Trade Schools Are Better Than Community Colleges, Say Americans in Poll

Published 11 June 08 06:38 PM | Student Loan Girl

Results of a recent public opinion poll point to a strong belief among Americans that career and technical schools may be better than community colleges at preparing students for today’s competitive workforce, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Americans Favor Career and Technical Colleges Over Community Colleges, Report Says,” June 4, 2008).

The poll results, released by the Career College Association, reveal 40 percent of the 830 respondents choosing career colleges as the best alternative to four-year institutions, versus the 17 percent who favored community colleges.

Community college officials have taken issue with the survey’s findings, pointing out that the growth in enrollment at community colleges has dwarfed increases in enrollment at career schools in the for-profit sector — a fact administrators consider to be a vote of confidence in the community college system.

“I don’t deny some [technical school] programs are good programs, but to draw a comparison like that and write a survey on it seems to me to be a curious way to use their resources,” said David Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

Survey Reveals Shift Away From ‘Education for Education’s Sake’

Instead of indicating the superiority of one type of institution over another, the survey results may indicate a subtle shift in education values, say CCA executives, with a greater number of students each year choosing the skills-based training at career or technical colleges over the traditional “book-learning” education found at other two- and four-year colleges.

“Spending four years cloistered on campus is growing increasingly unlikely for a growing number of Americans — Americans still in need of the skills and abilities delivered through higher education,” the report’s authors concluded.

The growing trend among college students has been toward viewing higher education as a pathway to a specific job or career, notes Harris Miller, CCA president. “Apparently, today they’re not convinced that traditional higher education, for all of its important strengths, really serves that purpose very well.”