Diploma Mills

[dfrecore]

One of the main reasons why community colleges have low graduation rates is because many of their degree-seeking students have no intention of earning an associate's degree. They just want the transfer credits. Also, a lot of the students need remedial courses, and they drop out because remediation requirements can add a year or more to someone's program. Honestly, most of the students at open admissions schools will never be able to complete college-level coursework.

I'm not sure if "most" is correct.  I know so many kids who spend 2 years at our inexpensive CC's because 1) they don't qualify for financial aid, 2) don't know what they want to do, and 3) our CSU-system schools are notoriously terrible at GE's because they are all overcrowded and you can't get the courses you need to even get to the point of declaring a major (it can take FOUR YEARS to get all your GE's completed at some schools, but they are paying for FT enrollment and then taking courses they don't need!).

Also, our CC's offer ADN's and our CSU/UC's don't, so just about every nurse in CA came out of a CC (at least to start, before they go on to a BSN).  We also have tons of certificates, especially in the medical field, that can only be gotten in a CC.

I would guess that it varies by state.  But many of our 113 CC's are not only rigorous (I've had MANY great teachers at CC's and terrible ones at the CSU I went to), but many are enormous, have satellite campuses on/near high schools, offer dual enrollment, teach classes on high school campuses, and all kinds of other things that our CSU's just don't.

Of course, my CC has 30,000 students annually, yet they still only admit 30 students a year into the nursing program...sigh...