More than a third of community college students have vanished in the United States

[JPN]

https://www.seattletimes.com/education-l...-vanished/

[Alpha]

Alien abductions?

[Pats20]

Alien abductions?

No. Evidently cause it’s not high school.

[dfrecore]

Part of it is that many students aren't there to get any sort of degree or certificate anyway - they may need to get some skills in something and just need a couple of classes, or they may just need some college credit but not a degree (like if you want to join the military where they'll give you rank based on the number of credits you have). So they're trying to count something that doesn't exist.

[davewill]

The saddest part of the article to me was the assertion that companies don't think CC grads are ready to work. I'd argue that anyone who has the drive and fortitude to finish community college can certainly handle working for a living.

[graduatesoon]

Jean Kirkpatrick the former ambassador to the United Nations graduated from community college and was a transfer student to Columbia University. The room where I passed my CLEP tests had big posters of famous people who had graduated community college although I forgot most of them.

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[sanantone]

There are lot of young people who don't want to go to college at all these days, but the administrative issues have long been a problem at community colleges. When students get frustrated, they often go to for-profit colleges, which make it easier to enroll, but have outcomes that are just as bad or worse than those of community colleges. I agree with Dfrecore, though. Many community college students have no intention to graduate, but they select a degree program so they can receive financial aid. Some of them will transfer to a 4-year school before graduating with their associate's degree.

[LevelUP]

[dfrecore]

There are lot of young people who don't want to go to college at all these days, but the administrative issues have long been a problem at community colleges. When students get frustrated, they often go to for-profit colleges, which make it easier to enroll, but have outcomes that are just as bad or worse than those of community colleges. I agree with Dfrecore, though. Many community college students have no intention to graduate, but they select a degree program so they can receive financial aid. Some of them will transfer to a 4-year school before graduating with their associate's degree.

My daughter went to a CC, then another (actually she's taken courses at 4 of them), with the intention to either get her Bachelor's (as a transfer student but not with a degree) or else an AAS maybe - she may do the first year of a 2yr program to get a couple of courses she needs to become something that just needs those 2 courses, but the school won't let her take without being in the full degree program.  We set it up so that she has all of the pre-reqs she needs to do this particular program, but also has all of the courses needed for a 4yr school that her work will pay for, as well as UMPI and/or TESU.  So she has a good amount of credits, and lots of options going forward - but will be considered a "failure" or "dropout" to her current CC.

I went to 3 CC's and 3 4yr schools, and I'm a "dropout" at most of them - even though I was able to get all of my credits to transfer to TESU and get a degree later.  I also took 5 courses at one of the 4yr schools in order to get a certificate, so I guess they don't think of me as a loser, lol.  But the fact is, I was at a CC first to get gen eds, then to get some accounting courses under my belt (my manager suggested it), and just slowly worked my way through over the years.  I didn't actually NEED a degree at any point along the way, I just needed some of the knowledge from some of the courses I took.

[natshar]

I once took a photoshop course in person at CC. On the first day we all had to say why we were taking the class teacher did an informal survey by show of hands. Half the class was non traditional (adult) students just taking it to learn photoshop. CCs often offer more technical courses like auto body, graphic design, etc. that Four Unis might not offer. (or at least my CC did).

Heck, I even met a women in 40s taking a math class simply to learn math. She wasn't trying to get a degree or anything she just wanted to improve her math skills by taking one course and had the time and wanted an in person environment with structure and goals. CC attracts people like that. In my state CC is stupid cheap and they even have free/discounted tuition if you meet certain age/income/demographic reqs. But you have to be "degree seeking" in order to do that.(federal?) law that in order to get financial aid you have to have a program. Non-degree seeking students don't get aid of any kind. So many people pick a "program" they have no intention of doing just so they qualify for aid.