My inspiration for attempting this experiment comes after teaching high school seniors for the last two years. It turns out that most students at the high school I teach at go to the local community college directly after graduating. I myself graduated from the same high school that I am currently teaching at and although the community college and the lottery scholarship were around at that time, no one I knew really considered attending there as an option. Well times are a changing and with this current population of students more and more of them are heading to the community college.
The reason for this is five-fold:
First, the community college no longer has an embarrassing stigma attached to it. What this means is that the community college is no longer the only option for students after they are rejected by most conventional colleges and universities.
Second, with our state's lottery scholarship, going to the community college is a cheap way to get your basic courses out of the way.
Third, if the student's attend the community college, they can live at home and save money.
Fourth, with college readiness programs, the students are finding that the only collegial life after high school is at the community college by emphasizing the community college as a primary option. I think that this is because the students are almost pushed into attending the community college by these types of programs even though the programs may not realize that is the culture they are creating.
Fifth, the students are NOT prepared for college. These students are not getting into local universities/colleges because:
1) They don't have the GPA requirements.
2) Their ACT/SAT scores are so low.
3) The Compass scores are placing the students into remedial classes.
4) They have not been trained to be in a collegial atmosphere.
5) They have been enabled by certain college readiness programs by the student not having any actual responsibilities (ie actually putting in the initiative to search for information on their own or do anything on their own).
Well, what does this mean?
In my not so humble opinion, I think that the reason our students are heading directly community college is due to the fact that they have been enabled and held to astronomically low standards that their dreams do not extend beyond any two year associates degree.
Let's get something clear!
I am a believer that NOT everyone needs to go to college.
I also think that there is NOTHING WRONG receiving a two year associate degree.
Most importantly I BELIEVE that all students should be in the position to attend a traditional university/college if they want and that it is MY DUTY to prepare them for that opportunity.
XOXO,
Mrs. G
"Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"
