|
An important public policy challenge of
the twenty-first century is how to increase the opportunities
for career mobility and wage progression among low-wage workers.
Community colleges have the potential to play an important
role in addressing this challenge, since receiving an associate’s
degree or vocational certificate is related to higher earnings.
Yet many low-wage workers do not capitalize on the opportunities
offered by community colleges. Either they do not apply or
a high proportion of those who do apply and enroll drop out.
In presenting findings from Opening Doors to Earning Credentials
- a qualitative study that examines community college access
and retention issues for low-wage working parents - this report
captures the voice of the consumer: current, former, and potential
students.
The Scope and Methods of the Opening Doors
Study
Based on their demonstrated commitment and
capacity to make college offerings more accessible to nontraditional
students, including low-wage workers, six community colleges
across the nation were selected for the Opening Doors study:
- Cabrillo College in Aptos, California
- LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, New York
- Macomb Community College in Clinton Township, Michigan
- Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon
- Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio
- Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida
Across these six colleges, eighteen focus
groups were conducted involving three groups of low-wage workers:
(1) current students enrolled in community college credit-granting
programs, (2) former students previously enrolled in community
college who left and have not since earned a credential, and
(3) potential students who have never attended a credit-granting
program at a community college. A total of 131 individuals
participated in the focus groups, which consisted mostly of
women, between ages 21 and 40, who are parents; they had worked
within the prior six months in jobs earning low wages. This
sample is racially and ethnically diverse overall.
Several important differences were found
across groups:
- Current students prioritized education over employment.
They sought jobs that fit their school schedules, which
often meant working part time. Almost all current students
had a high school diploma or General Educational Development
(GED) certificate. Current students had fewer children than
members of the other two groups.
- Former students prioritized employment over education.
Like the current students, nearly all former students had
high school credentials. They fell between the other two
groups in terms of having family relationships and stability
in their personal lives, and they earned higher wages and
exhibited more job stability, on average.
- Compared with the other two groups, potential students
had fewer family relationships, less life stability, and
more crises (such as pending evictions, financial problems,
or family issues). Many of the potential students were not
as prepared academically to attend college; only half of
them had a high school diploma or GED.
Main Themes from the Focus Groups
Overall, most focus group participants believed
that a college education would be a valuable investment for
increasing their opportunities for career mobility and wage
progression. They also felt that obtaining a college education
would set a good example for their children. Why, then, do
relatively few low-wage workers enroll in community college
and earn a credential? No single dominant factor accounted
for these participants’ decisions about enrollment in
or withdrawal from community college. Rather, a constellation
of personal, situational, community college, and external
factors seems to explain their low enrollment and completion
rates. The following major themes from the focus groups convey
the various factors that constitute this larger constellation.
Working students typically take more
than two years to complete college. The traditional image
of a “one-year”certificate program or a “two-year”
associate’s degree is not the norm for low-wage working
students. Most students in the study combined education with
full-time or part-time employment. Many current and former
students described taking longer than they initially expected
to complete their programs (more than two years or even more
than five years to complete an associate’s degree, for
example). They took time off from college to accommodate work
or family demands or to earn additional income.
Financial aid — to cover
tuition and related costs and to replace lost wages —
is a major factor affecting enrollment decisions. Many
low-wage working students said that they could not attend
college without financial assistance. Besides needing standard
financial aid services, such as tuition assistance and money
for books and supplies, they reported an im-portant “income
gap” that resulted from reducing work hours to attend
college. When considering enrollment, participants quickly
began calculating the short-term economic implications for
their families. For single parents especially, this income
gap might mean the inability to meet their children’s
essential needs. Within the realm of standard financial aid
services, not all low-wage working students are eligible for
such assistance. Some participants exceeded the income qualifications,
despite an inability to pay for tuition or other college costs
on their own; some were attending school less than half time
and thus were not eligible for sufficient assistance; some
had defaulted on past student loans or grants; and some were
on probation due to poor academic performance in the past.
Balancing work, family, and college is
difficult. By definition, the study group included students
who were working and had dependent children. Participants’
lives were fragile, and a single event might lead to dropping
out or taking time off from college. Major personal factors
included child care issues (such as its availability and quality,
parents’ comfort level with the number of hours a child
was in care, and varying degrees of understanding on the part
of instructors when child care emergencies arose); family
and peer relationships (which, when supportive, can make a
huge difference); and employers’ support (such as flexible
work schedules). Some participants mentioned other factors,
including discrimination, housing, transportation, and physical
or mental health issues (involving themselves or close family
members). Some participants — mostly the potential students
— also mentioned such barriers as domestic violence and
legal issues (usually relating to immigration).
Students need on-campus academic and
personal support. Focus group participants expressed the
need for a combination of supports and services on campus,
including academic and personal counseling as well as financial
aid advisement. Some students required special programs to
accommodate specific needs, and some called for ongoing counseling
rather than isolated, specific counseling services —
as might be triggered, for example, by a drop in academic
performance.
A gap exists between the services that
are available to students and students’ awareness of
them. Some participants across all the groups — especially
the potential students — were not aware of existing college-
or community-based resources to help them attend college,
including financial aid, personal or academic counseling,
and special programs.
Students view individual faculty members
as the “front line” of their community college experiences.
Students’ impressions of their community college are
shaped largely by their daily interactions with instructional
faculty. Students in the study provided examples of ways in
which individual instructors' policies regarding attendance,
group versus individual assignments, course load, and late
assignments greatly influenced their ability to complete a
course. They gave examples of how faculty were instrumental
in aiding them when employment or parenting demands conflicted
with school responsibilities, and they also conveyed their
experiences with faculty who did not take such conflicts into
consideration.
Some students require remediation.
Some participants expressed a general need for remediation
in order to meet course prerequisites or address low English
proficiency. Low basic skills or the lack of a high school
diploma or GED meant that other participants, particularly
potential students, had not been able to meet college entry
requirements or to access specific credit-granting occupational
courses or programs.
Complex child care needs affect a parent's
ability to attend college. Most student parents expressed
the need for child care on campus. Even campuses that offered
child care had important gaps in services. For example, many
child care centers had limited capacity, did not offer care
during late-evening and weekend classes, or had age restrictions
that included toddlers but not infants or older children.
While most parents said that they needed child care on campus,
many were also concerned about leaving their children in formal
daycare arrangements for additional hours, beyond the hours
that their children already spent in care while the parents
were at work. Participants asked: At what point am I leaving
my child in care too much? Similarly, parents of adolescents
were concerned about their children's supervision while they
attended evening or weekend classes.
Work-based safety net services provide
critical support but can be difficult to access for working
students. Although such benefits as Food Stamps, Medicaid,
Earned Income Credits (EICs), Section 8 housing vouchers,
and child care subsidies are important supports that enable
low-wage workers to combine work and college, students can
be deterred from seeking help from public programs because
agency hours conflict with their job or college schedules,
there is often the need for repeat visits, or additional child
care must be arranged.
Implications of the Study's Findings
The insights from the focus group participants,
combined with lessons from other research, suggest promising
strategies that could improve low-wage working students’
access to and retention in postsecondary programs. Considering
the heterogeneity of the experiences, personal and financial
circumstances, and academic preparedness of these current,
former, and potential students, postsecondary education may
not be for everyone at a given moment in time. Nonetheless,
the design and implementation of the following educational,
financial aid, and stu-dent support service strategies could
reach potential students and increase the success rates of
current students.
Educational Approaches
Providing bridges between noncredit,
remedial classes and credit courses. Participants described
the need for remediation to meet college entry requirements
or course prerequisites. Remedial programs are often offered
on a noncredit basis, and their attrition rates can be very
high, so that many students never move from the noncredit
to the creditgranting side of the institution. In order to
create bridges between noncredit and credit remedial classes,
and to provide greater access to remediation, options include
improving the quality of noncredit remedial programs (perhaps
by integrating remedial and occupational skills) and improving
articulation between noncredit and credit classes.
Designing nontraditional course formats.
Colleges can work with their public and private partners to
create flexible scheduling options that make it easier for
nontraditional students to complete certificate and degree
programs more quickly. Examples include modular or short-term
certificate programs with career ladders in high-growth fields,
such as information technology and the health professions;
various combinations of distance learning and on-campus classes;
and open-entry/open-exit, self-paced, or other flexible formats.
Creating lifelong learning opportunities
and career pathways. Colleges and their public or private
partners can package nontraditional course offerings to create
lifelong learning opportunities and solid career pathways.
Such programs delineate various short-term training options
or single courses that working students can take in a particular
career area, and relevant job opportunities are connected
to each “rung” in the career ladder. Students can
enter or exit at multiple points, and can return for additional
education, as they continue to build on their existing college
credentials.
Financial Aid Approaches
The study’s findings suggest the need
for new or expanded forms of financial aid for working adults
and nontraditional students that address both the direct costs
of going to school (tuition, books, and supplies) and the
opportunity costs of lost wages by reducing work hours to
attend school. Potential strategies include working with state
governments on new forms of tuition assistance and financial
incentives (targeted at low-wage workers or students attending
less than half time); expanding work-study programs (by allowing
more work hours or providing higher wages and by placements
with off-campus employers); and providing employer incentives
to make tuition reimbursement programs more available to low-wage
working students.
Student Support Service Approaches
Mounting aggressive outreach and marketing
campaigns. To bridge the information gap and make working
students aware of the support services available, colleges
may need to consider more aggressive outreach and marketing
campaigns. It may be useful to target low-wage working students
specifically, by marketing through community groups, civic
organizations, churches, and employers.
Providing on-campus child care. Focus
group participants clearly articulated a need for increased
availability of high-quality child care that better matches
the needs of student parents. Desired services include drop-in
child care, evening and weekend care, infant care, and on-campus
programs for older children and teenagers.
Creating on-campus student support centers.
Colleges could work with local welfare and workforce agencies
and with community-based organizations to provide academic
and personal counseling, financial aid assistance, on-campus
child care, and access to work-based safety net services so
that low-wage working students can access all the benefits
to which they are entitled (such as Food Stamps, EICs, health
insurance, and child care subsidies). Centralized support
services would give students one-on-one help in navigating
the college system, finding help for ongoing personal problems,
and dealing with external agencies.
Providing a welcoming, nondiscriminatory
environment. To address the discrimination issues raised
by focus group participants, community college administrators
and faculty should promote practices that foster a welcoming
environment. Students should not be discouraged from participating
in any program because of personal characteristics like age,
gender, race/ethnicity, or family status. Colleges can create
ongoing diversity training programs for administrators, faculty,
and staff; on-campus supports to assist students who face
unwelcoming classroom environments (including adult reentry
programs); and zero-tolerance policies enforced by senior
administrators.
Community Partnerships
Colleges will likely need to work with additional
partners — including employers, public welfare and workforce
agencies, and community-based organizations — to implement
the kinds of strategies outlined above. Such partnerships
could be structured in various ways: by locating staff of
agencies and community-based organizations (or even entire
public agencies) on campus; by placing college staff in community
locations to recruit potential students, provide instruction,
and offer academic or counseling services; and by coordinating
resources in ways that expand existing programs and support
services for low-wage working students.
|
