Student Loan Blog : Los Angeles Times

Dorms Add to Community Colleges’ Appeal

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:19:00 GMT

In an attempt to offer a low-cost alternative to college students who typically attend more expensive private and public institutions, community colleges have started building on-campus dorms, a move that may soon alter the commuter culture at such schools, reports the Los Angeles Times (“Community Colleges Add Dorms to Boost Appeal,” April 7, 2009).

With tuition rising at most colleges and universities across the country, experts say that larger numbers of college-age students are opting to enroll in two-year schools offering the same type of college dormitory life traditionally found only at a four-year university. And many community colleges are actively promoting their on-campus housing amenities in their recruitment of international students and athletes, two demographics who often prefer on-campus housing.

“We do think it’s a trend for more community colleges to provide residential housing for students,” said Norma Kent, spokeswoman for the American Association of Community Colleges.

States Responding to Need for Community College Dorms

Dorms at community colleges are being built in Washington state, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, and California, where both the University of California and the California State University systems have said they will severely limit freshmen enrollment this fall.

Educators believe that California — with nearly 2.8 million community college students or roughly 25 percent of the nation’s total community college population — may be particularly ripe for adding new dorms.

With both of the state’s university systems accepting fewer freshmen this year, many of the 4,000 first-year students who’ve been denied admission to those four-year schools may be more likely to consider a two-year school that offers on-campus housing versus one that doesn’t.

And what may come as a surprise, the Los Angeles Times reports, is that 11 community colleges in the state already have dorms, although many of those decades-old dorms resemble 1950s-era military barracks. Other dorms, like those at Sierra College near Sacramento, have been updated and include meal plans honored at local restaurants, one of many features intended to lure students to its campus.

Cerro Coso Community College, a 300-student school located in Mammoth Lakes, says that its South Gateway Student Apartments — an $8.5 million residence hall built last August that can house 59 students — is the first new community college housing to go up in California in 20 years. Funded by a grant from the Mammoth Lakes Foundation, the new dorms aren’t cheap: $900 a month for a single room or $750 a month for a shared room, plus meals.

Feedback from students regarding community college dorms is largely positive. Some students say they’re succeeding at school for the first time and that they enjoy the intimate surroundings and small class sizes that community colleges can offer.

Sharon Carroll, a student at Cerro Coso Community College, said that if she had to fight the traffic and large class sizes of an urban community college, “I would have been sick of school already. I figured out a lot from being here. It made me want to go to a four- year college.”

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Calif. Colleges Failing to Produce Workforce-Ready Students

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:09:00 GMT

California is in danger of losing a large portion of its future workforce if the state education system continues to fail to adequately accommodate its college-age population, reports Gale Holland of the Los Angeles Times (“California Colleges Face ‘Serious Challenges,’ Report Says,” Feb. 12, 2009).

A new report issued by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at California State University in Sacramento shows that a large portion of the state’s high school graduates are ill-prepared for college and that too many schools fail to make sure their students complete certificate or degree programs.

And with the state facing such a severe budget crisis and California’s two-year school systems enforcing freshman enrollment caps and contemplating tuition hikes, the state could see more students who generally attend two-year schools get “squeezed out” by students who are generally better prepared for college and who, pre-recession, would have attended a traditional four-year school, Holland writes.

This influx of new students to two-year colleges — whose relative affordability makes them more appealing during a recession than an often costlier four-year school — could create “a competition for scarce seats” at the state’s 100 community colleges, “and the fear is the less prepared will lose out,” said Nancy Shulock, coauthor of “The Grades Are In – 2008” report.

“We’re facing some really serious challenges and it has to do with not getting our younger generation educated at the same rate as other generations,” Shulock said. “We don’t think the budget crisis can be an excuse not to act.”

Currently, California ranks 40th in the nation for its rate of high school graduates who go directly to college and just 29th in the nation for the percentage of state residents ages 25 to 34 who attain at least an associate of arts degree, according to the report, suggesting that schools aren’t offering enough support for students to complete their degrees.

In the report, Schulock recommends that the state should reward schools not based on the number of students they enroll, but rather on the number of students that graduate or complete their degree programs.

Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said the state’s current “master plan” for higher education has been flawed for 20 years. “Every time we take a turn into recession, we hemorrhage students,” he said.

Callan laments that California, which was once regarded as a national and global education leader, is now lagging behind because “we have not responded well to the huge demographic and economic changes that are changing the face of California.”

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Students Who Cheat on ACT, SAT Exams Face Few Consequences

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:31:00 GMT

Students at a Los Angeles area high school are suspected of paying a former student to take the ACT college entrance exam in their place.

The alleged cheaters will likely have their scores invalidated, but the colleges and universities that received the students’ scores may never know why, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (“Cheating on ACT, SAT College Entrance Exams Has Few Consequences,” July 14, 2008).

While students who are caught cheating in college may face probation or be expelled, students who cheat on one a college entrance exam get a second shot at a higher score. And neither the college nor the student’s high school are alerted about the student’s dishonest behavior.

“We don’t tell schools or anyone else; we simply cancel the score,” said ACT spokesman Ed Colby. “What we’re trying to do is make sure the scores that we send to colleges are valid. It’s not our intention to go around punishing students who make mistakes or who’ve done something they shouldn’t have.”

Cheating Policies Don’t Encourage Ethical Conduct

Critics contend that the ACT’s policy to keep testing irregularities confidential — a policy that is also held by the SAT — sends a message that cheating on the test is OK and has few consequences.

“What they’re basically saying is ‘Try it. You have nothing to lose,’ ” said Michael Josephson, president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics. “Why not say to someone who robbed a 7-Eleven, ‘Please give back the merchandise or pay for it, but we don’t want you to feel bad about stealing.’ ”

Josephson argues that the ACT and the SAT cheating policies are too lax and firmer consequences need to be put in place.

Tom Ewing, spokesman for the Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, said that prohibiting a student suspected of cheating from re-taking the test could hinder that student’s educational future — a move he said “seems a bit extreme.”

The two companies have found that cheating on the tests is relatively rare and prompts only about 2,000 investigations on average out of the more than 3 million tests administered each year. Most accusations of cheating are made by students or exam proctors and typically involve a student copying from another’s exam.

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit

Trade School Students No Longer Protected Under California Law

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:50:00 GMT

California students at for-profit colleges now have fewer legal rights if their institution goes out of business. The state law that regulated for-profit colleges, which enroll some 400,000 students, expired at the end of June and lawmakers recently rejected a bill that would replace the law, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article (“California's Oversight of For-Profit Colleges Lapses as State Law Expires,” July 1, 2008).

The rejected bill would have provided tuition refunds to California students at for-profit colleges through a state-run reimbursement fund and would have dropped the requirement that colleges place 70 percent of their graduates in jobs. The law would have also restricted students from suing their school over grievances.

Lawmakers, consumer advocates, and schools have battled for three years to negotiate terms of the new law without success. Advocates claim that some of these schools misrepresent the value and quality of their job-oriented educational programs, which causes students to incur large amounts of debt and leave many without viable options for employment.

Corinthian Colleges, one of the larger for-profit schools in California and a school that has been at the center of this controversy, recently settled a lawsuit requiring the school to pay $6.5 million for a charge that Corinthian exaggerated its job- placement record, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (“Oversight of For-Profit Trade-Schools Expires in California,” July 1, 2008).

Robert Johnson commented that the for-profit college oversight bill that expired in June had so many requirements that he feared it would cripple smaller trade schools not part of a national chain like Corinthian. Johnson, the executive director of the California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools, said that the bill “was 112 pages of punishment.”

Lawmakers believe that the bill may reemerge later this year in a different form, although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may veto it, due to opposition from his Consumer Affairs Department. If the bill were to pass, it could go into effect as early as January 2009.

Share this post: email this | del.icio.us | reddit