The Community College
THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION on Higher Education, consisting of twenty-eight leaders drawn from colleges, universities, state and professional organizations in all parts of the country, began its work in July, 1946, and is now issuing its report in a series of six volumes entitled Higher Education for American Democracy. As the successive volumes appear, it is apparent that each one of them is "news" of the greatest import.
Last month in these columns Professor Marx analyzed the first two volumes, under the title "Who Shall Go to College?" Since then the third volume, Organizing HigherEducation, and a fourth volume on the recruitment and training of college faculties have appeared. We shall pursue, this month, the argument of the third volume, with emphasis on the question "What kind of college shall they go to?"
The dimensions of the problem are, of course, immense. The Harvard Report had some revealing figures on the lack of equal educational opportunity in this country before the war (General Education in a Free Society, pp. 88ff). They showed that the upper income group in this country sent about 90% of its children to college, the middle income group sent about 15%, and the lower income group sent, about 5%. And yet, as Professor Marx remarked last month, "ability has an uncanny disregard for the environment in which it chooses to be born." A study of Milwaukee's high-school students showed that of the top tenth in intelligence, 63% came from families whose income was under $3,000 and did not go to college.
If these figures are at all typical, the United States is wasting its human resources more extravagantly than it ever slashed its forests or eroded its top soil.
It is encouraging that the President's Commission has the vision to propose that in the future higher education shall be the privilege, without regard to nomic, social or racial status, of all young people able and willing to pursue it—and up to the highest level their intelligence and abilities permit. It is an affirmation of America's traditional belief in education as a public investment in society's future, returnable in the increased productivity and intelligence of its citizens.
But it certainly poses a challenge to our colleges. In 1940, and again in 1947, less than 16% of youths of college age (18-21) were in college. The Commission believes, and cites figures to demonstrate, that 32% of youths between 18 and 21 are capable of completing four years or more of liberal or professional education. This means, in rough terms, doubling the capacity of our institutions of higher education, which in 1940 stood at 1,500,000.
Even more strikingly, the Commission believes that 49% of our population has the mental ability to profit by at least two years of college work, and that America should exploit and develop this human resource. This means, perhaps, an additional 1,600,000 students in higher institutions of some sort. "Post-high school education must be brought within the reach, economically and geographically, of many more people than at present," the report states. "The program should serve the cultural and vocational needs of our total population, youth and adult. The urgency of. this need is most acute at the two years just above the high school."
The junior college has already developed, within the past generation, to meet part of this need. In 1946-47, one quarter of the institutions of higher education in this country were junior colleges, and they enrolled 400,000 students. "It is assumed," the report states, "that the present junior college is pointing the way to an improved thirteenthand fourteenth-year program. A change of name is suggested because 'junior' no longer covers one of the functions being performed. The name was adopted when the primary and often the sole function of the institution was to offer the first two years of a four-year college curriculum. Now, however, one of its primary functions is to serve the needs of students who will terminate their eco-full-time college attendance by the end of the fourteenth year or sooner. For them a wide variety of terminal curricula has been developed. Such an institution is not well characterized by the name 'junior' college."
The Commission accordingly proposes the development of a large number of what it calls "community colleges" to provide free education, both cultural and vocational, both terminal and preparatory to further work, for all students who want to, and are qualified to, go beyond the twelfth grade. These community colleges should be dispersed geographically in each state so that as many students as possible can live at home, and they should serve as centers for expanded adult education programs.
The Commission foresees wide variation in the administration and curricula of these community colleges. In general, they should be locally administered—sometimes by existing public school systems, sometimes by district or county school boards, sometimes by private or sectarian institutions, and perhaps most often by institutions of higher education in the state, such as the state university. One essential characteristic is a close codrdination of all community colleges with the state educational authority, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of specialized vocational programs and to plan for the overall educational needs of the state.
The curricula also should be varied. The primary function of each community college would be to lay a firm foundation in general education. But vocational education is also contemplated, and perhaps even "apprentice training" and alternate periods of study and work, as in the Antioch plan. Herein is perhaps the most controversial part of the Commission's plan, for there is certain to be a strong body of opinion that the function of publicly-supported schools is education for intelligent citizenship, not training for trades or industries. The Commission believes, however, that both can and should be done. "To this end," it states, "the total educational effort, general and vocational, of any student must be a well-integrated single program, not two programs. The sharp distinction which certain educators tend to make between general or liberal or cultural education on the one hand and vocational or semiprofessional or professional education on the other hand is not valid. Problems which industrial, agricultural, or commercial workers face today are only in part connected with the skills they use in their jobs. Their attitudes and their relationships with others are also important. Certainly the worker's effectiveness in dealing with family, community, national, and international problems, and his interests in maintaining and participating in wholesome recreation programs are important factors in a satisfying life. Many workers should be prepared for membership on municipal government councils, on school boards, on recreation commissions, and the like. The vocational aspect of one's education must not, therefore, tend to segregate 'workers' from 'citizens'."
The relationship of the "community college" to the high-school should be very close. The Commission stresses the fact that general education begins in the high-school and continues in college, and that the programs of the two should dovetail as closely as possible. This would be relatively easy in the case of a community college in a big city administered by the school board. In separate institutions under separate authorities, it would be more difficult, just as it is difficult to integrate efficiently the work of highschools and four-year colleges.
Since "the academic work of the last two years of the high school and that of the first two years of the typical arts college are essentially identical in purpose," the Commission makes special note of the fact that in about forty existing institutions these have been combined into one four-year unit. "Thus-some communities (Pasadena, California, is a well-known example) have made a three-unit system—a six-year elementary school, a four-year highschool, and a four-year college (commonly called a junior college although in effect a community college)
The Commission recommends, however, that no one structural pattern be insisted upon. Of the several possible combinations (and doubtless many different ones will be used concurrently for several years) it seems to this reviewer that the 6-4-4 structure will eventually become the dominant pattern of public education in the United States.
Except for mentioning that the cost of building and operating the proposed community colleges would doubtless have to be borne largely by local and state governments, the Commission's third report does not stress the financial problem, which is to be dealt with in a subsequent volume. The cost, undoubtedly, would be very large. Like all public education, it would be essentially an investment in the country's future—an investment which in past years, one imagines, has paid off rather well. But that is for the country at large to judge.
The two-year "community college" is, at any rate, far more than a theoretical proposal. There are already 599 "junior colleges" with two-year programs essentially similar to those the Commission advocates, and the number is increasing rapidly. California has the largest
number and the best worked out statewide system, but New York state is about to embark on a similar program. The report of the President's Commission on Higher Education is probably destined to accelerate this trend.
Exactly one year ago I discussed the possibility of two more years of public education in these columns. It did not seem likely at that time that a largescale development of this nature was imminent. Nonetheless, what was said then seems more than ever valid today:
"If we believe that America's dream in past generations of free public education for all boys and girls up to sixteen has been a sound one, why stop at sixteen? The two-year college seems a valid proposal in the economics and politics of higher education in America. It would complete for many more millions of students that general education which is desirable for good citizenship; it would give a broader base of worthwhile candidates for higher education; it would satisfy the social aspirations of many millions of American families for what could, with some justice, be called a 'college education,' and yet would eject into jobs all those who are not able and eager for the higher education of junior and senior and graduate years; and by this last token it would improve the standards and accomplishment of American higher education as it now exists."
PROFESSOR OF ART
