Business Leaders for Michigan (BLM – ironically enough) released a new report on the state of Michigan’s community colleges. In it, the group offers a limited analysis of Michigan’s 28 community colleges, as well as recommendations for improving the state’s two-year college landscape.
The report ignores some fundamental challenges that Michigan residents face. These challenges go a long way toward explaining why enrollment at Michigan’s community colleges has declined by 45% from its combined peak enrollment. (Most Michigan community colleges hit their peak enrollments in 2010 or 2011.) Among these institutions, enrollment has been in solid decline for more than a decade.
Using non-specific research, the report identifies the “Ten Top Challenges” community college students face. Some of these include:
- Balancing work
- Paying expenses
- Balancing demands from family and friends
- Online classes
- Parking on campus
- Developmental courses
- Faculty
These are all interesting, but the likeliest reason for the sharp decline in community college enrollment somehow didn’t make the list. The low rate of pay that comes along with most occupations the community colleges focus on. If, according to the report, a community college graduate with an associate degree can earn an average salary of $46,800 (after 8 years), and a person who completes a non-degree certificate can earn $46,500 (after 8 years), an associate degree is worth a premium of $37.50 per year. And these figures don’t consider the time and money it takes a person to acquire a degree or certificate.
And who exactly is paying these chronically low wages? Oh right… the companies that the BLM group represents.
The community college issue is slightly more nuanced
I didn’t major in math, but why the hell would anyone who is already pressed for time and short on money waste both of those earning 60 credits when they could earn 12-18 credits and make virtually the same low wage as the sap who spent an extra 3-4 semesters on campus? (I studied electricity; I know the path of least resistance when I see it.) For some reason, this didn’t make the list.
Improving community college enrollment isn’t so much about addressing these straw-man challenges as it is fixing the fact that a community college degree is worth $300 more than a non-degree certificate. Or that most community college degree programs prepare people for low-wage work.
Another reality is that most people don’t persist in the community college environment. While 80% or more of incoming students state the intention to transfer to a university, very few do and even fewer complete a bachelor’s degree. That’s another way of saying that – whether they finish a credential or not – community college is the end of the post-secondary academic road for most students who enroll in one.
If they become mired in a low-wage job as the result of their associate degree, they’re likely to stay in low-wage work because getting back into the post-secondary education system is expensive, hard, and exhausting. So, the whole concept of a publicly funded community college or the state itself enticing someone into long-term, low wage employment is a rather fraught public policy.
Photo Credit: Matt Mets , via Flickr
