Why it's Unfair to Compare Community College Graduation Rates to For-Profits

[Vonne]

Many people don't care about earning an associates; their end goal is the bachelors. One cannot earn a bachelors at 99.9% of the community/junior colleges. I didn't leave San Antonio College because of quality issues; all I wanted were some transfer credits for TESC. I also didn't want to deal with meeting their gen ed requirements for the AA. I picked up an AAS from TESC just because I already had the credits; I knew it wouldn't do much career-wise.

For those who have the end goal of earning a bachelors, they attend community colleges with the intention to transfer. So, you can't use this as a measure of quality at schools that don't even offer what students want. Community colleges don't care about rankings. They just don't want to be penalized through funding for something that is erroneously perceived as negative in all cases. There are people who drop out of CCs and never return to school, but there are many who just attend for the transfer credits.

In many cases with community colleges, I'd argue that neither associates or bachelors degrees are the end goal. Unfortunately without a degree, diploma, or certificate being earned; a negative reflection occurs. I believe if a student transfers full time to an instate university with an articulation agreement in place, the student is considered a success.