According to a study released Thursday by the American Institutes for Research, the nation’s taxpayers spent nearly $1 billion educating community college students who drop out within a year during the 2008-09 school year. The study found that nationally, about one in five community college students don't return for a second year.
Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, said the study isn't an attack on community colleges, "But the fact is, they have low success rates," he said.
The study looked only at students enrolled for the first time, as full-time students, and considered state and local tax appropriations for those students, as well as the state and federal financial aid they received.
One of the main problems is that many high school graduates and GED recipients are not academically prepared for college-level work. I personally saw this when I first started teaching at my community college in 1970. Many entering students could not read, write, spell or do simple math and had to be enrolled in remedial courses.
It has also been my experience that many disadvantaged students who received federal Pell Grants, took the money and ran soon after they received it.
The number of dropouts rose sharply once the Viet Nam war ended. Many students stayed in the college only to avoid military service. A liberal college administration encouraged the faculty not to give male students failing grades so they wouldn’t be taken by the military and sent to Viet Nam.
What a waste of the taxpayers money!
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