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More than a third of community college students have vanished

seattletimes.com

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Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#2
>“You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number and run from office to office and see if you can figure it out.”

>“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month.

State schools are like this too.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#3
College faculty offices, both in community college and in university, are some of the most inept people I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. Financial aid, admissions, counseling, all of them. That alone is enough to drive you mad then add on top the other stress of being a student and it's no wonder people are just saying no thanks.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#4
post #3

College faculty offices, both in community college and in university, are some of the most inept people I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. Financial aid, admissions, counseling, all of them. That alone is enough to drive you mad then add on top the other stress of being a student and it's no wonder people are just saying no thanks.

I went to my state school under a low income program (EOF, Educational Opportunity Fund). I found all resources available to me as valuable, and I wouldn’t have graduated on time had it not been for their services.

I’m generally a cynical person, but I can’t be cynical about the administration of the EOF program because everyone I interacted with under that program excelled at what they did. They didn’t need to go above and beyond for the poor students, but they did.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#5

>“You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number and run from office to office and see if you can figure it out.” >“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month. State schools are like this too.

[dead]

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#6

>“You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number and run from office to office and see if you can figure it out.” >“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month. State schools are like this too.

So is dealing with city approval processes. For instance when starting a physical business requiring building permitting.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#8
It is a bit of paradox that community colleges are, in theory, what every talking head and commentator are asking colleges to be—direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only—and yet there is no other college type that is seeing a more precipitous enrollment drop off than community colleges and technical schools.

The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted by where they enroll are often two different things.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#9

It is a bit of paradox that community colleges are, in theory, what every talking head and commentator are asking colleges to be—direct, cheap, no frill, about the education only—and yet there is no other college type that is seeing a more precipitous enrollment drop off than community colleges and technical schools. The answer, and no one likes this, is what people say they want and what they actually want as voted…

> is what people say they want and what they actually want as votes by their enrollment are two different things.

This is a universal truth about everything though. What people say and what they do are not guaranteed to be same.

Re: More than a third of community college students have vanished

#10

>“You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number and run from office to office and see if you can figure it out.” >“I’ve had to go out of my way to find people, and if they didn’t know the answer, they would send me to somebody else, usually by email.” Hearing back from the financial aid office, she said, can take a month. State schools are like this too.

So is dealing with city approval processes. For instance when starting a physical business requiring building permitting.

I haven't had to deal with that but I always guessed it was worse.
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