Although the economy has slowly begun to piece itself back together, several new college graduates and incoming college students still have found themselves at a disadvantage in finding employment while holding liberal arts degrees, and thus, have continued to incorporate graduate school as a stepping-stone to either enter or elevate their career pursuits. Yet, instead of opting for admissions into some of the nation’s most prestigious and respected four-year institutions, many students have chosen community colleges in order to market themselves as competitive and qualified job candidates.
Traditionally attributed with their prevalent role in accommodating minorities and students from lower-income households, community colleges have become esteemed higher education programs within the last five years, servicing students from various backgrounds. With the community-oriented design of the two-year colleges, particularly in their tailored curriculum to accommodate the high demands of STEM careers, such institutions are reinventing themselves as the leaders of technological education.
“A lot of the STEM fields are occupationally defined programs that lead directly to employment. With many of our two-year associate programs, students enter our colleges and immediately begin studying in the field that they plan to work in,” said Chris Mullins, program director for policy analysis with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
The customized studies that students encountered at community colleges has attributed largely to the surge of post-graduate students that the two-year institutions have begun to withhold. According to the National Post Secondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), 8 percent of students entering community college already completed some form of higher education, whether they received a bachelor’s, master’s or sometimes even a doctoral degree. In the study, NSPAS estimated that approximately 849,000 students received associate degrees during the 2009-2010 academic year, which is a 50.4 percent increase from the last 10 years. Among the rising numbers of associate degrees awarded, there was a 105 percent increase in STEM-related fields during the same academic period.
Mullins explained that a large majority of students seeking advanced training in STEM careers have found community colleges advantageous, especially in the networks that they have gained from the school’s direct links to local employers. “By having connections within local industries, it helps to make sure our programs are in line with employer expectations, especially since education is a large part of employment,” Mullins said.
Not only have community colleges been strategic for career placement in STEM fields, but the economical advantage of the associate degree programs in comparison to the baccalaureate programs have reverberated as strong selling points for many students. The low costs of community colleges, averaging around $3,000, compared to the $7,000 admission cost of four-institutions, have allowed many students from low-income and middle-class families the opportunity to partake in higher education in STEM fields, according to data from NSPAS. In addition to saving on tuition fees, students in STEM fields with an associate degree received similar salaries to those with a bachelor’s degree. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimated that an entry-level aerospace engineer holding an associate degree was liable to make an average income of $58,000 in 2010, which in some cases ranked well over the entry-level salaries of graduates holding a bachelor’s degree.
As community colleges have assuaged the financial barriers for students interested in pursuing STEM careers by offering lower tuition rates and higher salaries, the institutions have created a strong incentive for students to study STEM subject areas. As a result, the institutions have contributed to the nation’s interest of creating a competitive technical education and workforce. Celeste Carter, lead program director for the National Science Foundation (NSF), explained that the nationwide initiative of higher education in creating a globally competitive education system relies heavily on creating easier and more accessible pathways into STEM fields. For this particular reason, both the NSF and the AACC have joined forces to develop technological programs that cater to community colleges. Their main program, entitled Advanced Technological Education, is a congressionally mandated program that looks specifically at community colleges to create partnerships between scientific and technologically based companies and institutions.
