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IMHO, a better strategy for government would be to encourage community colleges to do more, especially: 1) to emphasize skills that are in demand locally, in th

IMHO, a better strategy for government would be to encourage community colleges to do more, especially: 1) to emphasize skills that are in demand locally, in the community where the school serves, and 2) to provide instruction for more advanced subjects as part of professional continuing education. Of course, they'll need more funds to do this, as badly cash strapped as they are today. For example, I'd dearly like to take some advanced math courses like those in the junior/senior years of any good undergrad curriculum. But no college in the Philadelphia area offers these on evenings or weekends, and no college (I know) offers them online. I can't imagine that there's no market for this. Why should this be? Given the wide availability of community colleges and today's computers and networking infrastructure, it should be easy to teach strong uppergraduate courses to nontraditional students in a wide range of useful tech subjects like engineering, physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc. Using the physical resources of local community colleges, even many uppergrad lab-based courses could be supported. But to expand their charter, community colleges will need better support, and not just from their local communities. Most CCs today are overwhelmed with lowergraduate demand, given the universal unaffordability of college education. If congress wants to do something constructive, they should shift their support and attention away from for-profit schools and transfer to community colleges.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Sounds like what you really want is more decentralized education networks, i.e. democratic free (as in freedom) schools. There's already several of these slowly emerging across the U.S., and indeed carry the advantages of lecturing on all sorts of niche subjects without a formal bureaucracy and instead based on principles of self-governance with a coop-like structure. They're exceptionally adept at serving local communities and the lecturers or educators invited do not undergo a certification process (as is commonly advocated by laissez-faire and left-wing proponents alike). My suggestion would be to simply extend the accreditation process to such networks, and have more of them appear grassroots on the level of individual communities and neighborhoods.
- randcraw 11y ago
  Yes, I think the accreditation process probably should be central to any revisions/extensions of the current college system. That may have been the achilles heel of for-profit schools -- the lack of accreditation and their disinterest in delivering a product that must live up to recognized academic standards. Any entity or means that delivers a high quality education, and especially does so affordably, works for me. Ideally such accreditation would work to improve (or expand) the reputation of community college themselves. Too many provide a second rate experience, (probably due to their often demanding less from the student than the better four year schools do). If CCs were to offer some sort of degree beyond the Associate's by augmenting the existing CC workload (perhaps with courses and material arising from groups like Western Governors or even Kahn or Udacity) that met the standard of a good accredited university, that would be useful to many and a good start toward customizing their offerings while assuring academic repute and respectability.
silverbax88 11y ago
I agree with this, although it should be noted that most community colleges do not offer anything higher than Associates degrees. I'm not aware of any that actually offer something higher, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to make a broader statement. What I'd want to see is expansion of community colleges to include 4 year degrees, and I also support the model of Western Governors, which is much cheaper and allows students to take classes as quickly or as slowly as they can/want.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Sounds like what you really want is more decentralized education networks, i.e. democratic free (as in freedom) schools. There's already several of these slowly emerging across the U.S., and indeed carry the advantages of lecturing on all sorts of niche subjects without a formal bureaucracy and instead based on principles of self-governance with a coop-like structure. They're exceptionally adept at serving local communities and the lecturers or educators invited do not undergo a certification process (as is commonly advocated by laissez-faire and left-wing proponents alike). My suggestion would be to simply extend the accreditation process to such networks, and have more of them appear grassroots on the level of individual communities and neighborhoods.

randcraw 11y ago
Yes, I think the accreditation process probably should be central to any revisions/extensions of the current college system. That may have been the achilles heel of for-profit schools -- the lack of accreditation and their disinterest in delivering a product that must live up to recognized academic standards. Any entity or means that delivers a high quality education, and especially does so affordably, works for me. Ideally such accreditation would work to improve (or expand) the reputation of community college themselves. Too many provide a second rate experience, (probably due to their often demanding less from the student than the better four year schools do). If CCs were to offer some sort of degree beyond the Associate's by augmenting the existing CC workload (perhaps with courses and material arising from groups like Western Governors or even Kahn or Udacity) that met the standard of a good accredited university, that would be useful to many and a good start toward customizing their offerings while assuring academic repute and respectability.

silverbax88 11y ago

I agree with this, although it should be noted that most community colleges do not offer anything higher than Associates degrees. I'm not aware of any that actually offer something higher, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to make a broader statement. What I'd want to see is expansion of community colleges to include 4 year degrees, and I also support the model of Western Governors, which is much cheaper and allows students to take classes as quickly or as slowly as they can/want.