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The Alarming Drop-Out Rate – this time it is community college

group of teenage boys in a tunnel With all the fanfare around the high school dropout crisis, it is easy to overlook the other failing efforts of another institution where American students are not faring all too well – community colleges.

According to the Beginning Post-secondary Students Longitudinal Study, only 31 percent of students who entered community college in 1995-1996 with the intention of earning a degree or certificate had met their goal six years later. The situation is worse for students with non-traditional high school diplomas. In fact, unreleased research states that approximately less than 10% of African American males with a GED who enter community college complete their course of study within six years.

Often deemed the pathway to economic opportunity for vulnerable youth, community colleges are touted as the “golden ticket” to high growth/high paying jobs for millions of economically and academically disadvantaged young adults. However, evidence of success is lacking, and millions of youth now refer to this so-called golden opportunity as the “high school” after high school, a tag that speaks volumes about the system’s inability to keep youth engaged. Characterized by large class sizes, distance learning systems, and computerized educational networks, most community colleges lack the basic elements of youth development that produce gains for vulnerable young adults—access to positive, caring adults, small learning communities, culturally competent instruction, and intensive services and supports.

With such a low completion rate, a rate well below that for even the worse high school, is this option really a boondoggle for America’s vulnerable young person, especially those of low income? After all, a large part of the demographics of those attending community college tends to be those students who do not have the monetary resources to attend large universities, or the luxury of a lifestyle that allows for long and involved courses of study. Therefore the ramifications of participating in the programs offered by community colleges is often that students tend to utilize a large portion of the grants, student loans, and other government funds that are available to them with very little educational return. They receive training that they are almost guaranteed not to complete, and that fails to secure employment that yields income sufficient enough to support a lifestyle beyond repaying their education debts. Given this fact, is the touting of these post-secondary educational opportunities as a viable means of economic stability really a promotion of the economic inequality that we were trying to address in the first place.

In accessing the failures of these programs, it is also critical to pull out the variables within the small ratio of success, in order to determine where the post-secondary programs are actually missing the mark. A method of comparison and contrast will likely uncover painful truths, but will serve greatly in uncovering a remedy that will better serve the disconnected young adult population. For example, what is the completion rate of out-of-school youth from WIA funded programs compared to those who did not receive any services at all? What are the characteristics of the successful 31% who completed their course of studies? How can these characteristics be replicated in order to increase overall positive outcomes? These are the questions that must be asked and answered if we are to move progressively toward effective solutions that will encompass not only a select group of students, but rather the student population as a whole. We must face the negatives with an aggressive approach, determining if and where more assistance is needed within the education system itself, and what that assistance should involve. We must also ensure that in our efforts to improve the numbers, we are not substituting quality for quantity. The results that determine effective change must be measured in terms of successful long-term outcomes versus high completion rates that yield temporary monetary gains.

Programs such as The Guardian Scholars Program in Orange County California holds much promise and should be closely studied. The Guardian Scholars Program is a comprehensive program of financial aid, life coaching, mentoring, housing and personalized attention for youth in foster care. It enables emancipated foster youth to successfully engage in attending a college, university or vocational school. Self-reported data boast a 70% retention rate for students enrolled in the program.

In a society highly concentrated on making sure no child is left behind, it is extremely important to point vulnerable youth down the path that is going to provide these lasting success options. Part of the task in effectively accomplishing this is to change the mindset of these youth, and restore their faith in the system of education. As it stands right now, we cannot ask them to have this faith when they see the failure rates of their peers within the post-secondary structure reach proportions of 70 – 90%. The reasons behind such poor completion vary tremendously. Some students are grossly unprepared, while others are there for the social aspects of meeting members of the opposite sex. However, the majority are plagued with the incidental crisis of financial hardships and family responsibility. Regardless of the category, the end result remains that today’s education turnout continues to drop considerably, creating a dismal outlook for those students who would otherwise take the plunge of furthering their education in hopes of a successful end result. If this negative imagery is not combated and ultimately reversed, the percentages of failure will continue to grow, making laughable the notion of “no child left behind.” Since the failure of the education system is no laughing matter, it is imperative that we develop concrete solutions to reduce the number of students who slip through the cracks. Oops, I mean craters.

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