Bring community colleges into the fold

Last week’s update to U.S. News and World Report’s National University rankings placed Duke in the number eight spot for the second year in a row. This and other rankings are not perfect, but they serve to establish a start for further comparisons between universities. But beyond this focus and even beyond the other universities on the ranking, there is an entire category of higher education institutions that go undervalued: community colleges. Duke’s participation in promoting the academic success of those who start in community college is laudable and responsive to the shift we identify towards seeing a bigger role of community colleges in higher education and the economy.

Community colleges are often regarded with a certain stigma by students looking to bypass them entirely despite more than 10 million students enrolling in them each year. Part of this is guilt by association because some low achievers with no genuine interest in higher education move into community college, but this obviously overshadows the many hard working students whose needs are simply met by community colleges. Community colleges are also seen by those who have the ability to go to a four year college—whether via finances or academic performance—as a last resort. The stigma is a product of conflating established colleges that have the benefit of communities in mind with predatory, for-profit degree mills. Recent data from the Department of Education shows that two-thirds of University of Phoenix students are unable to repay their loans or in a similarly tenuous debt position, indicating a poor relationship between cost and value of for-profit schools.

President Obama’s “America’s College Promise” plan from his State of the Union Address brought community colleges into the spotlight this January. It aims to make two-year institutions more accessible, expanding on programs in states like Florida and Tennessee. TheirDirectConnect and Promise programs, respectively, facilitate students using community college as an affordable path to a four-year colleges. These programs function as the perfect advisors, enabling students to confidently incorporate community college into their undergraduate career. This is not only more affordable but also more feasible for non-traditional students who may have dependents or did not go to college immediately following high school for whatever reason.

Obama’s older American Graduation Initiative could reduce the negative financial impact of these schools by supporting the colleges that have shown to be effective at training people for the workforce and successfully helping people transition into four-year schools. The initiative calls for increased collaboration with businesses and more interaction among colleges to meet our nation’s vocational and educational needs. Duke has taken its own steps to become one of several universities participating in American Honors. Students in this honor program are guided and advised through two years of transferable courses to encourage successful application to a number of four-year universities. Different from Florida’s DirectConnect program, admission is not guaranteed, an improvement because direct acceptance risks ballooning into unfair competition with traditional students. American Honors’ equitable application process is preferable for schools.

Duke’s participation in American Honors and the programs coming from the Obama administration signal that big actors in higher education, those whose opinions often constitute general consensus on the landscape of higher education, have shifted their understanding of community colleges as a level below four-year schools to viable stops by students in the paths of career training and preparation for bachelor’s programs. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of top schools working together with community colleges to meet the needs of this nation and de-stigmatize two-year colleges.