How One Community College Works to Get Transfer Students More Education

For some students, two years of schooling at a community college is all they’re interested in. But for others, it’s just a stepping stone to more education.
Two-year schools overwhelmingly enroll low-income, minority, and first-generation students, while California’s four-year universities have a disproportionate number of white students coming from wealthy families, according to National Journal.
The state’s community colleges are pioneers in building a bridge between the two types of institutions, and Santa Monica College — having stressed a culture of transferring within the school — seeks to provide disadvantaged students with more opportunities.
Santa Monica College’s success is due to its programs that help students navigate the application process. Not only does its class schedule help students enroll in courses that four-year universities require, the two-year school also holds workshops, visits, and sessions with “admission evaluators” from four-year colleges in the area.
The school is equipped with 45 full-time and 70 part-time counselors who provide extensive guidance during the transfer application process, and as deadlines draw near, these counselors create “panic rooms” to help students complete their applications.
“We sit with them, we hold their hands, we read their essay,” Brenda Benson, the college’s dean of counseling and retention, told National Journal.
Transferring more students into the University of California four-year system than any other community college in the state, it’s clear that Santa Monica College is leading by example. If more community colleges across the United States offered these programs and services, minority students from low-income families would have the same opportunities as white students from affluent backgrounds — ensuring a diverse student body that can produce a competitive workforce.
MORE: How Portland, Ore., Is Translating Student Grit Into Success

When Veterans Leave the Service, This College Helps Them Process Their Experience

Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, N.C. knows all too well how difficult the transition from military to civilian life can be. So last year Dina Greenberg, a teaching assistant at the school, started StoryForce, a writing group for veterans, along with some fellow teachers. And the college has enrolled more than 900 military veterans over the past year alone.
Thomas Rhodes was one of the StoryForce’s early, eager recruits. The Gulf War veteran has been devouring stories and books since he was a kid, but hadn’t considered writing about his war experiences until he joined the group. For the first time he wrote about how his friend Clarence Cash was killed in action 1991. Rhodes wrote about Cash in the story, “Me, Johnny Cash and the Gulf War,” recording memories he’d been suppressing for twenty years. The story concludes with Rhodes’ “Poem for the Fallen Soldier”:
Today I gave my life for a cause
No hesitation, no pause
Today was a good day.
Greenberg has researched the effects of PTSD, and thought writing would be therapeutic for the veterans. “We created a space where people felt comfortable enough to open up and share,” she told Pressley Baird of the Jacksonville Daily News. “It’s low-key. It’s not about course credit; it’s not about feeling like you’ve got an assignment and something that’s due next week. This is a place for you to feel safe. This is a place for you to feel that people are listening.”
MORE: Writing Helps Veterans Go From Victims to Victors 
 

What If We Could Nearly Double the Graduation Rate of Community College Students With One Simple Idea?

While 80% of community college students say their goal is to earn an associate’s degree in a two-year program, only a third go on to graduate with a certificate or degree within six years. While community colleges offer flexibility and accessibility, they often don’t have ways to give extensive support and guidance to the students who really need it. Which is one reason more community colleges may want to follow the example of the ASAP program at the community colleges of the City University of New York system. The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs initiative turns a community college education into a comprehensive, full-time commitment. The program helps pay tuition, loans books to students, places students in bi-weekly advising, provides extra tutoring, and both supports students and holds them accountable from remedial classes all the way through to their degree. Most importantly, the initiative teaches students to navigate an academic institution and how to plot a course to success, which the program is doing for itself — it’s already well on its way to its goal of a 50% graduation rate.