The Community College

by SIGURD RISLOV

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SINCE THE turn of the century, a new educational institution has appeared in America. During the past twenty years, it has grown at an accelerated pace and there are reasons for believing that it will become standard equipment in the nation’s public school program.

This institution is the public two-year college, sometimes called a junior college, a community college, or just plain college. The typical community college is a local organization, either district or county. Nine tenths of its students live within a 35-mile radius. There are no fraternities or sororities and usually no dormitories. It boasts small classes, emphasis on teaching, a comprehensive advisory and counseling program for its students, and a personal student-teacher relationship. It undertakes three major functions.

First and paramount is its program of lowerdivision, freshman-sophomore, courses paralleling the state university and other senior institutions. Students planning to specialize in any of the regular or academic professional areas, such as law, medicine, dentistry, engineering, teaching, business, psychology, physics, chemistry, botany, can begin college in their own community and transfer with comparable advanced standing to senior institutions for completion of iheir training without loss of time or credits. About 35 per cent of the full-time students in community colleges complete advanced work at a senior institution.

Second, it provides terminal training for students who are not going to be baccalaureate candidates but who want and need more education than high school provides. For these there are such alternatives as trade courses in airframe and aircraft engine mechanics, auto mechanics, radio and television servicing, metal shop, machine shop, or courses for the semi professional technician in the various branches of engineering or in laboratories. Some terminal students take business courses, secretarial training, or agriculture. Others take regular lowerdivision college courses in order to be more know ledgeable persons with broader intellectual and emotional horizons, whatever their occupations.

Besides these two services for the college-age population, the community college attempts to be an educational and cultural reservoir for the adult population of the area. This is its third function and it does this in several ways. One is by providing evening courses for people already employed or in business. The content of such courses is determined by the nature of the group for which they are operated and by interests and wants of the population. There may be classes in modern world problems, history, psychology, philosophy, economics, or whatever interest and facilities warrant. Many of the adults in these classes are college graduates who either want to take those courses which their degree requirements excluded, or want to retake some they once had in order to renew acquaintance with an area of worth to them. Others are without academic degrees, but wish to drink deeper at the Pierian spring.

Another primarily adult service of the community college is to act as a focal point for cultural activities. Do those with musical ability wish to cultivate their talents? The college organizes a chorus, an orchestra, or produces an opera with a local cast. Are there people willing to put forth a concerted elfort to make better sense out of current a (fairs? A college-community forum is organized and leading figures in contemporary problems are brought in to present their views and discuss possible solutions. Comparable assistance can be given to amateur thespians, writers, artists, both in performanee and appreciation.

This triadic obligation to the university-bound student, to the terminal student, and to the adult — is, of course, not assumed by every two-year college. Some have a highly specialized objective to which all else is legitimately subordinate. What has been described is what appears to be the emerging pattern for the typical public two-year college.

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How have communities responded to these functions? If the willingness of the public to tax itself in support of these colleges and to enroll in their courses is an index to public response, then the increase during the past fifty years in both the numbers of colleges and their enrollments is indeed an impressive reply. According to the Junior College Directory for 1957 there were no public two-year colleges in the United States in 1900. By 1930 there were 178 with 45,021 students enrolled. By 1950 there were 357 and enrollment had reached 680,000. During the latter twenty-six-year period, the increase was about five times that of higher education institutions. The trend continues.

Financial support is provided by a combination of student tuition and local and state taxes. S. V. Martorana of the Office of Educalton. United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, lists twenty-six slates in which general legislation pertaining to junior colleges exists. Junior colleges are located in twelve other states, some by virtue of special legislation, others without benefit of either special or general legislation. Extensive community college growth has occurred in the RockY Mountain states, California, Mississippi, Texas, and Washington. The movement is also active in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Granted that this institution has had a spectacular reception, what can be said about its future? Is it a temporary aberration from the educational pattern, or will it become standard equipment ?

That further adjustments in the educational organization will occur seems reasonably certain. Of the many circumstances causing this, three are of particular importance. One is the continuing high birth rate of the past dozen years. 5lost communities are well acquainted with the desperate attempts to provide facilities and teachers for the consequent vast increase in elementary enrollments. This will, obviously, move on through the secondary school and be reflected on the college level. How much this will a Heel college enrollments will vary in the different stales. For the nation as a whole, predict ions for 1970 indicate an expected increase in all colleges ranging from 70 to 150 per cent. Where college facilities are economically and physically available, enrollment increases can be expected to be greater than college-age population increases. For example, enrollment increased 100 per cent at Lower Columbia Junior College during the past six years, while the college-age population in the area increased only 20 per cent. This is representative of trends elsewhere.

Other factors, such as the costs to the student, variety of offerings, military duty, and confidence in the worth of higher education, will influence enrollments. This accounts for some of the differences in predictions. All agree that vast increases will occur.

Another important circumstance is the change in the kinds of work in which our population is employed. Because of the increased use of capital goods in the manufacture of consumer goods, a rapidly increasing proportion of employees art* in skilled, technical, and semi professional occupations. This increase is occurring not only in industry but in agricultural, governmental, and social service areas. These positions require more training than is provided in high school, including knowledge and practical operation of relevant basic principles. But. they do not require the theoretical background of the professional.

Since the trend toward an increased proportion of employees working in this middle zone promises to continue, it is important that related training be provided not only for students fresh from high school but for those already employed who need to keep pace with developments where they work. Much of this training can best be provided in the classroom.

The third circumstance is the continual need in a democratic society to stimulate the interest of adults in problems of common concern and to add to their knowledge and insight so that they can shape their future wisely. The importance of a well-informed public is taken for granted in our country. Yet we are startled periodically by surveys showing the enormous ignorance of much of the adult population. It is a mistake to believe that after graduation from high school or college the average adult will continue to develop social intelligence. Unless he constantly renews his contact with disciplined thought and replenishes his store of know ledge, he will surely vegetate.

How do these three circumstances - - the population surge, occupational trends, and social responsibilities of adults— relate to the future of the community college? The coincidence of the three major functions of the community college with these three circumstances is apparent. In regard to the first, the larger the proportion of high school graduates who attend community colleges, the less will be the burden on the lower-division areas of senior institutions. Without such assistance the senior institutions in some states may well founder.

In regard to the second circumstance, the terminal orientation of part of the community college program makes it especially serviceable. Another local example may best illustrate this. In the spring and summer of 1956, representatives from Weyerhaeuser, Crown Zellerbach, Longview Fibre, and Reynolds Metals worked with our college to plan a two-year course in maintenance and operalion of automatic instruments, and to provide the training equipment needed. This program, now in operation, includes considerable theoretical training beyond high school, such as college physics and chemistry; but it also includes extensive shopwork relating theory to operations. Personnel men from relevant industries state that the demand for trained workers in this field will be many times tlie supply for years to come.

The possibilities for community colleges respecting the third circumstance — social responsibilities of adults — are indicated by the fact that the typical community college enrolls more adults than college-age students. In some instances this ratio is as high as five to one.

Discontinuance of lower-division work by the universities may well be a consequence of these developments. Senior institutions are devised for pursuing four or more years of academic disciplines. A major purpose of their lower-division courses is to prepare for more advanced ones. Yet only about 40 per cent of the st udents entering college complete their baccalaureate. The question has been raised repeatedly whether or not t here is considerable lost motion in such situations. As long ago as 1915 Dean Alexis F. Lange of the University of California stated that the university should begin “in the middle of the inherited four-year scheme.”

If it. is the case that professors could do better both by their fields and by their students if relieved of much of this lower-division work, then there would be grounds for requesting the community college to assume more of that burden. If this is not done, the coming flood of lower-division students may necessitate considerable sacrifice of attention to upper-division and graduate students and to research.

Community college teachers are consumers of research rather than producers of it. Their task is to keep abreast in their field and to be expert in acquainting beginners with it. They rely on the universities for research. The universities must rely largely on themselves.

Looked at from the student’s point of view, a freshman in a senior institution who discovers that a college degree is either not what he wants or not what he is able to acquire has only one recourse — to drop out. In a community college he can shift to a terminal program. His teacher is his adviser whose job includes helping the student enter the field where he belongs.

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THE fact that the pattern described above is well established in California, where student population pressure has been the heuv iest, may be a forerunner of developments elsewhere as such pressure becomes comparable. In both numbers and enrollment, California bolds undisputed lead with 65 public community colleges enrolling 381,000 students. Spokesmen for some of the senior institutions there urge students to take their lower-division work in community colleges, transferring for their upperdivision work.

Comparative costs of community colleges and senior institutions are another important consideration. These costs are of two types: the cost to the student and the cost to the taxpayer. Unfortunately, the concern of the taxpayer over the costs of education is far out of proportion to the part of bis income spent on schools. Americans will spend on all their schools, elementary through university, only about per cent of their income this year. They will spend twice as much on amusements.

However, since costs are of such concern, it is important that they he included in evaluating a public school program. This does not mean that the cheapest is the best, hut it does mean that returns on the dollar should he weighed at least as carefully in education as elsewhere.

One way to judge costs would be on the basis of costs per student per year. This method would assume that a student attending a community college for a year would receive equivalent returns to those which he would have received had he attended a senior institution that year. It also assumes that returns to society would be equivalent in either case. Such studies as have been made indicate that community college students do as well — and in some areas better —in senior institutions to which they transfer as do comparable students entering those institutions directly from high school.

When a community college enables a student to live at home for his first two years, his costs are cut in half. This obviously improves his economic opportunity to continue his education elsewhere later.

But what of the costs in the form of taxes? Establishment of community colleges in some states has enabled them to shift some of their higher education costs to the local community, and in some eases also the control. Proponents of the community college tire confident that ihe costs per student per year are much less for the taxpayer, pointing out that they average about one I bird those of senior institutions. Such calculations do not include the fact that costs of upper-division and graduate courses, plus research, are necessarily far above those of the lower division.

When all allowances have been included, a strong case can he made for the position that a tax dollar will buy more lower-division education in the community college than elsewhere.

Although the community college may provide more lower-division education per dollar to the taxpayer as well as to the student, any savings in total tax costs of higher education will be more than olfset by the increased number of students who will attend college when one is available near home. Justifying the community college to 1 he taxpayer will consist in the worth of the returns the lower cost to the student, the increased opportunity to the youth of the community, the returns to society represented by raising the educational level and productiveness of those affected, and the additional services that a local college can provide its community — nol in lower total taxes.

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IT WOULD be a mistake to assume that all community colleges bask in sunshine and light, There are hazards here as elsewhere. For example, the urge to show an impressive record of growth and ad nil service invites expansion beyond the offerings that are warranted. Instances of this have occurred in the recreational field and in providing related training for employment in business or industry when that type of training is best suited for learning on the job. Fart of this latter difficulty is due to the fact that not enough is known to make certain just where the line can host be drawn between classroom training and on-the-job training.

Another hazard is the temptation to lower academic standards in university parallel courses. Other colleges, particularly teacher-training institutions, have felt this too, owing to the excessive demand for their graduates. But the community college is peculiarly susceptible because of its commitment to a wider clientele. Usually the only requirements for admission are age eighteen or a high school diploma. Some 75 per cent of those entering for the first time as full-time students declare themselves us baccalaureate candidates, while only about 35 per cent continue as such. The administrator who wants to serve something to everyone who comes to college has a real problem with those who simply cannot or will not perform at college level.

I’rider such circumstances there is pressure, in the name of “general education,” to simplify the subject matter of the courses and to avoid failing grades. “Take the student where he is and start from there.” Unfortunately this is often not even within sight of college-level work, and to give degree credit for such performance is obviously a disservice to both the student and higher educal ion. Since the university parallel program is the heart and core of the typical community college, it is essential that it be carried out exceptionally well.

Those students unable to do college work should be directed into terminal programs that are consonant with their ability and interests. If none such are available, the students should be dropped. “Holding power” is not the sole criterion for a good school. The assumption that the community college can “serve the needs” of every student who enrolls is absurd.

Hazards are normal conditions confronting every going concern, and those mentioned are obviously not critical. There is no reason to doubt that community colleges will continue to surmount them. Surveys of community college graduates and transfers reveal pronounced enthusiasm on their part for the quality of instruction received in their lowerdivision work.

Will the American public make the community college standard equipment? It is, of course, possible to meet the increased college population with higher admission barriers, economic and scholastic, and thus, by wholesale exclusion, keep the size of enrollments under control. For some colleges with highly specialized objectives this is necessary and desirable. However, a great portion of the American public seems to have accepted the doctrine that a good society is one that provides equal opportunity for all. Where wealth is inherited by succeeding generations, there is some tendency for stable societies to become stratified. One of the consequences of this is that opportunity to share in the fruits of human history, to cultivate one’s own capacities, and to use those capacities to do the world’s work becomes highly restricted for all but the elect.

In order to encourage equal opportunity it is necessary to develop mechanisms to circumvent or counteract this tendency to rigidity. America has several such mechanisms and values them highly. One of these is tax-supported public education. The ideal persists that through the education route the son or daughter of the poorest illiterate may become a member of the managerial or professional class. Or if his capacities do not permit him to rise to the top, the doctrine requires that enough variety in educational offerings be provided so that, if he will, he can develop his worth-while talents, whatever they may be.

Besides the concern for equality of opportunity, there is an increased recognition that our society s agencies are too complex to be run by ignoramuses. Extended education is becoming crucial to group welfare. Statements stressing our reliance on educated people are a commonplace.

How seriously this is believed is reflected in the increasing interest in education during the twentieth century. For example, although our total population has doubled since 1900, there were twelve times as many high school graduates in 1950 as in 1900, and seventeen times as many college graduates.

This confidence in education as a mechanism for equal opportunity and as a necessity for group welfare, and the fact that the portion of our national income being spent on education is almost trivial, are reasons for believing that educational provisions will be made more available rather than less available to both the nation’s youth and its adults. Since community colleges seem to be the natural point of expansion, it is reasonably certain that their rapid growth will continue in the foreseeable future and that they will become a standard component of the nation’s public school pattern.