Texas Billboards Blast Community Colleges for Low Graduation Rates
It’s no secret that four-year universities are struggling to increase graduation rates, but the situation is even more dire at the nation’s community colleges. According to federal data, only 22 percent of community college students complete their degrees within three years. Now, the Texas Association of Business is bringing attention to that state’s dismal community college graduation rates through a series of billboards.
Which only further demonstrates complete lack of understanding of any form of educational system by the Texas State Legislature and Texas Association of Business.
Want to know why graduation rates are abysmally low at every community college, everywhere in the country? Because retention (how many students stay) and persistence (how many students graduate) are measured in a way that isn’t appropriate for community colleges.
For example, here some students who didn’t graduate from a community college they attended:
- An elderly community member who is taking free classes (a common service offered by community colleges, which rely heavily on local tax funding).
- A businessperson who took one or two courses to improve their skills in a certain area (let’s say with computers) as part of their professional development for their job.
- An 18 year old who attends for a few semesters before transferring out to a larger college or university.
Those students above, the ones who leave, all count against a community college’s retention and persistence numbers.
But that’s not the entire length of ignorance being demonstrated by the Texas Business Association here. What they also fail to account, and no one ever seems to realize this unless they actually work at a community college:
COMMUNITY COLLEGES HAVE TO ACCEPT NEARLY ANY APPLICATION THEY RECEIVE.
They cannot say “Sorry, low SAT scores.” “Sorry, you failed out somewhere else.” If they get an application, they almost always accept it. This means you get very large, very nontraditional student populations. You get students who are older, who have families, who work full time, who live in poverty. And guess what: These student populations have significantly lower retention and persistence rates.
So long story short, the Texas Business Association has it’s head stuck firmly up its behind, and is wasting money complaining about an issue they know literally nothing about.
