Is Your Local Community College Any Good?

How do you know whether the community college you are thinking about attending is any good? For many students that might seem like an irrelevant question. They simply pick the closest campus.

Spending time evaluating different schools, however, can make a huge difference. Studies show that above average students can prosper just about anywhere, but students who need remedial help—and there are plenty in that category at community colleges—will face a much greater chance at success at enterprising schools that excel in educating.

Unfortunately, some community colleges are nothing more than
factories. Graduation rates are low, and interaction between students
and professors is rare and impersonal. At other community colleges,
engaged teachers and intimate class sizes energize and challenge students
who are well prepared academically. The bottom line: It would
be a huge mistake to assume that all community colleges are clones.

While researchers have devoted a lot of psychic energy to measuring
the quality of four-year colleges and universities, precious little
time has been devoted to whether quality learning is happening at

community colleges. Educators at the University of Texas in Austin,
however, are helping to fill this void.

University of Texas educators at the Community College Leadership
Program developed national benchmarks for academic excellence
at community colleges. But the program wasn’t content just to
develop academic benchmarks. Every year, it aims to see how schools
are measuring up by conducting its so-called Community College Survey
of Student Engagement (CCSSE).

Students in randomly selected classes at each participating community
college fill out surveys that ask questions highly correlated
with student learning and retention. Colleges use the results to examine
how they are running their campuses. But the surveys can also be
a goldmine to potential students since all the results are public. In
contrast, the individual school results of a similar survey conducted at
four-year schools, the National Survey of Student Engagement, are
not always released. CCSSE provides scores for individual schools on
its Web site (www.ccsse.org).

Not all schools participate in the survey, but you can use some of
the same questions when evaluating community colleges. The schools
are measured through five key benchmarks: active and collaborative
learning, student-faculty interaction, academic challenge, support for
learners, and student effort.

Here are some of the questions posted on the survey’s Web site
that students are asked:
Active and collaborative learning
• Did you ask questions in class or contribute to class discussions?
• Did you make a class presentation?
• Did you work with other students on projects during class?
Student-faculty interaction
• Did you discuss grades or assignments with a teacher?
• Did you talk to a teacher or advisor about career plans?
• Did you discuss ideas from your readings or classes with instructors outside class?


Academic challenge
• How many assigned textbooks, manuals, books, or book-length
packs of course readings did you read in the current school year?
• How many papers or reports of any length did you write?
• How often did you work harder than you thought you could to
meet an instructor’s standards or expectations?

Rankings and Community Colleges
When U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings are
released, community colleges are never included on the lists. Considering
the controversy that the rankings fuel, that’s not a bad thing. But
some education insiders believe that ranking community colleges is a
worthwhile pursuit.

Washington Monthly created a stir in 2007 when it published a list
of what it called the 30 best community colleges in the country. Education
Sector, a well-regarded education think tank, compiled the list.
Education Sector was looking for schools that fared the best in the
five areas that the survey measures. The organization also independently
obtained community college graduation rates. Those rates are
definitely worth looking at since a minority of community college students
earn a degree or certificate within three years.

The attempt to single out exemplary two-year colleges, however,
created some unhappy campers. CCSSE guardians at the University
of Texas wouldn’t cooperate with the Education Sector. The project’s
director was quoted as saying that ranking community colleges was a
“really dumb idea.” The opponents complained that rankings would
ignore important differences in two-year colleges, such as the kind of
students they attract, their size, and their financial resources.

But the community college rankings are a heck of a lot different
from U.S. News & World Report’s controversial rankings of four-year
schools. The news magazine relies heavily on a school’s reputation in
determining its collegiate pecking order. It also places a heavy emphasis
on how selective the schools are, as well as the weight of their
endowments.


Education Sector has rightly criticized U.S. News & World
Report’s rankings for failing to measure what’s truly important—the
learning experience for students who actually enroll. And that’s why
Education Sector and the Washington Monthly’s collaboration is valuable.
Their list is dependent on what’s actually happening in the classrooms.

Best 30 Community Colleges
In the Washington Monthly’s list, smaller colleges rose to the top.
Nineteen schools have enrollments of fewer than 2,000, and eight of
the institutions had fewer than 1,000 students.
1. Atlanta Technical College, Georgia
2. Cascadia Community College, Washington State
3. Southern University at Shreveport, Louisiana
4. Southwestern Community College, North Carolina
5. Hazard Community and Technical College, Kentucky
6. North Florida Community College, Florida
7. Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College, Wisconsin
8. Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, Kentucky
9. Zane State College, Ohio
10. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Georgia
11. Texas State Technical College-Marshall, Texas
12. Lake City Community College, Florida
13. Itasca Community College, Minnesota
14. South Piedmont Community College, North Carolina
15. Vermillion Community College, Minnesota
16. Hawaii Community College, Hawaii
17. Ellsworth Community College, Iowa
18. Chipola College, Florida

19. Martin Community College, North Carolina
20. Texas State Technical College-West Texas, Texas
21. South Texas College, Texas
22. Skagit Valley College, Washington
23. Valencia Community College, Florida
24. MiraCosta College, California
25. Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Florida
26. New Hampshire Community and Technical College, New Hampshire
27. Frank Phillips College, Texas
28. Mesabi Range Community and Technical College, Minnesota
29. Northwest Vista College, Texas
30. New Mexico State University-Grants, New Mexico



Action Plan
Don’t assume that the closest community college is your best bet.
Refer to the questions formulated by the Community College Survey
of Student Engagement when researching schools.
Source: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price

Why Community Colleges Are Popular?

While the Ivy League and other elite schools fuel much of the angst that envelops the college admission process, these elitist campuses welcome only an infinitesimal fraction of college freshmen. By far, the largest number of kids head off to community colleges.

In fact, that’s where 45% of all freshmen end up. With roughly 1,200 community colleges in existence, campuses are located within commuting distance of more than 90% of Americans.

There are many reasons why so many teenagers, as well as older
students, choose two-year schools. Cost is a biggie. The average
tuition, according to the American Association of Community Colleges,
was recently $2,272 versus $5,836 for a four-year public institution.
Even with the low cost, nearly half of community college
students receive financial aid.

Community colleges can also be a bargain in ways that many people
completely overlook. Despite the modest cost, these colleges offer
an antidote to the cavernous lecture halls that many underclassmen at
state universities must tolerate. Community colleges allow students to
take the same required general education classes in a far more intimate
setting than those taught at universities.

With smaller classes, community college students can get to know
their professors in a way that a freshman enrolled in an introductory
class at a university can rarely experience. In fact, community college
professors teach their own classes unlike many of their counterparts at
four-year universities, where research is a primary preoccupation. It’s
unlikely that you will find teaching assistants at community colleges.
Students at community colleges are also in a better position to elicit
their teachers’ help.

Community colleges are also trying to become more attractive to
the sort of high school graduates who normally would hop directly to a
four-year school. Motivated kids can save a ton of money by starting at
a two-year school. To attract these students, an increasing number of
schools are offering honors classes. Those with honors programs
include Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey; Miami
Dade (Florida) College; Pima County Community College in Tucson,
Arizona; Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio; Valencia Community
College in Orlando, Florida; and Joliet (Illinois) Junior College,
which is considered the oldest public community college in the nation.

About 20% of the 800 institutions in the National Collegiate Honors
Council, which sets standards for honors programs, belong to community
colleges. You can find community colleges in the council by
visiting its Web site at www.nchchonors.org.

To serve their students better, a growing number of community
colleges are trashing their original mandate and turning into four-year
institutions for a limited number of disciplines. Some schools, such as
Miami Dade College, St. Petersburg (Florida) College, and Northern
New Mexico College in Espanola, New Mexico, dropped community
from their names to reflect their new mission.

Some students see community colleges as a temporary pit stop
because their grades aren’t good enough for the schools they covet.
Through open admission policies, community colleges routinely
admit anyone with a high school diploma or GED regardless of a student’s
standardized test scores or high school transcript.

Still others consider a two-year school as a good place to start since
they have no idea what majors they might want to explore. Community
colleges can also be a good fit for those who want or need to work

while getting an education. Many schools have evening and online
classes.

About half of community college freshmen don’t intend to earn a
bachelor’s degree. Some community college programs don’t require a
two-year commitment. An amazing 50% of new nurses and the majority
of other health-care workers attend community colleges.

Hottest Community College Careers
According to the American Association of Community Colleges,
these are the five most popular programs on two-year college campuses:
1. Registered nursing
2. Law enforcement
3. Licensed practical nursing
4. Radiology
5. Computer technologies

Dorm Life and Community Colleges
Some students hesitate to attend a two-year school because they
want to experience living on a campus. Traditionally, few community
colleges offered housing, and those that did were typically confined to
rural areas that draw students from a wider area than urban schools.

But that’s all changing. An increasing number of schools are building
dorms as they become a popular choice. According to the American
Association of Community Colleges, 240 public community
colleges and 70 private ones offer dormitories.

Private two-year schools are typically referred to as junior colleges
and public schools are called community colleges. There are 987 public
community colleges and 177 independent schools. Another 31 are
tribal community colleges.


Here are just a few of the private junior colleges, some also offer
baccalaureate degrees, that maintain dorms:
Alvernia College, Reading, Pennsylvania
Andrew College, Cuthbert, Georgia
Dean College, Franklin, Massachusetts
Fisher College, Boston, Massachusetts
Harcum College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Holy Cross College, Notre Dame, Indiana
Landmark College, Putney, Vermont
Lincoln College, Lincoln, Illinois
Mount St. Mary’s College, Los Angeles, California
Spartanburg Methodist College, Spartanburg, South Carolina


Action Plan
A community college can provide a more intimate and far cheaper
learning experience for freshmen and sophomores.
Source: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price

Considering a Community College In Your Research

If you expect to attend a community college, it’s only natural to feel left out if your friends are heading out of town for college. That was what was on the mind of a teenage girl, who posted her frustrations on the Web site of Inside Higher Ed.

The student lamented that her friends were all focused on leaving home and having experiences, such as living in a dorm, that she wouldn’t have. “At my graduation,” she wrote, “college talk was common.
When people found out that I was attending the (local) community college, the response that I got more often-than-not was ‘Oh? Community college? I’m sorry.’”

The teenager came to the right spot to share her angst. She
received an encouraging response from a community college dean,
who is a regular blogger on the Web site devoted to higher ed news.
In commiserating with the student, the dean, who writes anonymously
on community college issues, noted that it makes no difference where
you start a college career, but it does matter what you do with the education
you receive.


The dean attended what he called a SLAC (snooty liberal arts college).
The price tag was so high that he didn’t pay off the last loan until
he was 35 years old. Here is a snippet of his advice:

If you’re worried about beer or boyfriends, don’t be. There
will be plenty of opportunity for both. (A clarinetist I briefly
dated once said, in apparent seriousness, “Men are like buses.
If I miss one, there’ll be another in fifteen minutes.” I couldn’t
decide if that was mere callousness or comic genius.) Dorms
are a lot less interesting than they’re cracked up to be. Friends
will be made wherever, and the upside of the tough job market
for professors is that some really great professors can be found
just about anywhere.

If you go the community college route, my advice would be to
demand from it the fullest experience it can offer. Join a few
clubs, plug into the grapevine, look for an honors program,
join Phi Theta Kappa (community college honors organization)
if/when you can, get involved.

If you choose to treat it as less than a “real college,” that’s what
you’ll get. But if you take ownership of your experience, you’ll
be well ahead of your peers elsewhere who drink their way
through indifferent studies. And yes, you’ll have much lower
loan payments when you get out, which means you’ll have
more options. This is not to be sneezed at.

If you’re considering attending a community college, keep reading.
In the next three chapters, you’ll learn how to evaluate community
colleges and increase your chances of being prepared for the
ultimate leap to a four-year school.


Action Plan
A community college can be an excellent way to begin your college experience.
Source: The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price

Educational leadership for community development

Values
There is a profound ethical base to such leadership. At its heart are the principles of equity and entitlement. This is extended into the belief that a crucial component of the educational process is the fight for social justice. Economic, social and cultural poverty is a major barrier to educational opportunity. Leadership in this context is about more than fighting discrimination – it is about the active promotion of a society based on positive acceptance and engagement. Many schools have a distinguished record of promoting equity, but the strategy has to be actively promulgated in the community if it is to be sustainable.
When individuals (students, teachers, parents) are bound to shared ideas, values, beliefs, and frameworking, bonds of fellowship emerge which empower the membership as a whole.
(Sergiovanni, 2001: 66)

The school becomes a microcosm, a model, of the ideal for the community but this has to be extended if it is to be sustainable. While the moral foundations give a community authenticity, it is in the extension into the broader community that it becomes sustainable:
The system of shared values and beliefs creates an identity among the members of a social network, based on a sense of belonging. Thus the social network is engaged in communication within a cultural boundary which its members continually recreate and renegotiate. Social boundaries … are … boundaries of meaning and expectations.
(Capra, 2002: 76)

It is a key function of leadership to extend the boundaries of shared meaning and expectations.

Vision
School leaders have become increasingly familiar with the concept of having a vision as to how the school should be in the future. This has to be extended into the whole community. Indeed it is difficult to see how a vision for an institution could be developed without reference to the wider community. Such a vision might include reference to:

• shared values and vision
• social cohesion
• economic growth
• the development of a learning community
• inclusiveness
• safety and security.

Such a vision will be subject to regular review and change – the speed of social, economic and technological change requires regular, fundamental review of the vision:

Leadership consists in facilitating the emergence of novelty. This means creating conditions rather than giving directions, and giving the power of authority to empower others … Being a leader means creating a vision: it means going where nobody has gone before. It also means enabling the community as a whole to create something new.
(Capra, 2000: 106)


Relationships
Relationships are the life-blood of the community; they translate aspirations into experience and are the single most powerful signifiers of communication and culture. Our judgements about almost all social interactions, membership of organisations and communities are usually expressed in terms of our perceptions of the quality of relationships. The value of a friendship is not measured in terms of its technical efficiency but rather in terms of the level of emotional engagement. Although Goleman (2002: 192) is discussing organisations in the following extract, the principles can be readily applied to communities; the purpose is:
… to foster emotionally intelligent leadership widely and deeply at every level, and to systematically create norms and a culture that support truth and transparency, integrity, empathy, and healthy relationships.

For Goleman the powerful leadership style is the authoritative or visionary which is expressed and described through relational behaviours – self-confidence, selfawareness and empathy. Relationships are fundamental to the creation of social capital – in fact it is not exaggerating to say that social capital is found in relationships and networks and the level of engagement in a community is directly proportional to the quality of interpersonal interaction. It is a primary responsibility of the leader both to model and facilitate such relationships.

An example of the importance of this institutional level is found in Bryte and Schneider’s (2002) study of trust in schools. They regard trust as the ‘connective tissue’ which enables schools to work effectively. Trust is defined in their study as having four components:

• respect
• competence
• personal regard
• integrity.

In their research, Bryte and Schneider found that schools with high levels of trust have a one in two chance of making significant improvements. Schools with low levels of trust have only a one in seven chance of improving. In this group only schools that made improvements in trust made improvements in academic performance.


The research showed that the integrity of social relationships was an essential precursor to any form of improved performance by the school. It is not unreasonable to postulate that the evidence from Chicago schools in this study, coupled with the example from New Mexico cited above, points to the quality of human relationships in the institution and the community as vital prerequisites to change and growth.

Learning
Communities are healthy when they are learning; in fact a definition of a community would have to include a capacity to grow and develop in an organic way. Again, it is a significant component of leadership both to model and facilitate effective learning at individual and community level. Wenger (1998) develops a social theory of learning around the concept of communities of practice which are to be found in every domain of human activity – in fact they are a way of explaining human activity. Significantly, in the context of the critique
of schools earlier in this book, he argues:
In spite of curriculum, discipline and exhortation, the learning that is most personally transformative turns out to be the learning that involves membership of communities of practice.
(Wenger, 1998: 6)

For Wenger learning ‘is part of our participation in our communities’ (p.8). He argues that a community develops coherence through the relationship between three dimensions:

• mutual engagement – people engage in actions whose meanings they negotiate with each other (p.73);
• a joint enterprise – negotiation and mutual accountability (p.77);
• a shared repertoire – shared stories, tools, discourses, styles, concepts and artefacts (p.82).

It is the function of the teacher to allow this to happen and to actively promote these dimensions. The most successful leadership teams, project groups, classrooms, drama and musical performances in schools share high coherence in these three elements. It might be thought of as another manifestation of high social capital.
All the traditional taxonomies of leadership can be subsumed into the notions of the creation of communities of practice; not in the sense of structural or organisational interventions, but creating the supportive infrastructure that recognises the dynamic, interactive and complex nature of community learning:
The aliveness of an organisation – its flexibility, creative potential and learning capability – resides in its informal communities of practice.
(Capra, 2002: 97)


Resources
The development of social capital is contingent, to a significant degree, on the availability of economic capital. The availability of resources is a fundamental component of community regeneration and sustainability. Equally the process of social change is a function of economic security and well-being. Economic and social entrepreneurship are in a symbiotic relationship. This is not to argue that poverty precludes the existence of social capital. High social capital can exist in poor communities and wealth is no guarantee of high social capital.

What is significant is the level of social engagement and poverty does tend to minimise the motivation to engage. Long-term poverty is socially debilitating – it creates a vicious downward spiral which can become self-reinforcing across the generations. Loss of hope leads to loss of aspirations and expectations. There is increasing evidence of the neurological and psychological implications of poverty, especially on children’s capacity to learn.

It may well be therefore that one dimension of educational leadership for community renewal is engagement in economic entrepreneurship. This seems far beyond historic expectations of school management – and it is.
Educationalists do not necessarily make good capitalists, but in many communities the schools are reservoirs of very high leadership and management expertise. Schools are major resources in their own right – just think of the ICT resources in most schools, inadequate by most criteria but often lying idle for 85 per cent of the year.

Too often education has seen business as a source of handouts and business has seen education as a means of marketing to the young. There are, perhaps, opportunities to see schools not as venture capitalists but as key partners in creating employment and injecting resources into the community. Schools are one of the most powerful sources of networking in the communities – and networks are powerful precursors to economic success. Putnam (2000: 325) cautiously argues that:
… social capital of the right sort boosts economic efficiency, so that if our networks of reciprocity deepen, we will all benefit, and if they atrophy, we will all pay dearly. There appears to be a clear equation linking economic, social and academic success, with education contributing to all three and schooling only directly to the latter.
Read More :  Educational leadership for community development

What's Next After Community College?: Four-Year Colleges Will Want You!

Community college can be a stepping stone to further education at a four-year institution. Four-year colleges understand that community colleges produce students who will be valuable additions to their campuses. In fact, studies have shown that community college graduates who transfer to four-year colleges and universities perform academically as well as students who have been directly admitted to those institutions^.

Aim as high as you like when you start thinking about transferring to a four-year institution. Community college transfer students can be found at many private and public colleges and universities across the nation, including highly selective ones such as Smith College, the University of Michigan, and Columbia University, among others. Many state universities and college systems favor qualified students who transfer from a community college in their state and make it easier for them to enroll and gain credit for their community college coursework.

Because you and you alone are ultimately responsible for ensuring your credits get transferred, you'll need to understand the transfer process and requirements. Your community college transfer office, as well as the transfer office of the four-year institution where you intend to apply, will be your best sources of information. You'll also need to get an early start, and the transfer timeline later in this chapter will be helpful to your planning process.

SNAPSHOT: Pamela Karwasinski was 40 when she was admitted to prestigious Smith College after graduating from Atlantic County (now Cape) Community College (New Jersey). Married and a mother at an early age, Pamela grew up in a rural area of New Jersey in an economically depressed family under difficult circumstances. In her twenties she returned to school for her GED. After she separated from her husband, she realized she needed more education. Through the help of a local community college guidance counselor she enrolled in the college's displaced homemakers program, which she attended for a year before moving and enrolling in ACCC.

"I wasn't convinced that I could do well, especially as I ­hadn't done well in high school. I started getting A's in classes like math. That really boosted my self-esteem, especially when I realized I was earning those A's through hard work; no one was giving them to me. When I was ready to graduate, a friend told me about Smith College's Ada Comstock Scholars Program for nontraditional-age women whose education has been interrupted. I didn't think I was good enough to be among the best of the best women students in the country, plus only 60 are chosen each year from a few hundred applicants. Friends encouraged me to apply. My community college professors wrote me recommendations. I was accepted not only to Smith, but also to Mt. Holyoke College, Rutgers University, Lesley College, as well as to my local college, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey."

Start the Transfer Process Early

If you know you'll want to continue for your bachelor's degree when you enroll in community college, then start investigating the transfer process your first semester. Why? Because you must be sure that the courses you take will be transferable to the four-year institution of your choice and that you start your transfer process in a timely manner so you get admitted when you plan to attend.

Edwin Roman, transfer and articulation advisor, Bronx Community College (New York) counsels, "Many students are confused about what degrees and coursework are most transferable. If you're getting an AAS in Accounting, you're training to be a bookkeeper and to go to work immediately. If you're getting an AS degree in Business with an accounting major, however, you're getting a degree and coursework that can be more easily transferred if you decide to go on. If you don't understand the difference, you can end up with the wrong degree and credits that aren't acceptable for transfer to a four-year institution. You may end up taking extra coursework and spending time and money that wouldn't have been necessary. Don't be afraid to ask for help in understanding the transfer process and how to plan so you're on the right track."

You also want to be sure that you can transfer the maximum number of credits so that you don't have to repeat coursework for which you have already paid at community college or take additional coursework to meet the four-year institution's requirements. You may want to take only a few courses at community college before transferring to a four-year institution, but you still want to be sure those credits transfer.

Get Expert Advice

Transferring can be complicated even when transfer or articulation agreements are in place between your community college and four-year institutions. If you enroll in a transfer degree program or you just want to transfer a few courses to a four-year institution, your best course of action is to speak with an advisor in your community college's transfer office and to a transfer advisor at the four-year institution that interests you. These advisors will be your best sources of information for helping you understand the transfer program and process.
Transfer advisors can help you:

• Discover information about the transfer process at four-year institutions that interest you.
• Understand the academic requirements needed for a successful transfer.
• Develop a transfer plan of action to make sure you'll be on track with appropriate coursework.
• Gather information about the college's articulation agreements and others types of agreements with four-year institutions. It is helpful to read your community college's articulation agreement with the particular four-year college that you're interested in attending.

Transfer advisors can also tell you about other resources, such as:

• Transfer workshops and newsletters
• College transfer fairs, where you can speak to admissions offices from in-state and out-of-state four-year colleges and universities
• Visits organized by your college to local four-year institutions, as well as other college preview days or open houses
• Transfer guides or sheets that show transfer and admissions requirements for four-year institutions and their programs to help you plan your strategy and timetable for applying
• Electronic links to transfer offices of four-year institutions; plus print resources such as college catalogs, financial aid guides, college applications, and more

Your advisor can help you understand the requirements and map out a plan that will prepare you for a smooth transfer. Again, however, it's ultimately your responsibility to research and understand the transfer process and find out what will or will not transfer.

Remember, you will still need to apply and be admitted to the four-year college of your choice. With the right planning, you may be able to enter a four-year institution with junior standing or have advanced standing in a major or bachelor's degree program that interests you. You may still need to meet other requirements of the four-year institution or your major but you'll be ahead in terms of credits that will count toward your bachelor's degree.

Early on, when you know where you want to go, speak with the four-year institution's transfer advisor and check out the transfer information on their Web site. Joan Jagodnik, assistant director of community college relations at Portland State University (Oregon), observes, "It's helpful for students to speak not only with their community college advisors, but also to get advice from the four-year institution. In a sense, they can work backwards by first getting the general education, major, degree, and transfer requirements from the four-year institution and then matching up their program at community college to those requirements. There are lots of opportunities to meet with transfer advisors from four-year institutions. Three or four times a term, for example, we send advisors to community colleges in the area. Students can bring their transcripts to see if they are on track for transfer. Our office is also equipped with multiple resources for anyone who wants to come in to get advice about transferring."

TIP: Some state education systems have online transfer information for their colleges and universities. These systems allow students and advisers to look up course equivalencies and courses recommended for specific majors, and sometimes to evaluate students' courses and grades to determine course equivalencies at transfer institutions. The Maryland ARTSYS (http://artweb.usmd.edu) shows recommended transfer programs for all Maryland public institutions and many private institutions. You can see what courses to take at a Maryland community college that will transfer smoothly into a specific major at a four-year institution. Check with your transfer office to see if an online system is available in your state.

Four-year institutions, especially those that have a high percentage of transfer students from community colleges, are very sensitive to your needs and concerns. Take advantage of their expertise and transfer office services. Their goal is to ease your transition to the college or university and to give you a point of contact on campus even before you become a student there.

 
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What Can I Study at Community College: Job Projections and Median Earnings

Click HereCommunity colleges are great places to start the next phase of your education because they offer so many options, both in courses of study and paths to achieve your goals.
Just look at any community college catalog or at the programs listed at the college's Web site. You'll find a wide choice of subjects to study, from accounting to computer technology, to nursing, to automotive mechanics, to personal finances. Remember that community colleges are geared to responding to the needs of the local and national economies, so you'll find coursework related to filling jobs in areas of high demand. Obviously, not every course of study is available at every community college, but you should be able to find a program that suits your needs and interests.
According to a recent study by the American Association of Community Colleges, the top five fields of study, or "hot" programs where community college graduates are in high demand, are:

• allied health such as registered nursing, licensed practical nursing, and radiologic technology.
• information technologies such as computer technologies, networking, and graphic design.
• industrial skilled trades such as automotive technology, construction, welding, and trucking.
• business such as general business, paralegal studies, and accounting.
• public services such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and homeland security.

Community colleges are flexible and responsive to local and national needs so they can add programs to meet new concerns, such as homeland security, and can discontinue those with low enrollment or declining demand from business and industry. You'll want to remember this as you begin your studies.

FAST FACT: Community colleges train over 50 percent of new nurses and about 85 percent of first-responders such as firefighters, law enforcement officers, and emergency medical technicians.

As you begin to think about what you want to study, consider some of the projections from the U.S. Department of Labor for the years 2004 until 2014.
Computer and healthcare occupations are expected to grow the fastest"that is, they will have the largest percentage of change in the number of available jobs; they will also add 1.8 million jobs during this time. When you look at the educational and training requirements for the occupations that will adding the most new jobs, here's what is expected:

Postsecondary Vocational Award

• Nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants
• Pre-school teachers, except special education
• Automotive service technicians and mechanics
• Licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses
• Hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists

Associate's Degree

• Registered nurses
• Computer support specialists
• Dental hygienists
• Paralegals and legal assistants
• Medical records and health information technicians

If you're looking a little farther into your own future and are thinking of going on to a four-year college, these occupations will be adding the most jobs that require a:

Bachelor's degree

• Elementary school teachers (except special education)
• Accountants and auditors
• Computer software engineers/applications
• Computer systems analysts
• Secondary school teachers (except special and vocational education)

What Can I Earn?

No matter what path you've chosen in community college, your education will increase your earning ability now and throughout your lifetime. Here are recent U.S. Census Bureau figures on median earnings (median is the midway point in the salary range) for various levels of education:

                                                         Median Earnings

Less than high school graduate	$18,144
High school graduate (includes equivalency degree)	$25,360
Some college or associate's degree	$30,891
Bachelor's degree	$42,404
Graduate or professional degree	$55,065

FIND OUT MORE

• The best source of information about the full range of programs and training available to you will be found at your community college's Web site and through its publications, such as the college catalog and the schedule of classes.
• The U.S. Department of Labor's Web site (www.bls.gov) and especially its Occupational Handbook (www.bls.gov/oco/home) are great resources of information about the "hot" areas of employment and educational or training requirements.
• www.careervoyages.gov is a federal government Web site  that provides up-to-date information about careers, occupations that are in demand, and growth industries for students, parents, and individuals who are changing careers, as well as for career advisors. You'll find information about certificate and two-year degree programs and other alternatives to four-year courses of study.