The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Transfer Students Are Higher Education's Hot New Commodity

But there are two storm clouds on the horizon. The first is the shift of demographics that has many students seeking postsecondary education by moving with their feet to two-year colleges and for profit institutions In this mix, the transfer student has become the new hot commodity. Transfers provide an attractive option for upper level colleges and universities seeking to complete a class. Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-brian-c-mitchell/college-transfer-students-_b_1835709.html?utm_hp_ref=college

Community Colleges Across California Face Accreditation Problems

Community colleges throughout California are facing sanctions from the agency that accredits colleges in the West, largely a result of the state cutting funding for several years as the federal government has stepped up performance standards. Compounding the problem for California colleges are increased academic expectations set by the federal government, which tells accrediting commissions what to look for when they judge schools. The sticking point for some is a federal requirement that accredited schools demonstrate "learning outcomes." Read more at:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/15/4726595/community-colleges-across-california.html

Never Too Late To Bring Back Community College Students Who Dropped Out

In an effort to boost advancement rate, Harper College is reaching out to students who left the community college but still qualify for a degree — some without taking a single additional class. The Palatine-based school has shown a more than 80 percent increase in associate's degrees and certifications in the past two years — rising to 4,487 in 2012 from 2,452 in 2010 — mostly by reaching out to students who left the college early. The point, Harper President Ken Ender said, is to give the students degrees they earned, while boosting the graduation rate and reputation of community colleges. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/palatine/ct-tl-harper-graduation-rate-20120802,0,4122868.story

At-Risk Students Apply To Be Part Of A New Community College Experiment

For these students, college is not an assumption but an aspiration, a potential salvation from the poverty. All have applied for the first class ever admitted to the City University of New York’s new two-year college, set to open next month. Unknown to them, these students have applied to be test subjects in a multimillion-dollar experiment in how to fix what ails community colleges. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/education/edlife/the-new-community-college-cunys-multimillion-dollar-experiment-in-education.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Leaders Of Endangered Community College Say They Won't Let It Fail

A long, bright future is ahead for City College of San Francisco, but it's going to take a lot of hard work to get there. That was the message Tuesday from the school's board and interim Chancellor Pamila Fisher, who met in public for the first time since last week's revelation that the 90,000-student school is so poorly run that it could lose its accreditation and close next year. Each trustee repeated the reassuring message, hoping to calm fears that have spawned a "Save City College" movement in the week since the regional Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges concluded that City College is so badly managed and financially unstable it should shut down if its extensive problems aren't addressed by March 15. Read more at:
http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/S-F-City-College-trustees-try-to-calm-fears-3697865.php

Certificates Are Fastest Growing College Credential

The number of people earning college certificates has dramatically increased as students seek the quickest connection to a job. Certificates are the fastest-growing college credential, with more than 1 million awarded nationally in 2010, according to a recent study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Certificates equip students with the skills they need for a job often in less than a year, and they sometimes increase a person's earnings potential past that of a bachelor's degree holder. "There has been an explosion in certificates," said Sean Creighton, executive director of the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education. Read more at:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120709/SCHOOLS/207090313#ixzz20DxLROxV

Community Colleges Needed To Fill The Skills Gap

It was when I posed that question to Chertavian that he started talking about community colleges. He is a fierce believer in their transformative potential. All the students in Year Up are also required to be enrolled in a local community college, but, more recently, Chertavian has begun to affiliate more formally with community colleges.  Community colleges are the great American invention in terms of education. Now with the skills gap such a pressing problem — and a high school education so clearly inadequate for the modern economy — the task of teaching those skills is falling to community colleges.  Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/opinion/nocera-filling-the-skills-gap.html?src=recg

This Community College Is Testing An Alternative To Remedial Classes

Most community colleges would assign students like Yacuta to a remedial class, but he will avoid that fate at Long Beach. The two-year school is trying out a new system this fall that will place students who graduated from the city's high schools in courses based on their grades rather than their scores on the standardized placement tests. Long Beach is in the forefront of a movement in community colleges nationwide to reassess the use of placement tests for incoming students. Read more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-college-remedial-20120625,0,6876733.story

New Coalition Seeks To Gain More Support For Community Colleges

Community college leaders in Virginia and other states say their schools' roles in giving students an affordable education and job training are undervalued, so they're banding together to fight for federal policy changes. Virginia Community College System Chancellor Glenn DuBois and his counterparts in Louisiana, North Carolina and Indiana have formed Rebuilding the Middle Class. The coalition, which held its first meeting last week in the group's home base of Indianapolis, is raising money in hopes of building its profile among the public and with lawmakers. Read more at:
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/06/new-group-raising-community-colleges-profile 

 

The Problem Is Too Many Campuses For This Community College

City College of San Francisco may be forced to close or combine some campuses - it has 12 of them - to help stave off a financial crisis and retain full accreditation. City College not only maintains a dozen campuses across the city and at San Francisco International Airport, it also has classrooms tucked into at least 20 other locations. "I think we're going to have to close some," said John Rizzo, president of the Board of Trustees. "They (the accreditation team) think we have too many campuses." Read more at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/31/BA551OPIIC.DTL#ixzz1wop17Byk