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S/O American Families— Wondering about how the 2 yrs of CC works


popmom
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2 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

The picture that I posted of the CC dorm with luxury amenities is in the middle of San Antonio--walkable to the downtown area.  Yes, places in west Texas can be far apart.  Most of the community colleges that I am aware of in Texas are located in larger metropolitan areas.  

That makes sense, but do the students who feed into these schools all live in town, or are they more spread out?  Or is this one of those weird Texas CCs that has a champion cheer squad or some other niche sports thing?

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28 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I'm guessing there are some places where the population is so spread out that even a drive to the closest CC would be too long for a student to do every day.  Where I live, I could walk on a bike path to the CC and not hit 10,000 steps, but some of those middle states are HUGE and don't have the population density to support a CC every 20 miles.  You can drive for an hour and still be in the same county in some of those places.

Yes, I live in Alaska. There is nothing more spread out than that and our cost of living is typically dramatically higher than in Texas so I have a hard time understanding the justification for this cost for CC.

  I have looked at the little village campuses (which don't even have road access) and still see nothing about housing. We do have online for those who can't get to a campus and it is better than any online my son did with UAH but part of that is it was developed over time with the purpose of keeping it in place. His other experience was a haphazardly thrown together by novices experience in a crisis which isn't a fair comparison. My fear is that people's current experience with online education will make them dump it though it can be done well and efficient.

The more I see of the costs and problems of the lower 48, the more impressed I am with our Alaskan universities that have huge obstacles to overcome. 

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@Bootsie Looking at the commuter state university and the community college in the same city for the 2019-2020 year, the lowest 10 month pay was $74,878 for CC and $50,748  for SU. The highest was $133,363 for CC and $154,560 for SU.  6.5% of the property tax from its service area goes to the community college fund.

community college https://www.sjeccd.edu/HumanResources/Documents/2019-2020 Faculty FT 10month - Appendix C-1.pdf

state university https://www.sjsu.edu/up/docs/salary-schedule-instructional-faculty-2019-20-color.pdf

ETA: the median household income in that city according to US Census Bureau is $109,593

Edited by Arcadia
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31 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

That makes sense, but do the students who feed into these schools all live in town, or are they more spread out?  Or is this one of those weird Texas CCs that has a champion cheer squad or some other niche sports thing?

I am not sure what percent of the students at the CC come from outside the local area.  I have never met a student who was from out of the area; because the CC is subsidized at the county level and those outside of the county have to pay higher tuition, my guess is that most are locals.  If someone was going to come from west Texas, it would probably be just as cheap, or not much more, to attend the 4-year college if you are paying for dorm and travel expenses.  

Interestingly, however, I have not tons of students who left the San Antonio are to attend community colleges or junior colleges elsewhere in the state.  Reasons have ranged from:

1) I didn't get into the 4-year school and this community college as a 2+2 program

2) I want a college/dorm experience

3)The classes are going to be easier so I will graduate with a higher GPA

4) It will be in the same town as my boyfriend

5) I don't have all of the hassles of the 4-year college but I still get to go to the football games at the 4-year college and all of those other perks

6) I got a scholarship to play baseball

Some of these kids could have walked to their local CC or 4-year university.  But, instead packed up and lived in a dorm or apartment to attend a CC.  These were kids of CPAs, engineers, lawyers, acrchitects, etc.  

This is where I have a problem with "free 2 years of CC"; in some areas we are talking about VoTech training (nusing, HVAC, drafting, etc.); in some areas we are talking about rural young people saving on housing expenses for two years; some are talking about an opportunity for a single mom to get an education; sometimes we are talking about young people who graduate from high school and cannot meet traditional university admissions requirements and need remedial work; sometimes we are talking about people changing careers; and sometimes it is something much different. 

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14 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

@Bootsie Looking at the commuter state university and the community college in the same city for the 2019-2020 year, the lowest 10 month pay was $74,878 for CC and $50,748  for SU. The highest was $133,363 for CC and $154,560 for SU.  6.5% of the property tax from its service area goes to the community college fund.

community college https://www.sjeccd.edu/HumanResources/Documents/2019-2020 Faculty FT 10month - Appendix C-1.pdf

state university https://www.sjsu.edu/up/docs/salary-schedule-instructional-faculty-2019-20-color.pdf

ETA: the median household income in that city according to US Census Bureau is $109,593

Am I reading that correctly that the lowest pay at the community call was $74,878?--higher than the SU?  I also see a footnote that higher salaries can be paid (because in some fields I don't think you could hire a professor for $154,000).  If you are talking about approximately $20,000 pay differential, if a professor is teaching 200 students a year--that works out to only $100 per student cost difference.

I am not sure what the breakdown at those schools are, but there can also be a big difference in the use of adjunct faculty (at a different pay scale.) Or, of grad students teaching classes. 

Edited by Bootsie
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6 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Some of these kids could have walked to their local CC or 4-year university.  But, instead packed up and lived in a dorm or apartment to attend a CC.  These were kids of CPAs, engineers, lawyers, acrchitects, etc.  

This is where I have a problem with "free 2 years of CC"; in some areas we are talking about VoTech training (nusing, HVAC, drafting, etc.); in some areas we are talking about rural young people saving on housing expenses for two years; some are talking about an opportunity for a single mom to get an education; sometimes we are talking about young people who graduate from high school and cannot meet traditional university admissions requirements and need remedial work; sometimes we are talking about people changing careers; and sometimes it is something much different. 

So why not free CC for all of the above? Education is good. Whether your father is an engineer or you're a single mom or a person in midlife who wants to reeducate - investing in education is beneficial for society as a whole. (Again, I'm coming from a place where all of these people are educated for free)

Edited by regentrude
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3 minutes ago, regentrude said:

So why not free CC for all of the above? Education is good. Whether your father is an engineer or you're a single mom or a person in midlife who wants to reeducate - investing in education is beneficial for society as a whole. (Again, I'm coming from a place where all of these people are educated for free)

I am not sure I would limit it to CC.  I am not necessarily opposed to low-tuition schooling (alhthough to society it isn't free- someone pays for it).  I don't know that it makes sense to limit it to particular institutions; I think that causes many distortions.

I am opposed to funding on thing when people have the perception that it is somewhat very different than what they are funding.  I think it needs to be clear what is being funded.

I also think for free schooling to work, there needs to be more responsibility placed on students for their own success.  And, while I strongly support education, I think we would have to move away from "everyone goes to college" because that is just what everyone does.  I do not see it is useful for the student, or in the best interest of society, to have a young person who is not really interested in classroom learning to enroll in the same college classes semester after semester only to drop or fail just because they are supposed to go to college.  I would like to see a situation in which anyone who wants to is able to go to college; that no one is not able to because of financial concerns.  But, I do not think a situtation in which "Everyone should go to college and it is free" is in the best interest of society. 

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14 hours ago, popmom said:

I think I read this correctly...that California already has 2 years of free CC? I am curious how this works. Did 4 year institutions in California have to make changes to accommodate these students coming out of their 2 yrs of CC? One of my daughters majored in graphic design. It is a lock step program from day 1 semester 1. If dd had done 2 years of CC prior, it would have been a HUGE waste of credit hours and would not have lessened the financial burden by much at all. Also, she would have been at a severe disadvantage in being accepted into the program —it’s highly competitive and only 15 students are accepted into 2 cohorts—one that starts summer semester of sophomore year and one that starts fall semester of sophomore year. Not a single student in dd’s cohort transferred in from another school. 

Graphic design isn’t the only program that works this way. Nursing, engineering, communication disorders are just a few others I’m aware that operate similarly at this university.

My experience having had 3 kids in college so far is that this is becoming more the norm. Whereas when I was in college, the first 2 years were less specific—and it wasn’t a big deal to change your major. Also made it a lot easier to transfer in from other schools or CC. 

Is the 2 years of CC for getting a 2 yr degree? Or is it in order to transfer on to get a bachelors degree? Or both??

I guess I’m not seeing the benefit—especially in my state where CC is very inexpensive as it is. I would love to hear from anyone who can shed some light on this. Especially if you’ve personally benefited from it. I’m really hoping my youngest will go the CC route. And she wants to major in psychology which is one of the programs that I think is still relatively compatible with the CC route.

This has nothing to do with whether or not CC is free or not, but is all about your state apparently not having any sort of conversation going on between its CCs and 4-year universities.  

Here, our CCs have agreements with the 4-years.  If you get a general degree, you pretty much only get rid of GenEd requirements, so you'll likely still have to do about 3 years, but knocking off the Gen-Eds will at least kill a semester or two.  But if you do a more specialized CC degree and go for a coordinated 4-year degree, you can usually knock off 2 years, or at least 1.5.  My dd was also planning on a Graphics Design degree at one point.  She would have gotten an AA in Graphic Design, then transferred to an in-state 4-year where the classes she took at the CC would plug in to the freshman/sophomore pre-reqs for the Graphic Design degree at the other university.  She ended up changing course and getting a Business AS, which knocked out all her GenEds and all the pre-reqs for the freshman/sophomore Business requirements at the state flagship, and graduated in just two years with an Accounting degree.  I have a friend whose son did the same for a Computer Science degree (got his AS in CS, then two more years for his BS at the 4-year).

We paid for this (most of it was DE, which is 50% off here, but not free).  But if it had been free or full price CC, it still has everything to do with the state public universities and the state CCs having somewhat aligned course sequences - it has nothing to do with whether or not CC is free or paid.  And so, yes, in states that have their act together with post-secondary learning, free CC would knock 1-2 years of $$ off a 4-year degree.  Saved us a lot even the way it is now.

Our CCs also have two different types of degrees - ones that are career-oriented (so, they're training for a specific job at the end of the two years - a lot of med tech, IT tech type jobs, dental assistants, lower-level nursing jobs, lots of things - these often have a large hands-on training component rather like apprenticeship in the job itself / outside the classroom), and then those that are designed as transfer degrees and aligned with course sequences at in-state 4-year universities.

Edited by Matryoshka
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5 minutes ago, regentrude said:

So why not free CC for all of the above? Education is good. Whether your father is an engineer or you're a single mom or a person in midlife who wants to reeducate - investing in education is beneficial for society as a whole. (Again, I'm coming from a place where all of these people are educated for free)

Also, I will say that in my state, tuition free CC is just that-tuition free. So if you go to a CC that has dorms, you still have to pay for housing somehow, books, food, etc. So showing luxury apartment style dorms is kind of a red herring, since I don't believe housing is included in the federal proposal any more than in the state level ones.

FWIW, the least expensive room/board package at any school my senior considered was at the school with the highest base tuition. Some of the state U's had housing that honestly would have made any place I have lived in my adult life feel like a step down, but also had dorm costs such that it honestly would be potentially viable, if not a financial savings, to take out a mortgage on a home nearby for your kid and a few friends, and assume you can probably resell it in four years when your kid graduates and break even. 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Dmmetler said:

Also, I will say that in my state, tuition free CC is just that-tuition free. So if you go to a CC that has dorms, you still have to pay for housing somehow, books, food, etc. So showing luxury apartment style dorms is kind of a red herring, since I don't believe housing is included in the federal proposal any more than in the state level ones.

FWIW, the least expensive room/board package at any school my senior considered was at the school with the highest base tuition. Some of the state U's had housing that honestly would have made any place I have lived in my adult life feel like a step down, but also had dorm costs such that it honestly would be potentially viable, if not a financial savings, to take out a mortgage on a home nearby for your kid and a few friends, and assume you can probably resell it in four years when your kid graduates and break even. 

 

 

My point of showing that was not in regard to whether that would be included in the "free" 2 years.  My point was addressing the idea that CC are able to provide education more cheaply (simply the tuition part) because they do not have all of these types of amenities.  

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4 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Also, I will say that in my state, tuition free CC is just that-tuition free. So if you go to a CC that has dorms, you still have to pay for housing somehow, books, food, etc. So showing luxury apartment style dorms is kind of a red herring, since I don't believe housing is included in the federal proposal any more than in the state level ones.

None of our CCs have dorms - I think that's true most places, although obviously not all.  

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4 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I am not sure I would limit it to CC.  I am not necessarily opposed to low-tuition schooling (alhthough to society it isn't free- someone pays for it).  I don't know that it makes sense to limit it to particular institutions; I think that causes many distortions.

I am opposed to funding on thing when people have the perception that it is somewhat very different than what they are funding.  I think it needs to be clear what is being funded.

I also think for free schooling to work, there needs to be more responsibility placed on students for their own success.  And, while I strongly support education, I think we would have to move away from "everyone goes to college" because that is just what everyone does.  I do not see it is useful for the student, or in the best interest of society, to have a young person who is not really interested in classroom learning to enroll in the same college classes semester after semester only to drop or fail just because they are supposed to go to college.  I would like to see a situation in which anyone who wants to is able to go to college; that no one is not able to because of financial concerns.  But, I do not think a situtation in which "Everyone should go to college and it is free" is in the best interest of society. 

Coming back to add--I am also not in favor of piling large groups of students in a classroom, paying an adjunct $2000 dollars, and calling that a "college education".  If CC is cheaper because of higher teaching loads, larger classes, and lower salaries to the instructors, it might be in society's best intererst to invest more in better quality education.  I don't want to see a larger quantity (but lower quality) 

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2 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Coming back to add--I am also not in favor of piling large groups of students in a classroom, paying an adjunct $2000 dollars, and calling that a "college education".  If CC is cheaper because of higher teaching loads, larger classes, and lower salaries to the instructors, it might be in society's best intererst to invest more in better quality education.  I don't want to see a larger quantity (but lower quality) 

Huh, the exact opposite is true here.  The big 4-year universities have large auditoriums that seat hundreds of people for intro classes, but the CCs have classes that are no bigger than a high school classroom.  Less than 30, and usually much less than that.  They don't even have classrooms to accommodate more than that.  So you get a much more individualized start to college at a CC.

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1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

Huh, the exact opposite is true here.  The big 4-year universities have large auditoriums that seat hundreds of people for intro classes, but the CCs have classes that are no bigger than a high school classroom.  Less than 30, and usually much less than that.  They don't even have classrooms to accommodate more than that.  So you get a much more individualized start to college at a CC.

But see, this is what I am not understanding--how is that cheaper for the government to provide?

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15 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I am not sure I would limit it to CC.  I am not necessarily opposed to low-tuition schooling (alhthough to society it isn't free- someone pays for it).  I don't know that it makes sense to limit it to particular institutions; I think that causes many distortions.

I am opposed to funding on thing when people have the perception that it is somewhat very different than what they are funding.  I think it needs to be clear what is being funded.

I also think for free schooling to work, there needs to be more responsibility placed on students for their own success.  And, while I strongly support education, I think we would have to move away from "everyone goes to college" because that is just what everyone does.  I do not see it is useful for the student, or in the best interest of society, to have a young person who is not really interested in classroom learning to enroll in the same college classes semester after semester only to drop or fail just because they are supposed to go to college.  I would like to see a situation in which anyone who wants to is able to go to college; that no one is not able to because of financial concerns.  But, I do not think a situtation in which "Everyone should go to college and it is free" is in the best interest of society. 

Our CC program does have passing grade requirements. You will get dropped from the program if you don't keep your GPA passing and even if you don't do your required community service hours. 

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25 minutes ago, regentrude said:

So why not free CC for all of the above? Education is good. Whether your father is an engineer or you're a single mom or a person in midlife who wants to reeducate - investing in education is beneficial for society as a whole. (Again, I'm coming from a place where all of these people are educated for free)

Why just free CC? Why not University? Why not pay for online classes? Why not pay for certifications? 

It looks like students could attend University where I live for cheaper than some Community Colleges. 

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13 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

My point of showing that was not in regard to whether that would be included in the "free" 2 years.  My point was addressing the idea that CC are able to provide education more cheaply (simply the tuition part) because they do not have all of these types of amenities.  

Dorm fees aren't paid by everyone though. If you live in one of the luxury apartments that some schools have and have a 20K/yr housing bill, that's what's paying for the housing. In comparison, the big fitness centers, football stadiums and other athletic arenas, and other campus amenities are often paid for by student fees paid by everyone, on or off campus. 

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1 minute ago, fairfarmhand said:

Our CC program does have passing grade requirements. You will get dropped from the program if you don't keep your GPA passing and even if you don't do your required community service hours. 

You CC has required community service hours?  How many?  Is that for all students?  

Do you have any idea regarding what the GPA requirement is?  How much students can just drop a class so that their GPA isn't impacted?  And, how easy it is to get readmitted (even if it is to a different program) if the GPA drops?

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4 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

But see, this is what I am not understanding--how is that cheaper for the government to provide?

Lower overhead?  A class at a CC already costs only half what a class at a 4-year costs, right now at full price.  No stadiums, no dorms (at least at ours), no big research labs (although I have heard of some research opportunities).

Edited by Matryoshka
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3 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Lower overhead?  A class at a CC already costs only half what a class at a 4-year costs, right now at full price.  No stadiums, no dorms (at least at ours), no big research labs (although I have heard of some research opportunities).

But we have just provided examples of how this isn't necessarily true.

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1 minute ago, frogger said:

But we have just provided examples of how this isn't necessarily true.

But it sounds like at the places with amenities, they are paid for by fees, not tuition.  (I'm still trying to wrap my head around these fancy CCs in other states...  here they are commuter only, and small).

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2 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

You CC has required community service hours?  How many?  Is that for all students?  

Do you have any idea regarding what the GPA requirement is?  How much students can just drop a class so that their GPA isn't impacted?  And, how easy it is to get readmitted (even if it is to a different program) if the GPA drops?

In TN, if you want free CC tuition, you have to do volunteer hours. It's 8 hours each in fall, Spring, and over the summer, so it's hardly a difficult standard to meet, or at least wasn't pre-COVID (they have waived it for the last year for this reason). 

You have to COMPLETE 12 hours a semester with a 2.0 GPA and meet regularly with your assigned mentor, plus do some group meetings, so it's not terribly hard. If you withdraw, it's gone until you're eligible for TN Reconnect, which will be after your high school class would have graduated college normally. The same is true if you miss any requirements. 

 

Several of the big state U's, have last dollar scholarship opportunities for 4 year programs, etc for Pell Grant recipients as well that make up any gap. Again, though, these do not cover housing, only tuition/required fees. 

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4 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Lower overhead?  A class at a CC already costs only half what a class at a 4-year costs, right now at full price.  No stadiums, no dorms (at least at ours), no big research labs (although I have heard of some research opportunities).

Dorms are supposed to be self-funding at any state universtity I have known; so higher tuition wouldn't be covering dorm overhead.  

I know many state Us that do not have stadiums, so they do not have the overhead associated with that.  Some CCs do have stadiums--in fact some CCs have scholarship athletics.

If it is overhead from research labs (which I am assuming has an academic impact) that makes the difference then are the two institutions really providing equivalent educations?

My hunch is that the real difference lies in CC's hiring individuals with less credentials on average, paying them less on average, and having higher workloads for those individuals.  Is that what we want to encourage?  

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2 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

If it is overhead from research labs (which I am assuming has an academic impact) that makes the difference then are the two institutions really providing equivalent educations?

My hunch is that the real difference lies in CC's hiring individuals with less credentials on average, paying them less on average, and having higher workloads for those individuals.  Is that what we want to encourage?  

While there are some universities that offer research starting freshman year, I'd say the vast majority offer it to upperclassmen or even grad students, so shouldn't make a big difference to a CC which is offering intro classes.

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2 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

But it sounds like at the places with amenities, they are paid for by fees, not tuition.  (I'm still trying to wrap my head around these fancy CCs in other states...  here they are commuter only, and small).

I will also say, student fees vary widely. At one of the big SEC schools my teen considered, required fees (not housing, room and board, or specific class fees like lab fees or music lesson fees) were about half the required bill for ALL students, including commuters. So yeah, you had a fitness center to die for, including a lazy river and a climbing wall, but when you realized that you were paying 10K/yr for that privilege, somehow it didn't seem like a great bargain. At the private school my kid is attending, fees are 1/100th (literally) of the tuition and required fees charge, and things like the student health center (for medical care, etc) is part of the dorm fee with the option to pay it separately if you live off campus, because if you're local and already have a doctor and health coverage from your parents, you probably won't use it anyway. 

 

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Just now, Matryoshka said:

While there are some universities that offer research starting freshman year, I'd say the vast majority offer it to upperclassmen or even grad students, so shouldn't make a big difference to a CC which is offering intro classes.

But then it also wouldn't impact the expense of having an additional student at a 4-year college in an intro class.  If the lab is to support upperclassmen and grad students, the lab doesn't all of a sudden cost more if there are more freshman.  If freshmen don't use labs at the 4-year university or at a CC, then neither the 4-year university or the CC would have lab overhead for freshman.

If the argument is that the $1m lab costs would be prorated for all students and not just the upperclassman (which is faulty accounting bucketing logic), then the argument could be made that students attending CC for two years CAUSES the education at a 4-year college to be more expensive.  

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1 minute ago, Dmmetler said:

I will also say, student fees vary widely. At one of the big SEC schools my teen considered, required fees (not housing, room and board, or specific class fees like lab fees or music lesson fees) were about half the required bill for ALL students, including commuters. So yeah, you had a fitness center to die for, including a lazy river and a climbing wall, but when you realized that you were paying 10K/yr for that privilege, somehow it didn't seem like a great bargain. At the private school my kid is attending, fees are 1/100th (literally) of the tuition and required fees charge, and things like the student health center (for medical care, etc) is part of the dorm fee with the option to pay it separately if you live off campus, because if you're local and already have a doctor and health coverage from your parents, you probably won't use it anyway. 

You have some gosh-darned fancy CCs down your way.  Here the 'fitness center' at the CC was one room with a few treadmills and stationary bikes...

We did have this fee/tuition bait-and-switch for a while with the 4-years.  They had made the claim that you could get 'free tuition' at any state university if you made above a certain grade on the standardized 10th grade state exam - but then they just kept 'tuition' to $990-$1700 per year (depending on which state university), and then the rest of what you paid (like $10-20K) was 'fees'.  Um, what?  They've now rewritten that and you get the exact same amount 'off of' the tuition which now again includes most of what were fees.  I mean "instructional fee"?  There were fees for so many things, I couldn't figure out what "tuition" was even supposed to cover.  It was more like a penalty charge for kids who didn't do well on the 10th grade exam...

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A book I had read last year (Coddling of the American Mind) made the case that a large part of the increase in costs of college was due to - increase in number of administration and their pay(the average university president is paid substantially more than before) along with fancier amenities being built at facilities trying to lure kids in. I know even at our local CC there has been a massive increase in administration but fewer and fewer teachers and more being taught by adjuncts that are paid less. I know a couple of teachers and former teachers it is a huge complaint. 

Fwiw our CC has dorms but I think they are almost entirely populated with international and out of state students at the CC to play sports.

Edited by Soror
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1 minute ago, Bootsie said:

But then it also wouldn't impact the expense of having an additional student at a 4-year college in an intro class.  If the lab is to support upperclassmen and grad students, the lab doesn't all of a sudden cost more if there are more freshman.  If freshmen don't use labs at the 4-year university or at a CC, then neither the 4-year university or the CC would have lab overhead for freshman.

If the argument is that the $1m lab costs would be prorated for all students and not just the upperclassman (which is faulty accounting bucketing logic), then the argument could be made that students attending CC for two years CAUSES the education at a 4-year college to be more expensive.  

You really think all these people are going to stop going to the 4-years for CC?  Has that happened in TN where it's already free - no freshmen or sophomores at the state Us?

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1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

@Bootsie Looking at the commuter state university and the community college in the same city for the 2019-2020 year, the lowest 10 month pay was $74,878 for CC and $50,748  for SU. The highest was $133,363 for CC and $154,560 for SU.  6.5% of the property tax from its service area goes to the community college fund.

community college https://www.sjeccd.edu/HumanResources/Documents/2019-2020 Faculty FT 10month - Appendix C-1.pdf

state university https://www.sjsu.edu/up/docs/salary-schedule-instructional-faculty-2019-20-color.pdf

ETA: the median household income in that city according to US Census Bureau is $109,593

This is the pay scale for regular faculty, but part time faculty gets paid much higher hourly rates in lieu of benefits at the community colleges, and it’s much easier to get that kind of job than a regular faculty job now.  

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3 minutes ago, Soror said:

A book I had read last year (Coddling of the American Mind) made the case that a large part of the increase in costs of college was due to - increase in number of administration and their pay(the average university president is paid substantially more than before) along with fancier amenities being built at facilities trying to lure kids in. I know even at our local CC there has been a massive increase in administration but fewer and fewer teachers and more being taught by adjuncts that are paid less. I know a couple of teachers and former teachers it is a huge complaint. 

Fwiw our CC has dorms but I think they are almost entirely populated with international and out of state students at the CC to play sports.

I'm not even sure our CC has sports teams...

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20 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

My hunch is that the real difference lies in CC's hiring individuals with less credentials on average, paying them less on average, and having higher workloads for those individuals.  Is that what we want to encourage?  

Our local cc pays teachers $500 per month per class 

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Regarding the advisability of using CC...

Here is CA transferring requirements is much easier now than it was when I was in college.  Back then, it was really easy to accidentally take the non-major calculus classes, for instance, at CC, and then have to retake most of the material at the university level in the ‘Calculus for scientists and engineers’ track, and adding insult to injury you could not get all of the units for that, even though you had to take the entire classes, so for instance you’d get 3 units from your CC experience, and then have to take the harder 4 unit class at the university but only get 1 unit of unit credit for it, SO if you needed to take at least 12 units to be ‘full time’ to sustain your scholarships or insurance or whatever, you had to take a heavy course load of upper division classes with it at that point.  

I went straight to Cal Berkeley then, but my brother did CC first.  He spent 3 years at CC because not all of the classes he needed were offered in the semesters when he needed them to finish in 2 years, and THEN a bunch of the classes transferred units but not requirements to Berkeley so he ended up spending 3 years at Berkeley.  So he spent 6 years in college with only one summer job of experience to put on his resume, because summer jobs were so hard to find.  By contrast, I graduated in 5 years, two quarters of which were spent in a spring/summer and a summer/fall coop job so I graduated with just one quarter more than 4 years of academic study, and a full year of industry experience that made my resume stand out.  Granted, we were both in STEM fields that often went a little over 4 years, but still, his education was significantly slowed by going the CC route.

I don’t think that’s nearly as common anymore.

I would like to add—I am so glad that I had the luxury of taking my lower division classes there, because they were so good.  As it happened I only had one HUGE lecture class, but it was from a history prof who I still hear on the radio sometimes, an absolutely spellbinding lecturer who changed my whole view of studying history in just one quarter.  I’m fortunate to have taken honors chemistry, which was a relatively small class (only 150-200 in lecture, and about 40 in each lab section), because the regular track chemistry was another HUGE class, but still, I really doubt that my lower division experience would have been nearly as engaging or world class at a CC.  

 

Edited by Carol in Cal.
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3 minutes ago, Condessa said:

Our local cc pays teachers $500 per month per class 

I don't know what length your semester are, but in most places that would be approximatley $2000 per class.  Someone teaching 5 classes would make $10,000 per semester or $20,000 for fall/spring.  At $500/class/month.  To make $50,000 per year (or $4,167  per month), someone would have to be teaching 8 classes at a time all year (which is beyond what any accreditation standards that I am aware of would allow.)  How does that compare to pay of high school teachers in your area?  

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10 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

This is the pay scale for regular faculty, but part time faculty gets paid much higher hourly rates in lieu of benefits at the community colleges, and it’s much easier to get that kind of job than a regular faculty job now.  

What type of pay scale is there for part-time faculty? I have never been at a place where part-time faculty get paid more than full-time.  

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Didn't read all responses, but here in Florida the CCs and the universities are all connected. Actually, most CCs are now technically 4 yr state colleges, although they have only a few actual 4 yr degrees. But makes them sound more important. Anyway, they have "direct connect" programs to the local university, and they are set up so you can move from one to another pretty seamlessly. Now, that said, if you are going into a program that requires specialized classes the first two years, you need to know that ahead of time, and make sure you are in the right program at the CC. But that's true of the university too. But yeah, the nursing school at the university has connections to the ones at the CC, etc. And you can look up what courses are equivalent easily. If you do the direct connect program, you are guaranteed admission to the university - although not to any particular major, obviously. Again, true also if you started at the University. 

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35 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

You have some gosh-darned fancy CCs down your way.  Here the 'fitness center' at the CC was one room with a few treadmills and stationary bikes...

We did have this fee/tuition bait-and-switch for a while with the 4-years.  They had made the claim that you could get 'free tuition' at any state university if you made above a certain grade on the standardized 10th grade state exam - but then they just kept 'tuition' to $990-$1700 per year (depending on which state university), and then the rest of what you paid (like $10-20K) was 'fees'.  Um, what?  They've now rewritten that and you get the exact same amount 'off of' the tuition which now again includes most of what were fees.  I mean "instructional fee"?  There were fees for so many things, I couldn't figure out what "tuition" was even supposed to cover.  It was more like a penalty charge for kids who didn't do well on the 10th grade exam...

Oh, this wasn't the CC-it was a 4 year SEC state flagship university in an adjoining state. A full tuition scholarship was not nearly as good as it looked. 

Edited by Dmmetler
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21 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

You really think all these people are going to stop going to the 4-years for CC?  Has that happened in TN where it's already free - no freshmen or sophomores at the state Us?

No, no it hasn't. There are a lot of kids who want the "college experience". I do think that it might have made it easier to get into some programs because there are a decent number of kids, particularly ones who might not be the best fit for, say, Engineering but think that's what they want to major in who go for the guaranteed transfer if you get an X GPA in the core classes at the CC rather than applying straight to the state U. 

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40 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

But it sounds like at the places with amenities, they are paid for by fees, not tuition.  (I'm still trying to wrap my head around these fancy CCs in other states...  here they are commuter only, and small).

Where my husband went to school he had over 1,000 in fees for all the extras as a commuter student. There is no CC in our city. We would have to travel to an outlying area for class. Even if CCs offer the extras as a fee and not tuition then it will save the government money but not the student which if you are already paying living expenses with a low income can be very disheartening. 

Colleges will obviously take into account this new source of revenue and it may cause business practices and how they charge to shift. They will shift costs to get as much money from people anyway. 

 

This is why I really think cash grants to people is so much better and though there would be an outcry from some people for ideological reasons more people who are worried about the economical ramifications would probably join the cause. People would then choose what worked best for them be it online, university, CC, or tech school. 

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19 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

What type of pay scale is there for part-time faculty? I have never been at a place where part-time faculty get paid more than full-time.  

I don’t know where it is documented, but I know personally several who have benefitted from it because they were teaching only in the evenings alongside of a regular job with benefits elsewhere.  Hourly pay was ginormous. They talked about whether they could afford to drop to full time or not down the road, what with the cut in pay and all.

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24 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I don't know what length your semester are, but in most places that would be approximatley $2000 per class.  Someone teaching 5 classes would make $10,000 per semester or $20,000 for fall/spring.  At $500/class/month.  To make $50,000 per year (or $4,167  per month), someone would have to be teaching 8 classes at a time all year (which is beyond what any accreditation standards that I am aware of would allow.)  How does that compare to pay of high school teachers in your area?  

They offer four three-month trimesters per year, including summer term, so $1500 per class.  Five classes each term for Fall/Winter/Spring would be $22,500, or $30,000 for year-round.

I don't know how much high school teachers make here. 

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1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I am not sure what percent of the students at the CC come from outside the local area.  I have never met a student who was from out of the area; because the CC is subsidized at the county level and those outside of the county have to pay higher tuition, my guess is that most are locals.  If someone was going to come from west Texas, it would probably be just as cheap, or not much more, to attend the 4-year college if you are paying for dorm and travel expenses.  

Interestingly, however, I have not tons of students who left the San Antonio are to attend community colleges or junior colleges elsewhere in the state.  Reasons have ranged from:

1) I didn't get into the 4-year school and this community college as a 2+2 program

2) I want a college/dorm experience

3)The classes are going to be easier so I will graduate with a higher GPA

4) It will be in the same town as my boyfriend

5) I don't have all of the hassles of the 4-year college but I still get to go to the football games at the 4-year college and all of those other perks

6) I got a scholarship to play baseball

Some of these kids could have walked to their local CC or 4-year university.  But, instead packed up and lived in a dorm or apartment to attend a CC.  These were kids of CPAs, engineers, lawyers, acrchitects, etc.  

This is where I have a problem with "free 2 years of CC"; in some areas we are talking about VoTech training (nusing, HVAC, drafting, etc.); in some areas we are talking about rural young people saving on housing expenses for two years; some are talking about an opportunity for a single mom to get an education; sometimes we are talking about young people who graduate from high school and cannot meet traditional university admissions requirements and need remedial work; sometimes we are talking about people changing careers; and sometimes it is something much different. 

I have another theory. Could it be one of those community colleges that’s growing and poised to become a university one day?  I’ve seen this happen. They acquire more buildings, then they build dorms, next they get some international students, and the minute they add their first post-graduate degree they change their name and become a university. I’m guessing they might stop at 4-year college level, but it depends upon their long-term goals. 
 

If you check into it and they’ve added a bachelors (usually for teachers or nurses) this could be the path they’re on. 

Edited by KungFuPanda
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30 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

What type of pay scale is there for part-time faculty? I have never been at a place where part-time faculty get paid more than full-time.  

Hourly wage for the same community college I quoted upthread https://www.sjeccd.edu/HumanResources/Documents/Classified Sub and ST Hrly Pay Schedule.pdf

Their executive management salary scale https://www.sjeccd.edu/HumanResources/Documents/Executive Salary Schedule 2019-2020.pdf

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1 minute ago, Arcadia said:

But, at the HIGHEST hourly wage of 52,90, if they are counting hours in class (and not the real work hours), and an average course is 16 weeks for 3 hours per week, that works out to about $2500 per normal college class.  That is about in line with what I have seen adjunct pay--but the hours to teach a college course go far beyond the classroom hours. 

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12 minutes ago, Condessa said:

They offer four three-month trimesters per year, including summer term, so $1500 per class.  Five classes each term for Fall/Winter/Spring would be $22,500, or $30,000 for year-round.

I don't know how much high school teachers make here. 

So, if is is $30,000 for a full year.  Assuming a 50-week work year, that is $600 per week or $15/hour!  I am assuming these people who are teaching are college educated and have advanced degrees.  If it is a per/class basis, I am wondering if they receive any benefits.  

The numbers just don't make sense to me--many people are pushing that even the high school worker should make $15/ hour!  I guess it is important to warn all of these people we are pushing to go to college for a better financial life NOT to take their professors as a role model.  

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15 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I have another theory. Could it be one of those community colleges that’s growing and poised to become a university one day?  I’ve seen this happen. They acquire more buildings, then they build dorms, next they get some international students, and the minute they add their first post-graduate degree they change their name and become a university. I’m guessing they might stop at 4-year college level, but it depends upon their long-term goals. 
 

If you check into it and they’ve added a bachelors (usually for teachers or nurses) this could be the path they’re on. 

I don't know, given that moving from a community college to a 4-year university is a highly political decision controlled by the State.  Given that there are already two 4-year colleges in the city (that are woefully underfunded) and another within a 45-minute drive I don't know what the point of that would be.  

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They also have an incredibly low standard of academics at the cc.  As in students regularly submitting written work below the level I would accept from my middle schooler.  Dh has to spend the beginning of every term (in a second-year criminal justice class) going over such basic writing requirements as 'You must use complete sentences with punctuation'.  He has been told by several of his students that he is the hardest teacher they've ever had.

 

I think this is the main source of my skepticism of the usefulness of free cc.  Yes, there are definitely students there making good use of opportunities to pursue their goals.  But there are also quite a lot who simply didn't know what else to do next, so they wound up at cc.  They would have been much better served with public funds providing them a satisfactory K-12 education than being used to remove costs of a couple of aimless years at cc.

Edited by Condessa
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5 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

So, if is is $30,000 for a full year.  Assuming a 50-week work year, that is $600 per week or $15/hour!  I am assuming these people who are teaching are college educated and have advanced degrees.  If it is a per/class basis, I am wondering if they receive any benefits.  

The numbers just don't make sense to me--many people are pushing that even the high school worker should make $15/ hour!  I guess it is important to warn all of these people we are pushing to go to college for a better financial life NOT to take their professors as a role model.  

My husband makes a pittance for his time there, but he enjoys teaching, and he enjoys finding the students who want to get somewhere and just need help to know how.  He also figures the experience will help if he wants to do some more teaching somewhere when he retires from law.  

He does not get benefits, but I think maybe if he were working full time hours he would.

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21 minutes ago, Condessa said:

They also have an incredibly low standard of academics at the cc.  As in students regularly submitting written work below the level I would accept from my middle schooler.  Dh has to spend the beginning of every term (in a second-year criminal justice class) going over such basic writing requirements as 'You must use complete sentences with punctuation'.  He has been told by several of his students that he is the hardest teacher they've ever had.

 

I think this is the main source of my skepticism of the usefulness of free cc.  Yes, there are definitely students there making good use of opportunities to pursue their goals.  But there are also quite a lot who simply didn't know what else to do next, so they wound up at cc.  They would have been much better served with public funds providing them a satisfactory K-12 education than being used to remove costs of a couple of aimless years at cc.

But what is their recourse?  I mean, they’re here.  They’ve attended those lousy schools.  Or they’ve attended good schools but had undiagnosed learning disabilities that impeded their effectiveness.  Or they got turned on to drugs and didn’t do much in high school.  CC is a point of reentry for all of those kinds of folks, and it’s very helpful to have it cheaply and readily available here in CA,

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