With no family untouched by the state of the economy, students and parents look to community colleges for job training that doesn’t saddle them with endless debt. No longer the choice of only the average student, community college now makes sense for most middle-class families.

It’s true that the cuts made in Sacramento have resulted in fewer teachers, larger classes, and turning away students from required courses. Yet enrollment is at an all time high across the state.

It’s certain that that is related to the highly publicized unemployment rate. The Labor Department routinely reports that there are jobs in the fields of health care and human services. Job-training in those fields is widely available through community college programs, often with little investment of either time or money. Many are as short as one semester. Some even repeat mid-year.

Even for those students looking at four years or more, it pays to use community colleges first. As Carol Frey pointed out in the August 19^th issue of U.S. News & World Report, students paying for four years at a private institution are saddled with the amount of debt that would buy them a house. That’s not great news to start out with, in a career, especially now that high-paying jobs are hard to find.

In a mid-July response to the recent changes in the economy, President Obama proposed a twelve billion dollar program called the American Graduation Initiative. Here are key provisions:

• A Call for 5 Million Additional Community College Graduates: In February, President Obama called for America to once again lead the world in college degrees by 2020. Affordable, open-enrollment community colleges will play a critical role in meeting that goal. Today, he set a complementary goal: an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020, including students who earn certificates and associate degrees or who continue on to graduate from four-year colleges and universities.
• A Community College Challenge Fund: Too often community colleges are underfunded and underappreciated, lacking the resources they need to improve instruction, build ties with businesses, and adopt other reforms. Under President Obama’s plan, new competitive grants would enable community colleges and states to innovate and expand proven reforms. These efforts will be evaluated carefully, and the approaches that demonstrate improved educational and employment outcomes will receive continued federal support and become models for widespread adoption. Colleges could:
  • Build partnerships with businesses and the workforce investment system to create career pathways where workers can earn new credentials and promotions step-by-step, worksite education programs to build basic skills, and curriculum coordinated with internship and job placements.
  • Expand course offerings and offer dual enrollment at high schools and universities, promote the transfer of credit among colleges, and align graduation and entrance requirements of high schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities.

To look at community colleges in California, go to http://www.ccleague.org. You will find we have 109 colleges in 72 community college districts with over 2,600,000 students enrolled, ranging in age from 19 or younger to 50 and older. Fifty-five percent of them are women. Thirty-five percent are Caucasian, thirty percent are Hispanic, fifteen percent are Asian and seven percent are African-American.

If you do find a program your family can use, be patient with the administrators who are trying to do an increased work-load with a staff that has been cut. Then find the shortest course you can find in your field --- the Downtown Center of City College, San Francisco has some really short listings --- and try out the water before you jump into full-time.

Let us know how you make out…..