Take a good look

Maybe Community colleges in Pasadena have a different mission than the rest, but this half baked, “reputation” label being placed on community colleges is a dis-service. The Community Colleges’ mission is literally to be all things to anyone who may enroll. Community colleges provide courses with depth and rigor for the transfer students, many of which indicate that they were very well prepared for university work upon transfer. CC’s prepare students for entry into the working world through technical coursework. CC’s take students from any level and generally provide a method to achieve success. Un-like universities, CC’s do not take just the best and the brightest, stiff arming the rest. CC’s are a hell of a lot more than just “remedial” or 13th and 14th grade. They are multitasking institutions that must cover all the bases and usually are the most economic use of the public’s educational dollar. CC’s serve the approx. 80% of the population that will never see the inside of a 4 year college. CC’s are the much maligned, workhorse of higher ed. and generally deserving of much more credit than they get.

Bill, at 12:55 pm EDT on June 2, 2008

Community colleges are rountinely criticized regarding the execution of their multifaceted mission. However, it is interesting how those who benefit from a community college educational opportunity (i.e. the silent majority of college students) and improve their life situation seem to be disregarded by the naysayers. Shouldn’t all evidence be considered when community colleges are discussed?

b. ellison, Serving the Needs of Silent Majority, at 2:25 pm EDT on June 2, 2008

Higher ed accessibility

Sadly, education has become a commodity, available to the wealthy or to those willing to go into sufficient debt (to the delight of lenders)to purchase it. It shouldn’t be this way. Those old enough will recall an era of greater opportunity and availability. Watch the PBS Documentary and read the book by the same name: DECLINING BY DEGREES. We call ourselves the “opportunity society,” but that opportunity is granted largely to those already advantaged. Some will say this situation represents the continued backlash against the sixties or, more generally, most Americans’ suspicion and even hatred of intellectuals other than those who invent stuff to sell (Gates).Maybe. In any case, we have drifted far from the post WWII world where higher education was more affordable and open to those who could least afford it.

George T. Karnezis, at 3:35 pm EDT on June 2, 2008

Now I understand why my sister said my nephew can get no state aid for part-time college — in Louisiana. I assume that all the states tied for last in the category of percent of students getting need-based aid must categorically deny it to part-time students. It’s a relative elite that can be full-time students— this seems like such a bad policy for these states.

Interestingly, Vermont uses the highest percentage of income for college at 15% — wasn’t this the state that received recent notoriety for spending more on prisons than on higher education?

cobraqueen, at 5:35 pm EDT on June 2, 2008

Absurdly socially darwinist

On the last social Darwinist comment: I fear there are all too many Americans who believe this rubbish. This commentator, like many of his ilk, immediately translates the idea of equal opportunity into some absurd belief that its defenders believe everyone will be “rich.” His or her zero sum game is pathological and would have been welcome by all slave holding as well as fascist tyrannies. To claim that this is the lesson learned in Econ 101 is an insult to all who’ve ever taught it. But after 8 years of George Bush, these sort of toxic sentiments are, I fear, all too current.

G. karnezis, at 11:30 pm EDT on June 2, 2008

To Linda Swope and Other Such Heroines/Heroes

Way to go, Ms. Swope. We in the upper half can always use a little more hard-working talent (and even, yes, a little more competition) from you in the lower half. Only don’t expect handouts from your university. That’s known as redistribution of wealth and violates the laws of Econ. 101.

To G. karnezis: Don’t forget the previous 8 years of Bill ("Right-to-work, NAFTA, continued corporate de-regulation and wellfare-reform) Clinton before George (tax-cuts-for-the-rich, war profiteering) Bush came to office.

If you look at other great civilizations (here defined as empires) you will see that their class structures were exquisitely preserved by a certain conversative/liberal dynamic. That’s how Republican Rome preserved itself for so long. The Patricians were split between a liberal faction (Caesar and the Grachii brothers) and a conservative faction (i.e. Crassus). It was the elites who had a contentious democracy—only among themselves, the Plebeians bedamned.

Econ. 101 states: Create very limited opportunities for a few, just a few, mind you, in the lower half to work their ****s off trying to please those in the upper half in hopes of joining the upper half, and you wind up with a social structure very advantageous to the rich. In all empires, throughout all of history, Econ. 101 has been true: Adopt policies which will tend to make the rich even richer than they already are and this will be good for the whole society. Ever notice that? That’s always what the rich say. “Let us become even more fantastically wealthy, and the whole society will benefit.” This can be done with a mix of liberal and conservative policies, the compromise of which is “moderate.” Moderate between what and what? Bill Clinton and George Bush? Remember how Clinton boasted that “our workers can compete with any workers in the world"? The unstated premise there being “compete” in a race to the bottom where discrepancies in standards and costs of living are concerned.

Policies like anti-union right to work laws, welfare-to-work (for minimum wage), limited education (through gross negligence and under funding of at least half the kids’ learning environments), global agreements on trade which are actually elitist, not global at all (as in NAFTA, etc.) and tax cuts for the rich—all a “diversified mix” of liberal and conservative policies best calculated to maintain the class structure. Econ 101.

But maybe it’s more accurate to say that Econ 101 forbids not redistribution of wealth, but re-redistribution of wealth, since the wealth, to get where it got to already, was redistributed from down low (where the real work and real heroism always is) to up high (where so much legalized stealing goes on).

Man Singing at Inquirer Party, at 8:50 am EDT on June 3, 2008