I taught for over 10 years at community colleges in three different states (feel free to call me crazy) and have had administrative and educational experiences with colleges in three others. Some observations:
Maryland: for the most part, very good and an extraordinary value for the money at several locations, but beware the campuses in underserved/poor counties; Rhode Island: a cluster %$*! at almost all campuses while some are prettier and better resourced than others. I got a damn good second-career education here but only because I already had a BA, MA, and PhD so I knew my way around the system (including the Accuplacer); New York: pretty good over all but probably also dependent on location in relation to local poverty levels (it helps to attend one of the CCs near a SUNY center); Massachusetts: the program for ASD students that I work for seems to serve our students very well; Texas: I was not paying attention back then.
This leads me to . . . while I think it's valuable to look at the connection between CCs and high schools, I think it's also important to look at the relationship between the University system overall in different states and the community colleges that feed them, or maybe even whether they are treated as feeders at all. In Maryland, the CCs were (for the mmost part) very much seen and treated as feeders for a stste system that is trying to establish itself (and may have done so) as a "serious research university system" and compete with the likes of Johns Hopkins. I am not sure that this is the case for, say . . . . Rutgers (my experience on this one is extremely dated and contingent, but I do not recall ever being taught to think of the CCs as THE pathway to degree completion at Rutgers).
Also, as I will say over and over again: much of this relates to the adjunct crisis. At most of the places I taught, more than 90% of the faculty were adjuncts in my department. Regardless of things like disability services, you cannot provide a quality education to students, especially those with LDs, when your faculty do not have offices and are paid $2000/semester to teach a class. (My high regard for the Maryland system is not without some very serious caveats: check out the differences between adjunct faculty salaries at CCs in poor, predominatly black counties vs salaries in wealthy, white suburban campuses . . . it's a disgrace). California has some initiatives in place (by law, not just happy talk) to require certain lower percentages for adjunct and mandates (funded, or semi-funded) to hire FT faculty. I'm not sure how that is working out since I am out of the game (or off the hamster wheel).
Money. Money. Money. Plus, race, power, politics. Of course.
I taught for over 10 years at community colleges in three different states (feel free to call me crazy) and have had administrative and educational experiences with colleges in three others. Some observations:
Maryland: for the most part, very good and an extraordinary value for the money at several locations, but beware the campuses in underserved/poor counties; Rhode Island: a cluster %$*! at almost all campuses while some are prettier and better resourced than others. I got a damn good second-career education here but only because I already had a BA, MA, and PhD so I knew my way around the system (including the Accuplacer); New York: pretty good over all but probably also dependent on location in relation to local poverty levels (it helps to attend one of the CCs near a SUNY center); Massachusetts: the program for ASD students that I work for seems to serve our students very well; Texas: I was not paying attention back then.
This leads me to . . . while I think it's valuable to look at the connection between CCs and high schools, I think it's also important to look at the relationship between the University system overall in different states and the community colleges that feed them, or maybe even whether they are treated as feeders at all. In Maryland, the CCs were (for the mmost part) very much seen and treated as feeders for a stste system that is trying to establish itself (and may have done so) as a "serious research university system" and compete with the likes of Johns Hopkins. I am not sure that this is the case for, say . . . . Rutgers (my experience on this one is extremely dated and contingent, but I do not recall ever being taught to think of the CCs as THE pathway to degree completion at Rutgers).
Also, as I will say over and over again: much of this relates to the adjunct crisis. At most of the places I taught, more than 90% of the faculty were adjuncts in my department. Regardless of things like disability services, you cannot provide a quality education to students, especially those with LDs, when your faculty do not have offices and are paid $2000/semester to teach a class. (My high regard for the Maryland system is not without some very serious caveats: check out the differences between adjunct faculty salaries at CCs in poor, predominatly black counties vs salaries in wealthy, white suburban campuses . . . it's a disgrace). California has some initiatives in place (by law, not just happy talk) to require certain lower percentages for adjunct and mandates (funded, or semi-funded) to hire FT faculty. I'm not sure how that is working out since I am out of the game (or off the hamster wheel).
Money. Money. Money. Plus, race, power, politics. Of course.