community colleges
This month, Doctor David Podell takes the helm at Massachusetts Bay Community College. For the past eight years, he was the vice president for Academic Affairs at Marymount Manhattan College in New York.
As part of our Leaders in Higher Education series, On Campus' Kirk Carapezza caught up with Podell on campus in Wellesley and asked him how his previous experience at a private college prepared him for his new job.
A new report released Tuesday finds only 14 percent of community college students nationwide transfer to four-year schools and earn a bachelors’ degree within six years. The report by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College shows while the vast majority of students intend to earn a BA, few succeed.
For many of the hundreds of thousands of students attending community college in the United States, focusing solely on school is not an option. According to the results of a WGBH News polls, 70 percent of students enrolled in community college are also working - many of them full-time. In response, community colleges are trying to provide the right support for working students who struggle to stay afloat.
Community colleges have long operated in the shadows of more expensive, elite four-year colleges, but worries about the cost of college are now drawing students to these two-year programs. A new survey by WGBH News shows Americans believe strongly that community colleges are essential to providing families with opportunities.
When the media talks about colleges and universities during this admissions season, visions of tree-lined quads at four-year liberal arts institutions may come to mind. But the truth is that almost half of undergraduate students in the United States actually go to community college.
Pam Eddinger is the president of Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, where 14,000 students are working towards certificates or degrees.
On Campus recently talked to Eddinger about the unique role community colleges play, and we started out by asking her what first drew her to the community college scene.
While black and Latino men attending community college have some of the highest educational goals of any racial or gender group, they are also the least likely to achieve them.
That's one of several findings included in a new report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement, which suggests that black and Latino men graduate from college at disproportionately low rates partly because they arrive less prepared and can suffer from discrimination and stereotyping, or a fear that they will live up to negative stereotypes.
The governor of Tennessee wants to make community college or technical school free for all high school graduates in the state. Republican Governor Bill Haslam calls his proposal the Tennessee Promise. It's part of a broader workforce development strategy in a state that lags behind in higher education, but wants a technically savvy labor pool.
