Two-Year Colleges Are Booming
by Arlene Levinson
WHEN VERONICA RUIBAL returned to class at Nassau Community College in September, she trained at one hospital, worked nights at another, battled Long Island traffic to shuttle
her toddler to day care, and, she hoped, would find a few spare moments for her husband. The 25-year-old full-time student
smiles wearily at the thought. “I know,” she says. “It’s a lot.” But so is the payoff: an associate’s degree Ruibal hopes will land her a higher-paying job as a technician in radiology.
When 14 million undergraduates surged onto college campuses
this fall, 44 percent were at the country’s 1,132 community
colleges like Nassau, in Garden City, N.Y. The publicly supported
two-year schools started as a handful of junior colleges just
over a century ago, then exploded after World War II to offer
baby boomers a lower-cost education closer to home. A generation
later, they’re serving baby boomers’ children. Community college
enrollment will increase 12 to 14 percent over the next five to 10 years as a result of the baby boom “echo,” said Jacqueline Woods, the Department of Education’s chief liaison to community colleges.
For Ruibal and students like her, community college means
affordable but few-frills learning. At Nassau there are no dorms or fancy fraternities, but there are 4,000 parking spaces and day care on a sliding scale. Most community college students live within an hour’s drive of their campuses and also work. The schools promise lower tuition and open admission that puts higher education within easier reach of more students, from teenagers just out of high school to retirees. The average tuition at public, four-year universities in 1999-2000 was $3,356, according to The College Board, which administers the SAT. Out-of-state tuition averaged $8,706, and four-year private college tuition averaged $15,380. The average at two-year public institutions: $1,627.
The first junior colleges were created in the 1890s to provide
the first half of the four-year college course. In 1900 there were eight two-year colleges; by 1950 there were 648. The notion of a two-year college got a make-over after World War II as higher education came to be considered a right, not just a privilege. Alongside four-year schools furiously adding dormitories and faculty, community colleges rose to help meet demand. Today, they offer two-year degrees, corporate training and retraining, and noncredit courses. Among students of traditional college age, 20 percent transfer to four-year institutions.
Federal studies find that 71 percent of students who transfer with at least a semester at a community college will complete a bachelor’s degree by age 30. That tops the 68 percent who earn degrees after starting at a four-year school, said Clifford Adelman, senior research analyst at the Department of Education. Administrators cite such figures to rebut assumptions that open admission means lower standards. The individual programs can be rigorous: Ruibal needed a semester of prerequisite courses plus an interview to gain entry to the allied sciences program.
Even though Ruibal’s tuition is lower than that at the nearest four-year state colleges, it’s still a challenge. Her husband supports his family of three driving a truck. Her work covers the $125 weekly day-care fee. A federal Pell Grant covers about half her $2,200 annual tuition, she said. “Community college symbolizes what American democracy is all about — opportunity, equality, advancement, choices,” said George Vaughan, a former community college president who teaches at North Carolina State University.
