Colleges Are No Match for American Poverty

May 31, 2018 8:48 PM

The Atlantic takes a look at one community college, fighting a 9% graduation rate by listening to their students and solving the real-world, poverty-induced problems faced by their students. Written by Marcella Bombardieri, a journalist for higher education at the Center for American Progress.
posted by fragmede (23 comments total)

Ugh, it makes me so mad how people take advantage of the under-resourced simply because the chance of getting punished is so low. I'd be love it if the college sued the landlord who made the Travelodge stay necessary given the near certainty that the eviction was in direct violation of the lease agreement.

But good on the college for helping as much as they can. Even if it doesn't improve the graduation rate as much as we (and they) like, it's undeniably helping people. And yes, without the degree at the end the chance of getting a better job in the short term is low, I can't help but think that the education itself is a net positive for the students and could very well still have an effect on earning potential by improving the chances of promotion from within in many cases.

While there are a lot of companies that require degrees for certain positions, in many it is more of a filter to cut down on the number of applications they have to sort through rather than a hard requirement of the position itself, so an employee may be able to be promoted into the position from within. I'd much rather they pull their head out of their ass and not inflate the education requirements in the first place, though.

Also, the classes and experience can be useful if the student someday decides to start their own business. (You'd be surprised at how many people actually do that, though calling it a business when one person offers a service that requires little to no startup capital is something of a misnomer, that's what we call it in the US)

The point being that measuring success solely by improvements in graduation rates fails to capture much of the benefit of such resources. Graduation is certainly the best outcome, but it's not necessarily the only one that improves a person's life.
posted by wierdo at 9:44 PM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just really hope that getting that particular associate's degree in that particular area actually improves employment rates and average salary. I believe intensely in the intangible benefits of education, but there is a level of struggle for survival at which it just feels cruel to impose additional expectations that don't directly and predictably translate into improvement of standard of living, and it sounds like many students at Amarillo College are at it. As we see examples of in the article, a lot of people are kept out of work by criminal records, inability to pass a drug test, or lack of reliable transportation, and a college degree doesn't fix any of those things. And there has to actually be an adequate supply of jobs in the area for which an associate's degree makes a difference in hiring. They don't really discuss employment stats for their grads in the article.
posted by praemunire at 9:57 PM on May 31, 2018 [10 favorites]

Great article.
I'm a professor at a top public research university. You all would be surprised probably by how many of my students are food insecure and/or deal with homelessness.

We have a food pantry and some associated services but they are insufficient. (I volunteer at ours.)

We also have a program that flags at risk students and pairs them with a special advisor but some students lose touch with them.

A few years ago a student told me they were suddenly homeless. Thankfully they were already in the at risk system and we were able to secure him an apartment. But what about those that don't disclose?
posted by k8t at 10:12 PM on May 31, 2018 [26 favorites]

An associate's degree can also be a good way of getting to a four-year school for a student who may not have had that option right out of high school. Community colleges do so much for so many.

After all the time I've spent trying to think of everything I should have been smarter about in my youth to keep from ending up the way I have, one of the best things I could have done for myself would have been to take a free vocational program alongside my college-prep program in high school.. Even with the scholarships I managed to get, it wasn't enough to keep me from having to work full time during my college years to keep a roof over our heads and medicine in my veins. If I'd been able to get a job cutting hair or working in an office instead of restaurant or retail work, I'd have made more money and been a lot better off, and maybe gotten my degree in time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:04 AM on June 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

I went through this whole thing and couldn't really put my finger on why it bugged me, because I really am happy that these people are doing so much to help, and I think in the end it comes down to the fact that what the college is doing? Good stuff! I'm glad they're doing it! But it's a little like food pantries in general. I am where I am today because of the availability of private food assistance when my family needed it when I was young and when I needed it as an adult. But that they exist is this giant flashing sign that there's something not working right, because they are incredibly inefficient and don't really help anybody solve underlying problems larger than "my pantry needs more peanut butter and rice in it". Education is great, but there are precious few degrees, even four-year, with starting salaries enough to make five kids and a $1k rent check affordable.

The people who really need to get it, to be able to help, have mostly never been poor. It's the people in politics who need to actually try being homeless, who need to be buying sandwiches for poor people and sitting down to ask them about their lives and problems. The unsettling part of this is realizing how much it means to actually listen to the experiences of people who are personally struggling, and how little interest those in power have in spending their days that way.
posted by Sequence at 1:15 AM on June 1, 2018 [13 favorites]

I'm a professor at a top public research university. You all would be surprised probably by how many of my students are food insecure and/or deal with homelessness.

Until a couple weeks ago, I was a student at a top public research university. The students themselves are surprised by how many of them are food insecure, and in fact, students are often unaware that they're part of that statistic. I knew the problem existed at my school, but I didn't think it applied to me until a campus employee got very concerned when I said I'd often skip lunch to save money (minimum $5 to eat near campus).

The point wasn't that I was destitute, it's that I was choosing to go hungry to save money. I traded my health for cash, and apparently I was one of many students who made that decision. A lot of the time, this sort of problem is imagined to be something extreme, and people don't realize they're affected too. Or that they're affected, but it doesn't count in their case, because if they just planned better, etc etc...

If the university hadn't automatically enrolled me in a significant grant program, I would have never signed up myself, and I would never have been able to afford my degree. I struggled to make ends meet in community college, not knowing there were aid programs available to me. I ended up taking out loans instead (to my great shame, I'm one of the few people dumb enough to have gone way into debt in community college, of all places). It wasn't until the end of my last semester that I found out I could have gotten thousands of dollars a year in scholarships and grants, and that most of my friends had done just that. I wouldn't have been in debt, or at least not as deeply in debt.

A lack of information and education about aid programs makes them effectively out of reach for many eligible people who would benefit from them. Stereotyping leads a lot of people totally unaware that their situation is as bad as it is, or that it's bad enough to deserve (and get) help. I've seen it happen at every campus I've been a part of.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:55 AM on June 1, 2018 [21 favorites]

I'm a professor at a top public research university. You all would be surprised probably by how many of my students are food insecure and/or deal with homelessness.

I'm a librarian at a large, open-enrollment public university (effectively, in part, a community college) and while it's all anecdata, my strong impression is that a lot of our students are dealing with this as well.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:34 AM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

There's a food pantry at the community college where my husband works, and a lot of similar mentoring/outreach programs for at-risk kids. They are very aware of the poverty issue.

And yeah; that should just not be necessary. People, especially young people, should be able to get food while they're being educated.
posted by emjaybee at 6:02 AM on June 1, 2018

What a sick system.
posted by clawsoon at 6:08 AM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

And yeah; that should just not be necessary. People, especially young people, should be able to get food while they're being educated.

Yet another data point: At a large public research university where I worked, the students started a food pantry for themselves, to look after their own, for problems exacerbated by the campus being located in a food desert due to zoning and the administration trying to make up for state-level budget cuts by adding surcharges to all on-campus dining options.
posted by halation at 6:23 AM on June 1, 2018 [16 favorites]

I just really hope that getting that particular associate's degree in that particular area actually improves employment rates and average salary. ... And there has to actually be an adequate supply of jobs in the area for which an associate's degree makes a difference in hiring.

Community colleges probably vary significantly in overall quality and in attention to things like this, but the community college I know best puts a ton of work into creating and maintaining employment pathways for all the technical degrees (and similar effort in ensuring that academic degrees lead seamlessly into 4-year programs). Each degree or certificate track (e.g., HVAC technician, cosmetology, etc) has an advisory panel of people in that industry (including both private sector and public agencies as appropriate) that meets frequently to confirm both that there is demand and that the graduates from the CC will have the right skills to get hired immediately.

It's by no means perfect, but as someone who participated in the process it was impressive to see how they would rework degree programs on the fly to match to what employers were needing. Any program that couldn't demonstrate both demand from employers and success in getting graduates hired is revised or cut.

They also go above and beyond in meeting student's needs, since (like in the article) so many have complex life situations. For example, they have an agreement with the county jail so they can drop off and pick up homework for students who have to spend part of the term in lockup, to try and keep those students on track to graduate.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:32 AM on June 1, 2018 [14 favorites]

I'm in favor of Education For All, because I think a well-educated populace is a societal good. Hillary Clinton *sob* understood this and wanted to make community college free.

When I read the article, I was reminded of the MetaFilter post on librarians as crisis responders. Our societal safety net is in such shreds we're asking institutions such as libraries and community colleges to be social workers, therapists, crisis managers, parole officers, food banks, therapists, etc. etc. and I think a lot of these issues are way out of their wheelhouse. Not that they're not doing their best and deserve kudos for that - but community colleges shouldn't be in this position. But, here we are. (That's like my catchphrase for 2018.)

I've said before, I'd love to have a second WPA and especially a social capital WPA to make a better, stronger, societal safety net. Community colleges could definitely be part of that, but not so underfunded and stretched thin. If we're going to ask them to do all these jobs, maybe have actual social workers on staff. A WPA could also work with community colleges for work-study type jobs - your eventual goal is to be a nurse, here's a job in a medical office! You want to be a hairdresser, here's a part-time job as a receptionist in a salon! The "you want a job, get some experience" could be taken care of and put money in the students' pockets.

I have so many good ideas! Me for President 2020!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:51 AM on June 1, 2018 [23 favorites]

meets frequently to confirm both that there is demand and that the graduates from the CC will have the right skills to get hired immediately

This is good to have, but without tracking employment statistics it's hard to know whether it's actually functioning as intended.

I don't want to attack an institution trying hard to provide resources by saying "these resources should be available to everyone" when they're so plainly not and the actual students aren't living in the imaginary world where they are, but tying this kind of support to a bunch of educational requirements means that we are asking vulnerable people to work doubly hard just to access some support resources. We need to be careful that the result is a net positive.

(In particular, the assumption that many of these students will be in a position to go on to complete a four-year degree that will better their circumstances seems...shaky.)

One thing that does seem potentially clever to me about their system is trying to design the pedagogy to minimize risk of failure due to outside circumstances. Quarters rather than semesters, with the material appropriately adjusted for the time available? Why not, if it means that many students who can string together two months of solid attendance at a time, but not four, can at least get some credit and make some progress?
posted by praemunire at 8:25 AM on June 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

The higher education system is so broken that requiring a college degree for a job just as an arbitrary filter to reduce the number of applications should be illegal. Yes, there are jobs that do require specialised training that is usually only found in a university setting - whatever, fine, require a specific degree for those specific jobs- but if the ad for your 30k admin job specifies a bachelor's degree without specifying WHICH degree or WHY it's needed, then that's just discrimination.

Signed, a software project and programme manager who dropped out of a fine art degree who would probably still be a bartender* if I hadn't emigrated from the US nearly 15 years ago.

*being a bartender was great and I miss it sometimes.
posted by cilantro at 9:03 AM on June 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

I had over 30 hours in various computer courses. Over 20 hours working on an IBM plug-compatible mainframe, the exact same system which I would be using once out in the real world. Repeat: over 20 hours working on the exact system, writing programs utilizing that system. No one would even give me a look. My resume went directly into the trash. People who had a four year degree -- and it could have been in basket-weaving -- ppl with a four year degree would be given a job if they had even one 3 hour course in Pascal.

In looking for work, I ran into a headhunter, a guy who would absolutely get work for ppl with 3 hours in IT as long as they had a four year degree. He gave me the low-down: I would never, ever -- not ever -- get a job by going through HR. While this headhunter was not about to waste his time helping me, he did tell me the only way I would ever get hired as a programmer -- call the company number, ask for the computer room, then ask whoever picks up the phone in the computer room if they could turn me on to anyone who was in a position to hire programmers. Most ppl jut hung up on me, a few wished me luck, knowing that I'd damn sure need it.

I cold-called and cold-called and cold-called, I have no idea how many outfits; it seems to me that it was over forty million, though that could be low. One afternoon I called First Interstate Bank, asked for the computer room, the person who picked up said they had a brand-new manager in their check-processing department, and if I'd hang on he'd connect me. He put me through, the manager gave me a shot, and I was in. They closed down that data center before I had any significant database experience, which was the real kicker -- you could be Bozo The Clown and they'd hire you if you had database experience. It took almost another year to find my next gig, which brought me to Austin, and inside a year I got some database experience.

It was the most stupid thing I have seen. I literally was ready to write code, I had at least a one year jump on anyone that they wanted to hire. I had the exact same professors at Houston Community College that taught at the University of Houston; they were great. HR is *not* your friend. I wish them ill.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:41 AM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

I agree that credentialism is bad and dumb, but

if the ad for your 30k admin job specifies a bachelor's degree without specifying WHICH degree or WHY it's needed, then that's just discrimination

This fundamentally misunderstands how most college degrees function in the workplace. Most college graduates in the market don't "use their degree" in the sense of using, on a day to day basis, skills or knowledge that are specific to their degree or major and that would be lacking in other degrees or majors. Nonetheless, most college graduates in the market use their degree on a day to day basis because they were hired as more-or-less generic information processors and any college degree is extensive training in information processing.

I mean, like I said, I agree that credentialism is dumb, that many people can and do learn the same information processing skills elsewhere, and that people without should be taken seriously by employers. But your original comment seemed awfully close to the usual dreary talk about how only stem degrees are real or similar.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:46 AM on June 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

Are you saying that a 2-year degree can't teach "information processing"? If a generic 4-year degree is preferred over a 2-year degree in programming, when HR is looking for a programmer, that's the very definition of gatekeeping.
posted by domo at 12:30 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

In 4-year schools there is usually a distinction between lower and upper division courses, with the upper divison courses requiring more intellectual rigor and a different skill set. A 4-year degree is generally not the same as a 2-year degree that takes twice as long.

All this has nothing to do with if any given job really requires one or the other to be successful though.
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:59 PM on June 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Many many jobs require the capacity to write so as to accurately and efficiently convey information, or to persuade. Yes, even in STEM. Having taught at a very prestigious university, I can say with extreme confidence that even most of those students show up having finished high school not being able to write worth a damn. A great many of them also have developed zero ability to apply critical thinking to a text--anything beyond parroting the contents is new to them. Those are the kinds of skills being talked about, and they can take quite a while to build.
posted by praemunire at 3:56 PM on June 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

I had 2 students this semester who were like Pruett. Excellent students, highly motivated, could not catch a fucking break with their health, with their family's health, with their car, with various government agencies... Both of them had situations that qualified them for a "hardship withdrawal" (full withdrawal from all classes with no GPA penalty), and I encouraged them to do that, but I don't know if they ever did.

I have at least 2 students every semester who have these situations. Sometimes they take an incomplete with a plan to finish up over the summer. They never do because other stuff always comes up. It breaks my heart.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:02 PM on June 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is good to have, but without tracking employment statistics it's hard to know whether it's actually functioning as intended.

They do that as well, of course, but that takes time and isn't easy (first the students have to graduate, then you track results as best as you can, then you analyze); I was describing the process of getting business owners and agency people (ie, people who make hiring decisions) in a room several times a year to talk about what their immediate and upcoming staffing needs are, how have recent grads worked out for them, etc. It got into pretty granular questions (eg, exact level of math competency needed; is a public speaking class useful or not) as well as big picture things like growth and hiring expectations.

It's definitely not a perfect process, but at least at that school they are trying to very directly meet current employment needs and have direct tracks from technical programs to specific employers.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:25 AM on June 2, 2018

I have at least 2 students every semester who have these situations.

Does your university offer things like reduced courseloads and flexibility with attendance? I mean, individual professors can be flexible, but are there accommodations like that on the institutional level?

I’ve been dogged by physical and mental health problems for years, and I would never have graduated if not for the accommodations the school offered me once I was classified as disabled (during a particularly rough semester). If my only options had been to withdraw or get an incomplete, I think things would have gone very differently.

Of course, that was for physical and mental health issues. I don’t think the school is so flexible if it’s economic hardship, which says a lot.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:48 PM on June 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

We of course offer accommodations to disabled students. It's the law.

It's very hard to offer accommodations to students for personal circumstances that cause them to miss substantial numbers of classes and assignments and make it impossible for them to make those up. Some professors likely do more than others, and I certainly try hard. But at some point, there's really not any way for them to pass a class that is ethical and fair to other students.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:39 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]