I have always been a big believer in "you get what you pay for." But is this true concerning higher education? I went to an expensive, private liberal arts college. But did I get a better education there than I would have if I had attended the local community college, which today charges $67 per credit hour, or about $1,600 for a fall and spring semester combined? My undergraduate education was way more expensive than what the community college or state university was charging at the time, but did I get way more learning?
Immediately after graduation, I had the opportunity to look closely at the schooling option I hadn't chosen. I went to work at the local community college, which employs me still. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the brilliance of the teachers. I could have taken much cheaper classes with caring, creative, smart people my first two years if I hadn't dismissed the place as Grade 13!
Sure, some of the faculty here are worthless burnouts, but they are a very small minority, and we had them at the expensive school too. For example, my senior year as an undergrad I took a course on Renaissance art. I knew Dr. Lemon's reputation: everyone thought he was a snooze-o-rama. But this was Renaissance art: Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael. Course material would still be great to study, or so I believed. Oh, was I wrong! Dr. Lemon read dusty, yellowed lecture notes—"jokes" penciled in the margins—and put me to sleep in the dark room lit only by the slide projector. If he's still teaching, I bet students skewer him on RateMyProfessor.
If the classroom education is the same—there are both brilliant teachers and worthless burnouts at both places—then why do community colleges have such a bad reputation? I will never forget the depiction of Bunker Hill Community College in Good Will Hunting. Despite Robin Williams' lively antics as Dr. Maguire, professor of psychology at BHCC, the students in his dumpy classroom slump in their seats, twirl their hair, and contribute zombie-like grunts to discussion. Compare that picture to the MIT students, willing to attempt difficult mathematical challenges their professor leaves on a hallway chalkboard for fun. They sit at the edge of their seats, their classroom as brightly lit as their minds, competing for their professor's attention, applauding his performance at the end of class.
I am also reminded of the constant ribbing Eric, "E," of Entourage gets whenever he mentions that he at least attempted a 4-year degree. On one episode, the boys are at a showing of Gary Busey's art. After Eric corrects Johnny Drama's bad "interpretation" of a piece of sculpture, Drama gets defensive. Eric explains his limited expertise by saying, "I took art history in college." Drama retorts, "Community college, loser."So is the rotten reputation that community colleges have deserved? Do they offer the McDonald's Quarter Pounder equivalent of education while pricey 4-year schools serve up filet mignon instruction?
I've been teaching long enough to know that the additional money my alma mater charged wasn't going toward better classrooms or teacher salaries. In one building, for example, I always checked the seat before sitting down. The roof leaked, and I could expect a puddle. When I applied for graduate school at the same institution, I had to interview with one of the faculty who taught in the program. I remember her shock when she learned that I made as much money as she did. That I taught 5 classes to her 3 and had 25 students per section to her 7 - 15 didn't temper her disapproval.
The differences in price allow the four-year college students more frequent and higher profile guest speakers, opportunities to watch and participate in sports, free movies on weekend evenings, museums and performing arts centers, and health services. As an undergrad, I attended lectures by James Dickey and Maya Angelou; here, we get no-name poets with print runs of 3,000 copies. If someone needs a Tylenol or bandaid at my community college, she can't walk to the Health Center for an evaluation by a real nurse or doctor. Instead, she'll have to pay the overpriced charge for a two-pill package at the bookstore or wrap toilet paper around the wound.
So differences in price contribute to differences in extracurricular opportunities or fringe benefits, not necessarily differences in the quality of instruction. So is the community college a savory—whoops, savvy—financial move, or is it where where we feed those with less discerning intellectual palates?
I don't think that community college students are stupider, that's for sure. We do get people, as a result of the "open door" policy [anyone with a high school diploma or GED has the ticket to enter], who do not have the IQ to handle the work, and no amount of remediation will help. But that's also true of universities who admit intellectually unqualified football players and drugged out children of rich alumni. Many students in my classes are just as capable of handling the work as, say, I was, and if our research folks aren't finagling the numbers, we have proof: our graduates do better their junior year [as evidenced by their GPAs] at the university than the "native" students who started there as freshmen. I have met many talented students here, some of whom are more brilliant writers, better artists, and deeper thinkers than I. They could have handled classes at an ivy league school—if they had gone to one.
I see one difference between community college and university students. Many community college students are not intellectually inferior; they are instead time management dumb. They are the people who couldn't get it together to register for their SATs, or study for them, or take them on the scheduled Saturday, or take them a second time to raise their score. They neglected to request applications to schools that made admissions decisions months in advance of the start of a new academic year. They never bothered to fill out the necessary financial aid forms. And even if they did get accepted somewhere prestigious and were awarded a scholarship, they self-sabotaged themselves, mismanaging time with a boy/girlfriend resulting in a pregnancy that caused them to decline the university offer to raise a child.
Maybe their life experiences contributed to such low self-esteem that they didn't think they deserved a chance at a more prestigious institution than the local cc. Maybe they didn't have family models who "knew the ropes" and could help them through the labyrinth of paperwork and deadlines. Whatever the obstacle, they wasted those precious months of their senior year at high school when they needed to get envelopes in the mail. Their time management stupidity has forced them to attend an institution that will accept them, arrange a short-term loan, and register them all on the same day, if, of course, they have the stamina to wait in lines. If they have postponed a return to school, the community college allows them to continue their education close to the job that they now must work to pay the bills.
Community college students do get their money's worth. They get the same great instruction at a place willing to work with their time-management problems. They get their "beef" [a McDonald's Quarter Pounder is a damn fine thing to eat], missing out on the filet mignon because they neglected to make a reservation at the "restaurant" that serves it.
And what about me? Was I a damn fool to spend all of that money on tuition to a private school? No, I don't believe so. The smaller classes meant that faculty looked out for me and my intellectual development. They were asking me my sophomore year where I planned to attend graduate school and offering to write letters of recommendation. They had a real interest in me and my friends, one that I wish I could have in my own students. But there are just too many of them, as well as too many state guidelines I have to meet, too many state or department competency tests I have to prepare the students for, that I can't offer quality time for them as individuals. They get only my and my colleague's quality instruction in the classroom, not the "fine dining" experience a 4-year school can offer.
So, yes, you do get what you pay for.
