Take a look at this graph, showing college enrollment (in thousands of students) from the 1970s through 2005.
Source data: US Census Bureau
The red curve is what you probably expected. College enrollment increases fairly steadily with time. (The sharp dip in the late 70s is an artifact of changing the method of counting students).
But there’s a wrinkle. The red curve counts only undergraduates at four-year colleges. The blue curve shows the situation in America’s two-year colleges: community colleges, junior colleges, and technical colleges. Enrollment in our two-year colleges is flat, and has been so since the early 1990s. Before 1990, two-year college enrollment grew along with four-year enrollment.
Is the conventional wisdom that you need at least a bachelor’s degree to get any kind of worthwhile job now so entrenched that nobody thinks to go to a two-year school anymore?
Since I teach at a two-year school, the flat enrollment figures concern me. I worry that students who are perfectly capable of getting a two-year degree and a good job*** are being siphoned off by four-year schools – who then proceed to chew many of them up and spit them out without either a degree or useful job skills.
So, why are two-year college numbers so flat? Your thoughts?
***Who do you think has better job prospects? A new registered nurse with an associate’s degree in nursing, or someone who has just gotten their bachelor of arts in English?
off the top of my head …
it looks like the leveling off started at the beginning of the 90s.
save for the early recession, could the booming economy have something to do with folks feeling they could find a good-paying job without school? and then could the life scholarships lead more people to four-year degrees … but … and perhaps this would be an unfortunate … disenfranchise them from the whole school experience altogether?
“Who do you think has better job prospects? A new registered nurse with an associate’s degree in nursing, or someone who has just gotten their bachelor of arts in English?”
Of course the student with the AA in Nursing. Nursing is a high demand field. An English degree, BA, MA, Ph.D, is pretty worthless and limits your options to either teaching or editing. But seriously, compare apples to apples, you know better.
What is better: an AA in Nursing or a BS in Nursing. The BS every single time. I’ve actually observed both sets of students. In grad school I taught Organic Chem for the Nursing students (baby O-Chem, really). They were, as a whole, a very bright bunch of normal, 4-year college students. Fast forward 10 years, I observed a group of nursing students from Trident Tech doing their rotations at a local hospital. I have no idea how these kids even graduated from high school, let alone tied their shoes. Even the RNs wondered this.
How about an AA in english vs a BA in english. The BA every time. Just having the 4-year degree opens up doors. Take Boeing for instance, all you need for a job there is a 4-year degree. It doesn’t even matter what it’s in. Have a degree, you can get a job. This does not include the very specialized trades like welding and such, and of course janitorial and secretarial jobs.
2-year schools defenitely have their place. And from where I’m from it’s to be a springboard into a 4-year school. In Washington we have quite a few Community Colleges. They are an attractive option for a lot of students because they are cheap, and they have guaranteed credit transfer and enrollment to any of the schools in the Washington system (UW, WSU, WWU, CWU, EWU). Around here (Charleston), they seem to be more of a trade school, which are important in some fields.
But as a whole, times are changing. 30 years ago it used to be enough to have a high school education. Where does that get you now? “Do you want fries with that?” More and more jobs require 4-year degrees, whether they REALLY require it or not, but it’s probably a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Also, high school “guidance” counselors really push kids to either go to a 4-year school or the military (I learned this from my baby sitter, but it was similar for me 15 years ago). Which is sad, because there are a lot of things in between. Not every one is mentally or emotionally ready to either go or succeed in college. Besides, if everyone went to college who would sweep our streets, put up the billboards, or cook our meals? Oh yeah, the illegals, but that’s a different topic.
And also, what do you consider a good job? I’d say you have a good job. Could you get it with a 2-year degree? No.
What’s your thoughts about the flat enrollment?