Yesterday, I wrote that it is not enough to throw money at community colleges via the Michigan Reconnect program. The state must also hold community colleges accountable for the economic outcomes their students achieve following graduation.
I suggested that the state should not pay for community college degrees that do not provide a living wage for those who earn them. And if a community college’s catalog is heavily weighted with low-earning degrees, the state should not allow the school to participate in the Michigan Reconnect program at all.
The proposed expansion of the program to include all Michigan students over the age of 21 who have not yet earned 60 college credits is a significant risk. Students usually graduate from high school when they are 17 or 18 years old. If a high school graduate does not have the means to attend college, the Michigan Reconnect program is enough of an incentive to “wait out” the three year period after high school graduation.
The risk is that these students – who may wholeheartedly intend to enroll at their local community college when they turn 21 – will never see the inside of a college classroom. The number of students who enroll in post-secondary institutions dwindles as they get absorbed into the workforce. Depending upon the work they perform, they may end up earning about as much as a community college graduate does over time. That removes the financial incentive to enroll in a two-year program.
Michigan Reconnect must address the value prop
Solving the enrollment crisis at community colleges has less to do with lowering the cost of attendance than with increasing the value of the resulting degree. If you’re going to ask someone to sit in a college classroom for two years – or the equivalent of two years – then the outcome for them better involve a noticeable increase in income.
It is literally that simple.
It can cost upwards of about $400,000 to develop a new two-year degree program. Occupational programs can cost much more. So, a school’s investment in program development is not trivial. Requiring its community colleges to disclose their annual expenditures on the development of new academic programs and updated coursework would go a long way toward identifying those institutions that offer their students a real economic opportunity.
Underwriting the cost of new program development is making an investment in the future of both the institution and the students who enroll there. Chronic failure to spend enough money on new program development results in declining enrollment. (Kind of like what we’re seeing right now.) Students (and the taxpaying public) have a right to know how much money a community college administration devotes annually to new program development, and how that level of expenditure compares to other community colleges in the state.
The state requires its community colleges to disclose how much they spend each year on energy costs. Should they not also disclose how much they spend on their primary mission? And do you really want to be the community college that spends the least amount of money on new program development? That kind of disclosure comes a little too close to accountability for some people’s tastes, which is exactly why it is necessary.
Photo Credit: @mjb , via Flickr
