The OC Register is reporting on a study released this week that shows what faculty at community colleges have known for years: 2/3 of all community college students dropped out or otherwise failed to graduate from 2-year colleges within the 6-year period covered by the study.
Only a
quarter of the students will transfer to a university.
One possible reason for the shortfall that the researchers and those quoted in the article did not mention is the irrelevance of having a degree.
Here I told you about
another study that shows how students are learning less and "earning" degrees.
On average, students only learned about 7% more from the beginning of their freshman year to the end of their sophomore year, according to the other study. By the students' fourth year, 35% demonstrated no significant improvement.
As young students we are told how important it is to have a degree, usually by someone with several degrees. Government institutions perpetuate this by requiring a 4-year degree for nearly any management position despite a person's ability or experience. Don't forget, about 1/3 of the graduates didn't demonstrate any significant improvement from their college experience.
A similar problem exists in the land surveying community wherein those with certifications or professional licenses are promoted even though they lack any leadership skills or the desire to learn new leadership skills.
In both instances, the newly promoted managers lack certain skills that are not learned in the classroom but through meaningful experience.
Students, despite their lack of educational degrees, are not stupid. They all want the degree but then life gets in the way. Families are created, children to feed, mortgages to pay, etc.
I always encourage my students (and my own children) to get a degree and I remind them that degrees, even a doctoral, is just the foundation for a life of learning. Those who stop learning after graduation are the same students who fall into that 35% that didn't improve.
In my not-so-humble opinion, it's time to revert back to a focus on teaching the basics -
reading, writing, and arithmetic- and quit holding the hands of students in their hypersensitive special-interest subjects.
