Building Up Job Training

Community colleges are thrilled that President Obama is planning a major infusion of federal support for their job training programs, and they are talking about how this might best be done.

The latest indication that such an announcement is imminent came Wednesday, when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who was speaking at a meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, said it is the president’s goal to help 5 million more students through the community college system in the next 10 years than is currently projected. There are now 11.5 million students in the country’s two-year institutions, and some experts predict that this figure will nearly double in the coming decade. View entire article here.

'Cash-Poor, Bond-Rich'

California's community colleges are reeling in response to projected state budget cuts, and the nine institutions comprising the Los Angeles Community College District are no exception. The district's Board of Trustees, anticipating a budget reduction in the range of $60 to $80 million, recently took the unprecedented step of canceling all summer session classes beginning on or after July 1, eliminating more than 1,600 classes and affecting as many as 40,000 students district-wide, officials estimate.

Amid this doom and gloom is a seeming incongruity – the LA Community College District is in the midst of a $5.7 billion building boom -- a green building boom, financed by voter-approved bonds. With the passage of Propositions A and AA in 2001 and 2003, voters approved a $2.2 billion funding stream -- and, just last November, added another $3.5 billion to the pot with the passage of Measure J. “Cash-poor, bond-rich” is a common phrase on campus, says Jennifer C. Fong, the public relations manager at Los Angeles Valley College. View entire article here.

BOND ISSUE(S)

Rudy Hasl has no illusions about his luck. If Thomas Jefferson Law School hadn't issued its bond for a new downtown campus precisely when it did --- Aug. 27, 2008 -- the school's president knows he wouldn't be talking about new buildings today.

“This was probably Merrill Lynch’s last higher education financing deal,” Hasl said recently.

As observers of the economic meltdown will recall, Merrill Lynch & Co. – a pioneer of the finance industry laid low by the housing crisis – merged with Bank of America in mid-September. It was only two months earlier that Standard & Poor’s had downgraded Thomas Jefferson Law School’s credit rating from “BBB-“ to “BB+,” moving the school into a class of institutions that face “major ongoing uncertainties” and may have trouble making bond payments, according to S&P’s ratings. View entire article here.

Annuity Quandary

The economic downturn has turned the business of higher education into a school of hard knocks, forcing investment chiefs to rethink strategies that may have been highly lucrative just a few years ago. While there are indications that some colleges will re-evaluate their overall investment approaches, it’s likely that they’ll reserve the most conservative strategies for assets garnered through annuities, which are gifts colleges can't fully collect until after the donor's death.

Colleges have increasingly made annuities part of their fund raising portfolio in recent decades, in large part because they give peace of mind to donors who want to pledge gifts but worry about needing money in the future. The arrangements allow donors to give cash or other assets in exchange for lifetime monthly payments of pre-designated amounts. The colleges get to keep whatever is left when the donor or donors die, and typically that’s about 50 percent of the value of the initial gift. While the donor or donors oftentimes receive the annuity payments themselves, there are arrangements in which a donor can designate another annuitant. View entire article here.

The Distance Ed Tipping Point

As colleges moved into distance education, many questions were raised about how they could serve this new group of students. And colleges responded, with new ideas about online learning resources, academic advising online and so forth.

But what about after distance education takes off? At what point does the question shift from what a college does to offer quality online programs to how a college needs to change in its entirety when it reaches a tipping point in enrollments -- and at what point does such a change take place? View entire article here.

New CWED Report Profiles Successful Community College Partnerships, Provides Tools and Resources for Economic Development

Funded by MetLife Foundation, AACC's Center for Workforce and Economic Development has published a new report that profiles successful community college workforce development partnerships and leading tools and resources from across the country. The report is called "Sustaining Partnerships for Regional Economic Growth."

Click here to download a copy of the report. (PDF)

 

McLennan Community College trustees officially name Johnette McKown the college's next president

McLennan Community College trustees Tuesday night officially named Johnette McKown to become the third president in the college’s more than 40 years.

McKown, MCC’s executive vice president, will replace President Dennis Michaelis, who will retire at the end of August.

Trustees initially conducted a national search for the next MCC president but chose someone closer to home. MCC officials say her 20 years of experience at the college are expected to serve her well in the new role.

After working in various positions at Paris Junior College, McKown, a Louisiana native, came to MCC in 1989. From 1989 until 2002, she was MCC’s vice president of business services and has worked closely with Michaelis as executive vice president since 2002.

McKown and several people who have worked with her spoke with the Tribune-Herald about her qualifications and the challenges that lay ahead.  View entire article here.

 

Community Colleges Growing and Growing Up

Community colleges enroll one-third of all postsecondary students, many of whom have impressive GPAs and standardized test scores. They aspire to advanced degrees based on their educational experience there.

In 2006–07, there were 1,045 U.S. community colleges, and they enrolled 6.2 million students, or 35 percent of all U.S. college students, that year. The number of CCs had increased 17 percent from 1974, compared with 20 percent growth in private colleges and 39 present in public universities.

Community College 2008 Special Analysis profiles students who enroll in community colleges immediately after high school and those who enter postsecondary education at any time in their lives. The report is published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

With campus enrollments ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 students, about 62 percent of CC students were enrolled part time in 2006. That compared with 27 percent of students at public 4-year campuses and 25 percent of students at private 4-year campuses. Community colleges are spread out geographically, while public schools tend to be in urban areas.
Average annual CC tuition and fees are less than half the amounts charged at public 4-year campuses and one-tenth the amounts at private 4-year colleges and universities.

Two-thirds of CC faculty members have part-time appointments. They are likely to have a master’s degree or less and do little or no research. As a percentage, more women and minorities are teaching at community colleges.
Among the high school seniors of 2004, 28 percent who enrolled at a community college intended to use it as a stepping-stone to a bachelor’s degree. An additional 39 percent revised their original plans to attend a 4-year college and instead began their postsecondary education at a community college.

Bachelor’s aspirations were raised even among 2004 high school seniors who enrolled immediately in a community college with no intention of pursuing any education higher than an associate’s degree.

Yet persistence and graduation rates at community colleges remain fragile, and they lag behind four-year schools. By 2006, forty-five percent of 2003-04 community college freshmen had left school without earning a degree or certificate.

Sixteen percent of students entering a community college in 2003–04 earned a degree or certificate by 2006, and 40 percent had not, but were still enrolled.  View entire article here.

 

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