Small class sizes? Specialized teacher attention? Cheaper tuition?
Sounds like every college student’s academic dream — and something you’d be hard-pressed to find at a school with around 67,000 students.
But these are some of the benefits that community colleges offer to students who are not ready or able to attend a university.
Community colleges have often been the butt of higher-education jokes when compared with universities, but should it really be like that?
Community colleges offer solid stepping-stones for students, especially now that schools such as ASU are making transferring enrollment easier.
ASU and Pima Community College are currently working on smoothing the student transfer process. Students who transfer from PCC to ASU within three years of earning their associate’s degree will be able to take advantage of a tuition cap included in the Transfer Admission Guarantee.
This means when students transfer, they would be allowed to pay the same tuition they would have if they had started at ASU as freshmen.
ASU has already partnered with 11 other community colleges in the state, 10 of which are Maricopa Community Colleges. Eventually, the University hopes to get every community college in the state on board.
The ultimate aim is to increase the number of baccalaureate degrees earned in the state — undoubtedly a noble goal. Increasing access to higher education will increase the potential of Arizona residents and push the state forward, something we desperately need.
For many students, jumping from free public high school to huge and costly state universities is not an easy transition monetarily or mentally. Many of them fall through the cracks in higher education, without having a real chance to succeed in college.
Education rhetoric aside, we are glad that the higher education community, and ASU in particular, is actually taking the steps to improve this situation. Making college more affordable and accessible is part of ASU’s modus operandi. Not only is ASU actively pursuing the admission guarantee, the University is hard at work at constructing the Undergraduate Colleges@ASU. These colleges would provide students the opportunity to earn bachelor’s degrees in a three-year span at a significantly reduced cost.
While most of us are likely not affected by these changes to ASU’s interactions with community colleges, scores of students might start joining the Sun Devil ranks because of them. Increasing the University’s accessibility and expanding program offerings will ultimately help better ASU, the state and most importantly, the students.
