How We Destroyed Community College Education for Generations of Students – and Why We Need a Reset.
Could Bringing Back JUCO Football Be Part of the Answer – Or Is the Real Story Much Bigger Than the Game?
Part 1. Where Did We Lose Them…THE LUNCH THAT CHANGED THE QUESTION
I went to an opportune lunch to talk about the 2018 disappearance of Arizona Junior College (JUCO) football for financial and funding reasons. Three hours later, I found the real story was Never Just About Football! We were talking about second chances, education, jobs, the minority students that community colleges are trying to reach – and what it might take to bring them back.
Sitting around the table were three candidates for the Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board: John Crow, running At-Large; Ryan Caracciolo, running in District 4; and Susan Winder, running in District 3. They are seeking three separate seats, but they have chosen to campaign together.
On paper, their explanation is fairly simple. Crow brings the business side, as the CEO focused on budgets, efficiency and accountability. Caracciolo brings the professional marketing side, focused on attracting students and growing enrollment. Winder brings the professional education side, with more than three decades as a longtime educator and administrator focused on what happens in the classroom and what students need to succeed.
But that is the résumé version. The lunch told a much more Human Story. We talked – a lot – about bringing back junior-college football and WHY. We talked about its cost, who should pay for it, whether private money should be involved, whether it could increase enrollment, and what measurable results would justify restoring it.
But somewhere in that conversation, something kept bothering me. Finally, I said it.
“It isn’t just about football, is it? It is so much more than that.”
A football field was beginning to look less like the destination and more like one possible doorway. A young man may walk through that doorway because he wants to play football. Another student may come because she wants to become a nurse.
Someone else wants to weld, repair an air-conditioning system, work in advanced manufacturing, enter law enforcement, earn a business degree or learn a trade that can support a family. And another may be 35 or 45 years old, returning to a classroom after discovering that the education – or the job – that once seemed sufficient no longer is.
They do not arrive at a community college from the same place. They do not possess the same talents. And they certainly do not all want the same future.
That was when the conversation changed. Football was still part of it. But now we were talking about why people enter education at all; why some leave; what might bring them back; whether colleges are preparing students for jobs that actually exist; and what happens to the person after he or she finally walks through that classroom door. And strangely enough, the three people sitting across from me began to resemble the students we were discussing. And they didn’t arrive at this race from the same place either:
John Crow approaches the system largely through the eyes of a businessman and employer: What does Arizona need? What will it cost? Where is the money going? And what result are we getting for it?
Ryan Caracciolo looks at another part of the equation: Who aren’t we reaching? How do we get them through the door? How do we increase enrollment, keep students engaged and connect education with employers?
Susan Winder comes at it from inside education: Once those students arrive, what are we teaching them? What standards should apply? And is the education they receive actually serving the student?
Crow and Caracciolo also confirmed during our interview that they have worked together for approximately 15 years. Winder brings an entirely different professional history in education. When I asked why three people with such different backgrounds were running together, their answer came back repeatedly to the same idea:
Their differences and synergy are intentional. Crow described it as each person staying in his or her own “lane.” They told me they believe their talents complement one another – and that if only one or two are elected, whoever takes office intends to carry forward the priorities they developed together.
That raises an important question for voters, too. Specialization can be a strength. But governing eventually requires each elected member to make an independent judgment, even when the person sitting beside them may know more about a particular subject. So perhaps the real test of this team is not whether these three people agree today. It may be what happens when their different strengths someday point toward different answers. And that brings me back to the students as maybe they are the larger question facing community junior colleges.
Students do not arrive from the same place, with the same talents or the same destination. Neither did these three candidates. The challenge is whether different strengths can help students take the next step upward — from uncertainty to education, from education to skill, and from skill to legitimate opportunity.
SO – WHERE DID THE STUDENTS GO?
If we are going to talk about a “reset,” we first have to understand what happened; and the numbers confirm that something did. According to MCCCD’s own historical enrollment figures, its systemwide “historic headcount” stood at 195,293 in 2019–20. One year later it had fallen to 162,022. By 2021–22, it had dropped again to 159,802. That was a loss of more than 35,000 enrollments – roughly 18 percent – in only two years.
Since then, students have been coming back. MCCCD reported 165,709 in 2022–23, 172,953 the following year and 177,901 in 2024–25. But even after that recovery, the district’s historic-headcount measure remained roughly 17,000 below its 2019–20 level. Those numbers caught my attention. But they do not prove that Maricopa County somehow caused the decline.
Community colleges across the country were being hit at the same time. Research on the pandemic period found community-college enrollment nationally dropped approximately 10 percent between fall 2019 and fall 2020, while public four-year colleges did not experience a comparable decline during that period. Researchers have pointed to a combination of COVID disruption, employment changes, financial pressures, caregiving responsibilities and other barriers that fell particularly hard on lower-income students and students of color.
So perhaps the first lesson is this: There was no single student or group of students who disappeared — and there was no single reason students left. A 19-year-old deciding whether to work or attend school does not face the same problem as the 42-year-old parent trying to change careers while keeping food on the table; a student who wants a traditional associate degree may not be looking for the same thing as someone who needs six months of technical training and a paycheck. And men and women are not entering these schools in equal numbers either.
WHERE ARE THE MEN?
During our lunch, John Crow raised another number that stayed with me. He said women now account for approximately 61 percent of community-college students. The exact number depends upon which population is being measured.
MCCCD’s own 2024–25 records show its enrollment was 59 percent female and 41 percent male. Ten years earlier, in 2015–16, the split was 56 percent female and 44 percent male. In other words, the gender gap within MCCCD has widened. Nationally, the pattern is similar. Federal data show women represented roughly 57 percent of students enrolled in two-year institutions in 2023.
But then I found something that changed the question. A Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond survey of 121 community colleges for 2024 found 61.1 percent of award-seeking credit students were women and only 38.7 percent were men. Yet among students enrolled in noncredit workforce programs, the pattern nearly reversed: 53 percent were men. Maybe some of the men did not disappear from education at all. Maybe they changed lanes. They may be choosing shorter programs, certifications and direct workforce training rather than the traditional college route.
National enrollment data give us another clue. By spring 2025, enrollment at highly vocational public two-year institutions had grown almost 20 percent above spring 2020 levels, while certificate programs were also showing substantial growth.
Now the lunch conversation began making more sense: John’s question is not simply, “How many students can we enroll?” It is also: What workers does Arizona need, and are we training people for those jobs?
Ryan’s question becomes: If students – particularly men and working adults – want education delivered differently, are colleges reaching them where they are instead of waiting for them to return to the old credit model?
And Susan’s question comes afterward: Whatever pathway brings that person into college, what quality of education does that student receive once there?
Three Different Questions. One Student.
AND THEN THERE IS THE 31 PERCENT
John raised another statistic during our discussion – one that deserves considerably more investigation. His campaign has said its analysis of federal enrollment data found an average decline of more than 31 percent in Black male enrollment across Arizona community colleges following the elimination of Football Programs. That number is important. But so is the context.
National research found that between fall 2019 and fall 2021, Black community-college enrollment fell 18 percent overall. Among Black men, the decline was even greater – 23.5 percent, compared with 15 percent among Black women. So Black men were already experiencing an unusually serious national enrollment decline during the same period in which Arizona was experiencing its own losses. That does not mean John’s 31 percent figure is wrong. It means we need to ask a harder question:
Was Arizona simply experiencing the same national collapse; or did something here make an already serious problem worse?
And that brings football back into the story. Not as the answer. Not yet. But as something worth investigating.
- If removing football eliminated an important doorway into college for some young men – particularly students who lacked the financial resources or traditional academic path available to others – the numbers should eventually help us see it.
- If the numbers do not show that connection, we need to know that too.
Because this story is becoming much larger than whether eleven men can move a football one hundred yards down a field. It is becoming a story about who walks through the college door in the first place – and why.
And perhaps an equally important question: What Kind of Education Are Today’s Students Actually Asking Us For?
———————————
Coming Next…
PART 2 — WHAT WILL BRING THEM BACK?
PART 3 — THE PRICE OF COMING BACK.
PART 4 — IT WAS NEVER JUST ABOUT FOOTBALL.
By Linda Brickman
©2026 Linda Brickman. All Rights Reserved.
Community colleges do serve an important educational function. The teach current high schools graduates to read up to and at the fourth grade level. It takes two years, but it's worth it.
Community College is important because it saves you money i wen tot one transferred to a 4 year College and got Bachelors degree and Graduated with a 3.78 GPA and yes I am a Christian Conservative
we used to do that in high school for free
Yeah, but your buddies in the department of miseducation destroyed that.
What’s the matter with you
They are flagrant abusive criminals if you are speaking to the Union of sexual confusion and idiocy. You can throw in many of the boreds of de-education.
yep a lot of the basics were taught in public schools, excellent students could progress to trade schools or break out on their own. At least people in high school was taught enough to care for their homes in shop class. I wanted to take shop but girls were not allowed – that needs to change. Community/vocational schools – developed or taught those skills enough for people to make a living using them. Vocational schools are community colleges.
100%
I was in high school in the late 70's and our shop class had plenty of girls. It was where the rule that Long hair had to be secured in a bun so it didn't get yanked out on the shop equipment.
Good for them – I graduated mid 60’s. Every yr I tried to get into shop, it was ok with the shop teacher but not the admin.
That happened my final year of high school. Boys could sign up for home ec and girls could sign up for shop. It worked great and we all had fun and learned different skill sets. I am not afraid of the kitchen and my wife is totally at ease with a hammer and screwdriver.
What yr was that? I am glad you had that opportunity – seems natural to me.
It's about learning English and Mathematics, which is something the vast majority of students in HS never learn.
Even as a carpenter, you need to know math, you need to know fractions and the metric system. My community college also requires all trade students to learn Spanish! Guess why?
Community colleges SHOULD BE vocational schools, but they're not. At some point they changed and became the first two years of a 4-year education. My Community college dropped all of their trade programs to focus only on sending kids to 4-year schools! Unfortunately, they decided to send kids who couldn't do English or math, so many of them failed out of 4-year schools or choose not to go.
Not when I went…
Great article. Another question is where have the white men gone in the California system? A system still pushing DEI, but according UC's own data, the percentage of white males enrolled in the UC system is now less than 10% and declining every year. Do we get minority status now?
Does it also show declining percent of White male applications? Just curious. Schools have over all declined in quality, starting from grammar schools as we have allowed them to become centers for propaganda.
Community colleges' primary use was training trades-people – manual skills and clerical skills – other stuff to like entry-level professional white/pink colar stuff. A lot of the prep could or would have taken place in public skills, before the perverted dykes took over.
No, community college goals were broader than that: provide transfer programs to four year colleges, certificated skills training, remedial education, and local economic development programs.
Also included was Adult HS – GED certificates and continuing non-credit adult education.
Community colleges are the unsung workhorses in higher education. When well run, and not taken over by the college employee unions which ruined K-12 education too.
That's no BS. Community colleges due what government gulags won't do.
Agree, community colleges prove the total failure of K-12 education regardless of how many highshool grad have A+ grade points. Community colleges prove the utter sham of 13 years of free K-12.
K-12 teachers unions hate getting exposed for this long-standing taxpayer rip-off. But there it is. Every year K-12 graduation rates went up, college readiness testing for english and math skills at community colleges kept going down.
How did California community colleges deal with this massive K-12 embarrassment? K-12 teachers union who run California demanded and got the elimination of community college readiness screening exams and elimination of remedial course pre-requisites. "Cause it was racist".
Colleges have taken advantage of government programs rather than embraced real education that affords graduates jobs afterward. So now people are realizing that they need trade schools and not college degrees
HIgh schools used to teach auto mechanics, wood working, body shops and machining but then stopped. Community colleges picked up the pace but then they also dropped or reduced a lot of those skills programs. What I witnessed was 2 year schools first selling themselves as stepping stones to 4 year colleges to help reduce cost. There is always a struggle to get 4 year colleges to transfer credits. Eventually I saw the CC admins trying hard to get legislatures to allow them to operate as 4 year degree colleges. They often had a lot of illegals. Everything was about the teachers and staff, not where a CC fit into supporting a community. One area they seem to have done well is nursing schools.
IMO, junior colleges do not need sports.
It is expensive.
Too many universities have been virtually taken over by sports particularly football.
The renown University of Chicago gave up big sports years ago.
I know something about this.
There are instructors at junior colleges who really know their stuff and could teach at universities but they just like the more casual environment of junior colleges.
It not just the community college, it's at universities too.
It's their going WOKE.
One of the woke goals is having more minority students and making female students at least 50% of the student body. They don't care about MERIT oruse that as criteria for admittance, although some are going back to it and SATs because it has been disastrous. When they graduate, they are a poor reflection on the college or university because they are failures due to their low standards.
They also have a bias against, white males, Asian males, Christians and Jews. They are usually not accepted. They love foreign students because they pay full tuition. Some of the courses they teach are crap too and many students don't want they debt.
I experienced that bias against Christians at the university level, not the community college level. But, God watched over me and I prevailed by His grace.
Too many females in leadership positions who treat all students like their kids.
Community Colleges need to focus on the 3R's and stop getting distracted by a tiny percentage of their enrolled students. How many of their student athletes go on to professional sports, maybe 1%? Now compare that to the number of their students who go on into the business world, from fast food order takers to welders. College program expenditures need to accurately reflect the reality of their graduates.
LOL – not even half a percent! 1% might go to 4-year football programs, but the vast majority do not make it to the professional level.
"AI" will replace all traditional education systems.
Think about it.
Community colleges serve a valid purpose…. they provide education and training for jobs, they also often expand vocational training and all for less money and less time than 4 year schools…. and few community colleges offer gender studies.
There really is less need for 4 year degrees… but marketing campaigns have convinced people they need to spend the money and we have seen tuitions increase dramatically.
Exactly, I see the decline correlating with the push to allow credits to transfer and for students to get a 'real' college degree. They convinced the students that it wasn't enough to just learn a trade, they needed an accredited degree from a university to make it in the world and community/junior colleges were just starter steps, not an education. They literally trained the masses to strive for the piece of paper over knowledge. A 4+ year degree in gender studies or liberal arts was worth more than 2 years of business management or auto mechanics.
Indeed.
And they wonder why they have a hard time finding or keeping a job
One reason it costs less is because the instructors are paid less than those at 4-year schools.
Doubt they teach less… refusing to teach because …. to learn that you must pay more and attend a different school….
The racket is that people have been convinced they need a degree…. often any degree… but a 4 year degree … in any subject, while certification courses and a nice 2 year degree will get you into the job market.
No, no, no.
Wretched diagnosis.
The two biggest things that destroyed community colleges:
1. Obama and his DOE. They pushed hard for education as the answer for how to get rich: High school education wasn't enough. You needed to take out a student loan and begin your adult life in debt to a government-managed program.
2. By allowing average and above high school kids to take "free" classes under dual enrollment programs. Ger a jump on earning college credits in high school! Nice for high school students, but it did not fix the problems with public schools and it was bad for college kids who were going in debt for a slowed down class.
Actually, Jimmy Carter's DOE. They've been pushing the "you're nothing without a four year degree" spiel since the 70s.
There was this black woman at work who would brag about her son being a genius.
She said he worked at a research lab during summers when he was in high school.
He was accepted at a fairly well known technical school but she said he turned it down because he didn't want to get up so early.
I used to recommend CC to my students for a number of reasons. Some were
1. cheaper. Also might be able to live at home, might be able to work.
2. A lot of the CC instructors I knew either had worked in the field they taught or were still working in it. Not just people who had never left campuses. They had real work experience to share.
3. A lot of Euro students take a gap year. Few students I knew ended up in the field they started college with. CC gives them a chance to explore more cheaply.
4. Even if you go into trades, many students do need more reading, writing, and math skills. All need personal financial training.
5. For anyone who might want to quit being just an employee and have his/her own business, CCs will give you those skills that you can't learn on the job as an employee.
Also, some careers only need an associates degree.
My wife is a web designer. She has a two year degree. She's been in her field for over twenty years.
My daughter is doing very well with both an AA & AS.
Imagine "podcasting" but it's 1986, and the feds WENT BALLISTIC!! INSANE 'anger", and we ONLY "distro'd over PRIVATE VHS cassette orders….THEN came the BBS uploads.
MY AS/BS and internship was under lee Young (A.S.E.) who was a daily contemporary of James Lansing (JBL sound). We got the Motorola cable modem up and running in 1993.
"NOTHING to see here, move along….."
True. And I bet that her teachers had real life experience to share, not just a college degree of their own.
Excellent points, I experienced all except running my own business.
Went to a community college, then transferred to a university to study for an electrical engineering degree, which I received. If it weren't for the community college and the excellent education I received, I probably wouldn't have achieved my goal.
Same here. Made all the difference.
Screw football for Jr. Colleges. They need to focus on practical education. They cannot turn into expensive liberal shitholes like Universities.
Get the FED GOVT out of EDUCATION entirely. [That means at ALL LEVELS.]
No one in DC should be telling anybody how they must be educated … let alone the FACT that everything the FED GOVT touches, so it seems, goes to KRAP.
At best, this is a LOCAL matter. After all, it is a "COMMUNITY" college.
We the People need to change this … because certainly the Self-Serving JUDAS politicians — at least the great majority of those now in place — are not.
MAGA & MAHA!
The liberal democrat government destroys everything it touches!
Meanwhile China and India produce skilled Engineers…. who end up delivering food. Technical and trade positions in the USA are looked down upon, and woke indoctrinated women have taken over office work. Before retiring; I observed the effect of feminism in corporate America. We would discuss things endlessly, and no one ever made an unpopular decision. You didn't dare support Trump in public.
We were even told no more bantering, nicknames or saying anything offensive. This was a company involved in the building trades…….I'm old enough to remember hard-hat workers cat calling women. Now you have to walk on eggs.
Trade schools have been mocked since I was in high school a half century ago. "You go to the career center? You're stooopid!" I remember being one of the mockers.
Looking back, I'm so glad that Mike Rowe has made such a push for the trades. As a commercial I saw said, "AI can't fix your plumbing."
I love women like crazy but I hate working with them.
I went to Community College after high school and got my Associates degree before continuing my education at a University…
Much cheaper way to go.
I did the same.
In our local community college, there are not enough teachers to occupy the classrooms for courses that students need to graduate in 2 years. Many have to spend 2 1/2-3 years there before transferring to a 4 year college/university. I know that part of the delay in graduating is caused by students coming in without a basic 3rd grade understanding of math, and barely knowing how to read or write, thanks to Common Core and socially advancing them. These students have to have a lot of help, and the remedial classes were done away with a few years ago.
Don't need a reset. The entire education system needs a complete overhaul!
More of an enema…
Same thing. I do like that analogy, tho!
you don't say ..
Same thing. I do like your analogy, tho!
you don't say
Agreed
Excellent article. I have a love of community college because as an older adult with basically no college, I started college education at the community college level, transferred to a local university, got a masters in my discipline and returned to the community college to teach. Then DEI came and destroyed the community in community college. I retired, but what I accomplished helped enhance our retirement. No regrets.
Similar story here too!
The DEI staff are doing great harm to the education system.
You can now basically earn an AA degree in "Furries."
Our local community college was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Associate degree in Engineering Design put me into a good career and then trade school gave me a niche in manufacturing. An instructor just like you facilitated the process.
Thank You.
All education should be geared for Employment opportunities to IMPROVE. Not Football or somethin meaningless in da long run!
yep!
Community Colleges are now overstaffed with women faculty and administrators who have turned the colleges into nursery schools that give out diplomas like participation trophies.
So true at my community college!
50% of all students at state colleges are foreigners because we pay for them to go to school for free. Of The remaining, 40% are on disability and 10% are the poor suckers that have to pay for their own educating. Until we quit paying for foreigners etc the price will keep shooting up. Why are we paying for people that have been designated as permanent disabled to go to school. 50% of all med and law students are on disability.
I know someone who started at community college transferred to a 4-year university and became a CPA in the space of 4 years. Now happy with an excellent accounting firm. A very bright person, btw.
Yes, that is one pathway!
The internet enabling everyone with a connection to have the World's knowledge at their fingertips has changed everything. Prior to this, knowledge wasn't as accessible and there was more of a need for traditional four year degrees to bring people up to speed. Know, the educational landscape has changed in that the most valuable skills are centered around reading comprehension and analysis. If those skills are strong the internet can be used in a more effective way and affect people in a more positive way.
Exactly, but community colleges are not doing that!
I just woke up, sorry. I meant to write now, not know.
They're irrelevant because of the coming digital currency and uBI's. remember to take it TO the politician's HOMES at night, from 300 yards out, silenced…..
WE, didn't START the fire……
Start in public schools – jr high is not too early. As much as people dislike unions and I know you do – we need the training models that unions used and yes we need unions (good ones) back. Not the current teachers' union leaders that old union leaders would of kicked their asses to the streets.
Private industry unions are not the real evil. Government employee unions are the ones rotting this country from the inside out
Time to make sure people know the difference when the word "unions" gets tossed around .Two vastly different beasts. Both do need to be tamed however.
there are multiple ways we are being torn apart – the name of the game is division/hostilities. Its call splintering and is a part of every countries decay. We have been peppered with it on many fronts :/ I have become a hermit – people get set off over the just about anything. Private unions do have a history of corruption – they also were the backbone of this country with their tradition of training from the bottom up with super high levels of expectation when it came to their work.
Incompetent teachers are not the problem, it is the culture and maturity of the students – every single time. Don't kid yourselves, the schools are holding areas for the little antisocial borderline retards that will be in jail someday in the future.
I believe that is true to a certain extent. Respect does need to be a strong part of public education. I do think in many not all instances – there is perversion in some teachers and boards of education. There is a lot of sexual confusion being taught promoted in some if not most districts. I was references (in previous post) shop and home ec. It would be easy for students to be confused and or belligerent when sexual confusion is part of the cirreculum – they are not mature enough to handle it, nor should they. Add to that the grooming of minority victimization mind sets. Teachers fault? School boards fault – whatever there is a lot adding to disrespect.
I think there is a simple answer. Total incompetence. back when i went to college, you typed your papers on a typewriter. You spent hours in the library doing research. You read books because that's where the information was.
Now a student never has to even go in the library, probably can watch a video instead of reading a book, at a minimum uses an app to check grammar and spelling, if not actually writing papers for them, yet semesters are the same length and cost a fortune.
Instead of using technology to shorten degree time, to get rid of bloated faculties and staff, to provide a higher level of education, they continue to rob students of a decent life.
Why do we need all these parklike universities? Why are they basically semi-pro sport machines? Intramural sports make sense, million dollar "student" athletes don't.
They failed to do what they are supposed to do and wonder why enrollment is down. it's because students are smart enough to go to YouTube University.
What I remember most of my Community College in Westchester, NY:
back then the chicks were all hot!
Sex education!
Football isn't the solution to the pandemic issue.
I'm told that the classes most in demand at community colleges are Remedial Reading 101-" See Spot run" and Remedial Math 101-"How to count when you run out of fingers and toes".
Yes, but community colleges eliminated those courses because too many students were failing them and dropping out of school!
Now the students are failing to meet the needs of employers after 2 years of schooling, which leaves them in debt and without a job.
HIgh schools used to teach auto mechanics, wood working, body shop skills and machining but then stopped. Community colleges picked up the pace but then they also dropped or reduced a lot of those skills programs. What I witnessed was 2 year schools first selling themselves as stepping stones to 4 year colleges to help reduce cost. There is always a struggle to get 4 year colleges to transfer credits. Eventually I saw the CC admins trying hard to get legislatures to allow them to operate as 4 year degree colleges. They often had a lot of illegals. Everything was about the teachers and staff, not where a CC fit into supporting a community. One area they seem to have done well is nursing schools.
Their transfer agreement with a local university sure helped me.
All those "skills" are "wayciss", that's what happened, everyone JUST swallowed that enetire load? WTH???
It's NOT "wayciss', it's BIOLOGY!!!! NOW, get OVER it!!
Football??????
How about a direct line to a trade -or- transferring to a 4-yr school?
THAT's what Community College is for.
I married right out of high school in 1974, went to work in sewing factories for the next 10 years, making minimum wages. After moving to a smaller city, I had a family to raise and limited skills so I cleaned houses. My husband worked for the state, so we moved again to an even smaller city. With my limited skills, I wound up in retail for the next 11 years. Through all these years the thought was always in the back of my mind that I needed marketable skills to get out of the retail rut. When the store I worked at closed, I finally had an opportunity to go to the local Community College and acquired those skills. I was 48 years old. When we moved again to a much larger city, I had the skills I needed to get what turned out to be my dream job which I held for 20 years.
The point of my testimonial is that you are never too old to learn new skills, and Community Colleges and vocational schools are the best place to do this.
Nobody asks a football team if they offer math courses so why the inverse ?
Sports ruins education because you could have it WITHOUT the school but we don't
And why on mention of the HUUUUUUGE trend now to 3-year baccalaureate degrees ??????
A study by the nonprofit research group RAND reports that at least 119 reduced-credit bachelor's programs are offered across 26 U.S. states. Around 60 colleges have launched or are actively planning these shortened pathways.
My BSME and MBA degrees took a lot of work and those programs back then were full credit. I see people getting online MBA's in a year and it diminishes the value of the degree. Masters level courses are about sharing insights with others who earned their Bachelors degree in a classroom setting…and not just filling in the blanks.
California community college end of the year statistics always showed a huge drop out rate for black male students. But not for black female students nor any other tracked group.
Was it racism, was it cultural, was it institutional failure for this particular sub-set? Turns out the "black male drop out rate" was due simply to only signing up for the fall semester to play football, and not having any further interest in their "education" after football season was over.
In other words, beware of the alleged "anchor" football provides, when the that tax-payer funded anchor gets immediately hoisted once spring semester starts. Don't bother with hand-wringing over "racism" either.
Black football players are very focused. They know if they can break into professional football there is a fast track to the good life. Community college fall semester enrollment is their equal opportunity ticket. How do you get this sub-set to persist? By at least acknowledging their real motivations – a shot at a future career in professional foot ball.
Community College is not a lifestyle like College is.
It's nice to have sports, but what use are they at a 2yr school designed to help low achieving students a change tto matriculate to a 4yr college.
There are people attending University right now who read and write at an 8th grade level. The whole thing has gone DEI.
designed by the zionist pedo class…. but yeah blame dei or the left (retarded as they are) are not the ones responsible….
Community colleges SHOULD BE vocational schools, but they're currently not. At some point they changed and became the first two years of a 4-year education. Many now offer worthless 4-year degrees. My Community college dropped most of their trade programs to focus only on sending kids to 4-year schools! Unfortunately, they decided to send kids who couldn't do English or math, so many of them failed out of 4-year schools or choose not to go.
This happened across the country, which is why Mike Rowe created the Works Foundation to bring back trade job education that Community Colleges destroyed!
How We Destroyed Community College Education for Generations of Students – and Why We Need a ResetHow Zionism Destroyed Community College Education for Generations of Students – and Why We Need a real extermination of the kharazan plague
Way overpriced DUH
Much better analysis than Jill's PhD thesis.