The “cheaper” is cheaper for the student; analysis indicates that it doesn’t cost the state less to educate him or her in a college-level class in a CC.
if you graduated from the community college with a specific GPA or higher, the four year school was required to accept your application.
There is a thing called the “Colorado Model” - now followed by many states - in which such requirements are created and set by the legislature with little say on the part of the faculty at the 4-year institutions. This makes transfer far more convenient for students, and overall it works out pretty well for some students in some programs, though they probably would have been OK in any case. For others, especially those in tightly-integrated 4-year majors (such as engineering), it is a headache for the faculty, and the students start at a real disadvantage. For example, you simply can’t teach the same Calc I class in an open enrollment institution as you can in a more selective school, but a student who transfers into Calc IV now has no chance to backtrack.
In the current system there are many valid reasons to start your college career in a CC (your high-school-year-substitute seems like an especially good one), but ideally some access barriers to 4-year schools could be solved the same way CCs do, and my general sense is that almost all students who want a 4-year degree are best off getting into their 4-year institution as early in their academic career as they can.
According to one UM alum I know, UM isn’t Land Grant because it was founded prior to Michigan gaining statehood. Oh, OK, so that’s why there’s a State and Tech?
Why? Doesn’t her own inadequacies stand on their own? Why would we disqualify, or qualify, someone based on who they are related to? Should job applications go one step farther and ask “Were any of your family convicted of a crime?”
Don’t get me wrong, I find the family connections fascinating. But it’s still upon us to judge someone based upon the content of their heart.
(Oops, I may be replying to the wrong person, but I need to get ready for work. Sorry)
Where I went to school, you still had to fulfill prereqs so the student wanting Calv IV would still have to show that he or she did Calv I-III or the equivalent.
I am a little sad that I didn’t get my first two years on the big campus (and I lived at home for all of my undergraduate work) but the important thing was to graduate.
Sure, but two different Calc I courses might be very different depending on the difficulty of the problems assigned, the amount of theory covered or skipped, and which topics are glossed over in the interests of time (or to cater for a particular class’s strengths or weaknesses). This is the problem with articulation policies (and assessment policies!) that assume college courses are generic bags of information which can easily be substituted for other bags with the same label.
We all know that this is a debate about what is and isn’t worth subsidizing; so I’m just going to inflict a smarmy truism on you instead of providing any useful answers.
The more cut and dried issues of developing articulation agreements with schools, and funding are critical, but are only a part of what make public university systems necessary. I work for a branch of the City University of New York that is not a university, but rather a collection of tax levy and grant funded programs that help kids get into, and get through 2 and 4 year degrees in CUNY. We raise more money in grants than any of the other universities in the system, and it’s all necessary, and money well spent.
College is incredibly daunting for disadvantaged kids, especially if they are the first generation to take a crack at secondary ed. We have programs whose sole purpose is to make sure kids have a place to live, have metrocards (subway passes) books, etc…and that financial, family, immigration status, psychological and other life challenges don’t completely derail them. Community colleges and feeder programs are partly about giving kids a more approachable step toward secondary education, and giving them a chance to prove their mettle, to themselves and their families as well as to the articulating universities. We have two programs in my unit that award a certificate that gives you transferable college credit but also opens career pathways as a more immediate positive effect on their lives. This gives them a financial bump, as well as serving as a carrot for kids who’ve learned the hard way to look sideways at long-term goals.
This isn’t to disagree with your suggestion that a more streamlined and cooperative system of articulation, or even having all universities and colleges have in-house feeder systems or high school/early college programs would be better. Rather I’m just adding that even CUNY has articulation challenges within the system itself, not to mention the SUNY (state) system or private colleges, and that these challenges are only part of the messy business of making higher ed accessible.
That’s a pretty good description of any social welfare program in the U.S.
I’m also confused about the numbering here. The way I’ve always seen it, Calc I is differential, Calc II is integral, and Calc III is multivariable. What’s Calc IV, and who would need it? I think it’s either Advanced Calculus/Modern Algebra (which isn’t a core course for non math majors and thus not on the same track as the other three), or the numbering system is different than what I’ve usually seen.
“Free” means “at no cost to the recipient,” not “at no cost whatsoever.” But you already know that.