of these options come with a stiff price tag that could discourage people; a 15-month program at the school where I work is priced at about $30,000 and there's no way for the school to guarantee that every student will get a job in their field, even if there is staff to assist students with finding positions (and they do maintain a certain percentage of placements for accreditation purposes). Education costs are a gamble, and students have no way to be assured they will get a job after graduation, although job prospects have improved over the last couple of years.

I know I'm writing a lot of doom and gloom here, but there is a silver lining, a light for hope. Can you guess what it is?

The heroes of higher education are community colleges and libraries. Community colleges especially are not given enough credit for what it is they do. They take in all students that want to walk through their doors and get an education. If a student isn't college-ready, they have remedial courses and other services to help prepare students to transfer to a four-year college or university if that is really what they want to do. And if a student decides that a four-year college is not where they want to go and they want to concentrate on preparing for a career, well community colleges do that too. I didn't really appreciate the significance of this role until recently. And community colleges manage to perform at a cost that would be a dream come true at a UC or CSU campus. This local community college charges a mere $46 per unit. A student attending full-time and taking 12 units a semester is only spending $1,104 for the whole year in tuition, $1,166 if we include the other fees. Community colleges are giving students the ability to prepare for pursing higher education at four-year institutions or prepare for a career and doing so at a much more affordable cost. And let's not forget about libraries. Academic libraries, and yes even public libraries, are helping patrons of every age to pursue life-long learning and education. Remember my mention of students that are computer illiterate? My local public library system offers computer literacy classes. Academic libraries, particularly those at community colleges, offer instruction that builds critical thinking skills and helps students to be more prepared at being students (like being able to research for a class assignment). And they work with every skill level. Academic libraries do often offer for-credit courses as well; public libraries don't, but their workshops and other resources are often helpful when someone wants to concentrate on a specific skill set. And let's not forget the price tag for using the library: $0. Even academic libraries (excepting for-credit courses) offer their services for free, and sometimes people in the community are able to take advantage of what the library offers even if they aren't students.

So today, I salute all libraries and community colleges for what they do to help people with their life goals. Our education system is in trouble, but I think there's still hope. As long as these two entities exist to help address the needs of those that have career rather than academic aspirations, or need more preparation for college, or can't afford high tuition, then things are not broken beyond repair.

But they will eventually have to be fixed.