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Colleges capture president's attention
Colleges capture president's attention
Jul 22, 2009
Just as Rethink Erie has added a seasoned area educator to work on Erie's community college application, a significant endorsement for community colleges comes from the top.
In a July 12 Washington Post column, President Barack Obama said that community colleges can improve America's competitiveness.
"Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future. We can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses and ultimately meet the goal of graduating 5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020," Obama wrote in his Op-Ed piece, "Rebuilding something better."
Additional federal money for community colleges will come from streamlining student loan programs. With Erie's community college still in the planning stages, we may not benefit from this proposed reallocation. Yet the chance to start a new college could allow Erie to create a model program, nimble enough for the changing job market and committed to helping students graduate and succeed.
A July 20 Time Magazine story, "Can community colleges save the U.S. economy?" makes similar points about the link between access to low-cost education and employment. Writer Laura Fitzgerald describes how Austin Community College in Texas retooled its curriculum in 2000, "when Austin's semiconductor industry started tanking," to train solar installers. In August, the program will be compressed to two months, to train laid-off workers, who can earn up to $16 an hour as solar installers. A graduate of ACC's two-year program in renewable energy can earn as much as $28 an hour as a solar-installation team leader.
Erie's curriculum, of course, would be tailored to our own economy.
Both the Time writer and Robert Tomsho of the Wall Street Journal point out that community colleges need to improve graduation rates. About 36 percent of students nationwide attend two-year colleges, but "many need remedial classes; less than a third earn their associates degrees in three years of less," Tomsho wrote.
Rethink Erie has recently hired Judith Miller, retired North East school superintendent, as project coordinator for the community college plan. A grant from the Black Family Foundation covers her position.
Miller, who holds a law degree and has more than 35 years of experience as a teacher and administrator, says she knows how to prepare students to move to the next level. Miller, 59, applied for the Rethink Erie position because she and her husband want Erie, the place they chose for retirement, to prosper.
Her job includes seeking alternative funding sources for the college. It's good to know that President Obama might be part of that conversation.