A college degree is one of the better bullet points to have on your résumé. And going to college is the best way to obtain said degree. Not everyone heads straight from high school to a four-year college or university—about half of the undergraduates in the U.S. are currently matriculating through community colleges. Financial, academic, or resident status red tape being the main reasons to attend a two-year vs. a four-year institution. But less than half of them actually accomplish their higher educational goals. Um, why? The theory is that while the community colleges are very accessible to a larger percentage of the population than are four-year institutions, the community colleges don’t do much in the way of support once the students are in and trying to do the actual learning and achieving of goals.

The state funding the community colleges receive is frequently based on enrollment, not on student success. There’s now a new plan afoot to base state funding on several measurable achieved goals.

Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count is a multiyear national initiative to help more community college students succeed. The initiative is particularly concerned about student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success, including students of color and low-income students. Achieving the Dream works on multiple fronts, including efforts at community colleges and in research, public engagement and public policy. It emphasizes the use of data to drive change.

Fifteen states have colleges participating in the Achieving the Dream initiative. Inside Higher Ed’s recent article explained in detail how the schools in Washington State could benefit from the program.

Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative rewards its colleges for helping students continue moving forward regardless of where they start or how far they may be from attaining their educational goals.

Washington’s community and technical colleges will receive extra money for students who earn their first 15 and first 30 college credits, earn their first 5 credits of college-level math, pass a pre-college writing or math course, make significant gains in certain basic skills tests, earn a degree or complete a certificate. Colleges also will be rewarded for students who earn a GED through their programs. All of these benchmarks are important accomplishments that help propel students forward on the road of higher education.

To base funding solely on enrollment numbers is lame and doesn’t help students once they’re attending the school. Which means I support the basic idea of student success-based funding. Teach your students well, have excellent advisors and tutoring centers and there will be more money for you. However, there is a slight disconnect for me regarding how this program will affect not only the traditional students this new program is geared for, but all the non-traditional community college students as well.

Community colleges have several student categories: transfer, transitional, high school concurrent, adult, international, professional/technical, and personal interest. How do they fit into the assessment program? Do they affect funding positively or negatively? Will they end up skewing the funding numbers? Or will they end up with little or no support because they don’t fit the traditional student criteria?

Obviously a student trying to earn their GED needs more support than the retirees taking Tai Chi. It’s not that I feel it’s supremely important that the underwater basket-weaving students receive as much guidance, advising and tutoring as the international transfer students, it’s that I don’t want this incentive program to cause the dissolution of all non-traditional courses at community colleges. I’ll be optimistic and hope the initiative positively affects the traditional students who need additional support and has no adverse effects on the non-traditional community college student population.

Further Reading:

Excellent explanation of how the Lumina Foundation selected colleges for the Achieving the Dream initiative.

American Association of Community Colleges Student Enrollment and Characteristics.

Profiles of colleges taking part in the Achieving the Dream initiative and their individual goals.

Press release regarding Texas schools.

Press release regarding Michigan schools.

Posted by Alexa Harrington