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In the Know
The Community College Student
A new survey from the University
of Texas looks at the educational experiences of those attending the nation’s
community colleges.
Eighty-six percent of community college
students reported that their educational experience at their college was
good or excellent, according to Engaging Community Colleges: A First
Look, a project of the Community College Leadership Program at the
University of Texas at Austin.
The University of Texas survey, the Community
College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), is modeled after the National
Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which surveys the experience of students
at four-year colleges and universities.
Unlike the survey of four-year institutions,
the community college survey will release to the public data about individual
colleges, according to Kay M. McClenney, the survey director. She said
she hoped the findings would give community colleges a benchmark to measure
themselves against.
The new survey goes a long way toward
dispelling the myth of the “traditional” college student.
Only one in six undergraduate students is 18 to 24 years old, attends
school full-time, and lives on campus.
The first round of surveys given to more
than 30,000 students at 48 two-year colleges found that 58 percent of
the respondents planned to transfer to a four-year institution, while
54 percent said their primary goal in attending a community college was
obtaining job-related skills.
Other survey findings: Thirty-two percent
of community-college students work more than 30 hours per week at jobs,
80 percent do not participate in any college-sponsored, extracurricular
activities, and 21 percent have children living at home.
Many of the survey findings illuminate
the obstacles many community college students must overcome to pursue
their education. The survey notes that only 45 percent of students said
their colleges provided the financial support they needed for college;
56 percent did not receive any help from parents; 64 percent attended
part-time; of those part-time students, 45 percent never worked with classmates
outside of class to prepare assignments; and 51 percent never discussed
ideas from readings with their professors outside of class.
The Community College Leadership Program
will conduct an extensive follow-up survey in 2003.
Get a free copy of Engaging Community
Colleges: A First Look from CCSSE’s website www.ccsse.org,
or send e-mail to info@ccsse.org.
| From The
Lectern |
Love
must be at the forefront of our movement if it is to be a successful
movement. And when we speak of love, we speak of understanding,
good will toward all men. We speak of a creative, a redemptive sort
of love, so that as we look at the problem, we see that the real
tension is not between Negro citizens and the white citizens of
Montgomery, but it is a conflict between justice and injustice,
between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and if there
is a victory—and there will be a victory—the victory
will not be merely for the Negro citizens and a defeat for the white
citizens, but it will be a victory for justice and a defeat for
injustice. It will be a victory for goodness in its long struggle
with the forces of evil.
—Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., May 1956 |
|
