WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm callin Crossley This is the Cali Crosland show. We're talking about community colleges. And Governor Patrick's plans to change them. His main goal is to emphasize job training thousands of jobs are unfilled because there aren't enough workers to go around and community colleges are being counted on to fix this. The responsibility falls on them because so many of these jobs are for middle skill labor like lab technicians and machinists supporters of Patrick's plan say focusing on work skill education is a win win for students and the state. Critics say turning community colleges into a workplace machine does what these schools do best serve the community by offering everything from a GED to a shot at a Ph.D. from there we talk to a community college professor about his plan to keep low income students on campus. Up next pump in these circumstances. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. Widespread

anger over austerity measures has delivered a one two punch to politicians in two major European elections. In France the people have voted out President Nicolas Sarkozy and elected socialist Francois Hollande. The first such victory for France has left since 1995 alone has pledged to temper the Germany driven austerity push across Europe. In Greece voters protested their government's deep cost cutting measures. They did not give any one party enough votes to govern alone. Now leader Antonis some of us who supports Greece's bailout commitments for spending cuts has received a mandate to build a coalition government. NPR's Eric Westervelt reports from Berlin both elections were in many ways a referendum on current European fiscal policy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the now defeated President Sarkozy of France led the austerity first drive the theory was that drastic spending cuts would help restore economic confidence and put debt troubled countries back on a sustainable path. But the belt tightening

fuel deep resentment in poor European countries and many economists say the cuts have only made matters worse in Greece Spain and other debt burden countries that use the euro. But Germany so far shows few signs of backing down. Chancellor Merkel spokesman today said Germany is not interested in renegotiating Europe's so-called fiscal compact on budget discipline or in new measures that could raise debt levels. The spokesman said. Growth through structural reforms is the only way to go. Eric Westervelt NPR News Berlin. Uncertainty over the financial situation in Europe is certainly affecting the price of oil a price drop today to its lowest level of the year. An afternoon trading benchmark U.S. crude lost a dollar ten going down to ninety seven thirty nine per barrel in New York it fell as low as 90 534 per barrel earlier in the day. That was 10 cents below the previous low set back in February and February 2nd that is Congress tackles student loans again. This week NPR's Osma Khalid reports the Senate votes

tomorrow on whether to begin debating the Democrat's plan to keep interest rates from doubling the rate for subsidized Stafford loans will double on July 1st unless Congress can agree on a plan to pay for the program. Rates will jump from three point four percent to six point eight percent. Stafford loans help more than 7 million low and middle income students pay for college. So lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are using the issue as a partisan weapon this election season. Senate Democrats want to keep rates low by increasing some corporate taxes. The GOP wants to pay for the measure by cutting portions of the president's health care overhaul. The House has passed a Republican backed plan to preserve the interest rate on student loans. That's NPR's Halid reporting. This is NPR. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. U.S. Representative John Tierney is challenging Republican Richard to say to agree to the same deal signed off by Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown and Democrat Elizabeth Warren to

limit third party ads. Under the deal whichever candidate benefits from a third party ad must write a check for half the value of the ad to a charity named by the other candidate. To say has already urged tyranny to limit the amount of donations that political action committees can make to either candidate. An Associated Press review of campaign finance records found Tierney has raised about 42 percent of his contributions this cycle from PACs compared to the 5 percent collected by to say. Massachusetts Public Schools will no longer allow bake sales as part of a new nutrition initiative. The ban will take effect August 1st in an effort to battle the obesity epidemic affecting a third of the state's 1.5 million students. STATE SENATOR SUSAN Fargo chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health tells The Boston Herald The problem of overweight children has reached crisis proportions. A body found floating off eastern Long Island has been identified as a missing tugboat captain from Marblehead Newsday reports the body of Brendan O'Leary was found Saturday. The Coast Guard says he disappeared April 20 5th while towing a barge filled with jet fuel from Long Island to Boston. Police say they have suspects in the

beheading of a religious statue in front of a closed church in Salem the Salem News reports the statue was decapitated over the weekend and the head was thrown in a trash receptacle. The vandals also defaced an adjacent Trying to the Virgin Mary. In sports the Red Sox are in Kansas City tonight with the bronze on the mound and Jonathan Sanchez starting for the royals. And the forecast is a sunny one for the rest of the afternoon with near study temperatures in the lower 60s tonight will see Cloudy With A Chance of showers after midnight lows in the upper 40s Tuesday showers are in the forecast. Right now it's 58 degrees in Boston 70 in wester and 67 in Providence. Support for NPR comes from Ally Bank who believes smart listening and Smart banking go together. Learn more about Ally Bank Ally Bank dot com. I'm Christina Quinn you'll find more news at WGBH news dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. Today we're talking about community colleges with a focus on Governor Patrick's proposed overhaul of our community colleges and what it would mean for the Bay State. I'm joined by John Markus a reporter for higher education. John Marcus thank

you for joining us. JOHN Hi John. Hi thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Your report is quite an exhaustive one I have to say great detail really offering every point on each side that one could imagine when I came away with is that it's a lot more complicated than it looks even thinking about focusing in and honing in on coordinating all of the community colleges into under one umbrella as Governor Patrick has said. Thinking about perhaps changing all of them to workforce skills training. There's a lot to consider and I wonder if you would just highlight some of the key points that you think everybody should know as we talk about this proposal. Well there are two different issues here one is national and one is specific to within the state the governor supposedly would put all the community colleges under a single board

and theoretically streamline coordination among the campus. For example it's very difficult now to transfer credits from one Massachusetts community college to another. Which means that if a student moves to one campus to another they made it they might have to repeat their their same courses. This is. This contributes to the abysmally low graduation rate. The community colleges have and by unifying them under one board the governor suggest this would be streamlined in a way that that that would make that easier now there are a lot of political considerations that the community colleges don't like this idea. Most of them but the second broader issue is a national one and that is that we're not turning out graduates that have the skills we need to fill the jobs that are available. And according to the governor's office there are 100 900000 jobs in Massachusetts that employers can't find qualified employers to fill that number. Most economists think it's a little high but if they do all agree that there are tens of thousands of jobs for which employers can't find qualified candidates

because graduates aren't graduating with the skills they need for the economy we have. And so the governor sees community colleges a way of addressing that problem brings up the the broader issue and when you talk about exhaustive there is there is you know the broader issue of whether public higher education exists or knowledge or vocation. Is it there to train people to do jobs or is it there to teach them how to think. And so there's a great division. An of opinion on that topic also. I note that you start this piece with a very interesting example of a student at North Shore Community College working toward an associate director degree in manufacturing technology and his work. He has hands on work that is supported by both the school and general election at General Electric and he also has book learning so there is an example of how it works best. But there are very few of those examples in Massachusetts at this point.

That's true. You hear a lot about this particular model at nursery community college whose president is particularly dynamic and the school is doing a lot of interesting things like that. You hear a lot about it because there are as you say there really aren't many examples of this of true coordination between community colleges and employers. Now there are some and some of them are long standing and then they use Community College instruction to prepare students to work in a specific. With a specific company for example horizon works with a number of community colleges in this case teaching advanced manufacturing which is a growth industry in Massachusetts General Electric does in fact located the students talk of General Electric but also pretty easy to work at virtually any any other manufacturer in Massachusetts. So that's what makes this model slightly different is that the skills are transferable. And but it is something that a lot of other community colleges are looking at emulate. Now the Boston Foundation report seems to underscore everything that Governor Patrick has suggested he wants to do with community colleges.

The headline from that report is that there's a lot of confusion with community colleges in terms of their mission in there and what they're accomplishing and what Governor Patrick is suggesting in terms of pulling you know pulling them all together into one central. Organization it would work best to address all of these issues. Make colleges community colleges more nimble be able to do more of this sort of North Shore Community College coalition program with companies like General Electric. But it's just not clear that it's there. Well it's clear that one could do that but there's a lot of money and a lot of organization has to take place to make each one of those schools come forth with a program like that and be able to to make it happen and in the space that seems to support all of the employees that want specific kinds of workers. If IF community colleges are the neglected step children of American higher education in Massachusetts they're there they're barely even acknowledged. I mean we

live in a state that has some of the best four year private public universities in America and community colleges have been neglected financially. And just in the sense of having any kind of public profile it's you know that they're being asked to do more with less. Their enrollment has increased pacifically because there are a lot of unemployed people in Massachusetts that are looking to advance their skills. And you know community colleges get a bad rap. Some of it is legitimate. Some of what happened to community colleges could be done better. Including in Massachusetts and but on the other hand they get very little support very little financial support very little moral support I think from many of us who have a sort of conception of higher education as being Harvard MIT and be you. Maybe this is not a question you can answer but. But let me put it out there because as I said this report is is is quite detailed. Why is this the responsibility of community colleges to fill the gap of these maybe one hundred

one thousand thousand jobs. That's a great question and the the the the sort of implication of that question is why aren't universities doing it. And one of the most chilling comments I've heard and heard it while I was praying that story for The Globe magazine was that the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Boston. The Obama administration has made community colleges a priority and has given them a lot of attention although has had more difficulty coming up with money for them at the federal level. But Duncan came in and attempt to say something nice about community colleges. He told an audience in Boston that when he goes to community college campuses he sees a lot of graduates of four year universities that have gone. The community colleges to get job skills. And you could sort of see everyone in the room looking at each other and sort of you know flapping their foreheads and thinking why don't the graduates of four year universities have job skills. And that's that's a big question in America why are people coming out of four universities without the skills they need to fill the jobs we have. And again it

gets back to faculty not necessarily wanting to train workers. And and the legitimate argument that you know we can teach content but we can also teach wisdom and and teamwork and problem solving which employers also say they need. So this is a deeply rooted philosophical question in American higher education right now. What was the biggest surprise you found in your reporting if anything. Well that comment was that that four year university graduates are finishing without guilt. But you know the other thing that I've always found as a higher education reporter I've always been surprised and I probably shouldn't be but I've always been surprised at the caliber and commitment of students that I've met at community colleges because we culturally look down at community colleges for some reason especially in states like Massachusetts but have a very high proportion of the population that have

post-secondary degrees. We look down at community colleges and yet when you find the community colleges they work so much harder than the students to sort of live their lives feeling that they were entitled to a four year education. They work harder for many of them work full time raise families while attending school. And the commitment that these people have to an education is something that I think a lot of four year universities can kind of take for granted. That's always surprised me and impressed me and I think that we as a nation pay too little attention to it. And finally. Well Governor Patrick's proposal become reality. Do you think. I do think that although the community colleges are most of them don't like the idea of unifying under a single board. There are they have arguments that seem reasonable the arguments in favor of it seem reasonable to. But currently there's a lot of political momentum with the community colleges because the. You know a lot of local

policy makers and politicians like the idea of local control of community colleges. So the path you propose is going to have to overcome a lot of kind of political investment at the local level in these community colleges to make the argument that unifying them would make life easier for a lot of students who want to transfer credits and provide sort of a more coherent kind of a strategy and curriculum in the community college system. All right John I know you we have to let you go thank you so much for joining us. Thank you again very much for having me. John Markus is a reporter for higher education and his very long piece and he's been very detail piece which everybody should read take a look. A detailed look at community colleges their mission. And Governor Patrick's Governor Patrick's proposal to to change the organization in Massachusetts. Now to get an in-depth look at the fate of our community colleges I'm joined by Julie Julia Allison the executive director of workforce Strategy Center and Joseph Leblond president of the Massachusetts community

college Council Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thanks. I'm curious about something. Why is at this moment it seems all the stars are aligned to have this debate. This is not one that is new. This is not a discussion that's new. It's been going on for some time as long as there have been community colleges and four year universities. But at this moment it seems particularly heated and I don't think it just has to do with the Boston Foundation report. So Julian. Oh it definitely is is if the stars are aligning well and I think it's I think John you know summarized it quite well but it's really this confluence of events on one hand we have this economy that's increasingly not driven by knowledge and and technology technologically driven and where jobs are changing at at at warp speed. And and the days when individuals could go to high school maybe get their GED roll out and have a have a have a family sustaining wage are pretty much gone and so suddenly the spotlight is on the

community colleges because so many of the jobs that are now sort of the entry to the middle class require some form of post-secondary credentialing be it associate's degrees from community college that's professional certification or you know the further education the college the community colleges are preparing people for their transformation. Joseph how would you answer that. I'd agree with it in large part but I do have some concerns I think all of this is breaking now in 2012 because it's a campaign year. There is a report out from Northeastern done by interests which addresses the fact that there are more than 900 people in the state unemployed underemployed or Mal employed there in that the real concerns are that there are too few jobs from our perspective we think that we love the attention we think. But this conversation is long overdue but we feel like you know I'm talking of behalf of frontline

employees teachers counselors librarians and the like we feel like we're being brought into this conversation way too late and that it ought to have taken place a year to ten years ago. And if that conversation had happened a year to ten years ago what would you what would you want everybody to know that they need to know now is we're considering looking at changing the very organization of community colleges in the state. Well for one we've seen our aid from the state dropped by some 25 percent in the last 20 years and we feel like we're on a roller coaster of eight it goes up and down and it's in no way predictable. Number one. Number two that that has caused our schools to be forced to hire part time instructors and I think folks across this great state would be quite amazed to know that two thirds of their courses are taught by part time instructors and that's just plain wrong. All right. Julian how do you respond to that because this is true and

John Marcus's piece laid that out. There is a lot of we want this and we want that from the community colleges but their funding has been cut. I mean this is true of also of public four year universities as well so I'm not taking them out of the equation but it hits harder when you're dealing with a most of a population that is mostly made up of low income students and. And you're. Funding goes away in a big chunk. No I mean community college now it's such a community colleges have to serve so many masters. They serve traditional students. Older students and the students are unprepared to do college level work. Employers looking to get their staff trained you know it's and so many others and and now they're facing booming enrollments especially in this economic down time when so many more people are coming to community colleges. You know an aging infrastructure I mean I could go on and of course the shrinking resource space. So it's a very tall order though. Colleges themselves community colleges themselves. I think there's an increasing recognition across the country that that that they need that things need to

change I mean certainly funding is a piece of this but that there are all sorts of inefficiencies and even efficiencies that can be gained by taking a look at community colleges and I also should say this is not just a community college issue again this is about our educational system from K through career. The focus here is on community colleges but it should not be a sole focus by any means though at the moment it seems to be just if you want to say something but just to what. Julian it's just again I mean we feel like this is coming very top down. It was a heavy handed launch. We feel like we're under attack here and if we had the kind of aid that the state has tended to provide since the early 1990s to K through 12 and they have a predictable amount of aid that tends to increase year by year. Same thing in we just think that there's a whole lot more that we could do. All right I'm going to get to one of our flaws too is that

we don't know how to say no and you come with us you have a need we try to take care if you're a student. Absolutely. You're right. OK well we're going to get the governor's voice in on this and talk in greater detail about knowledge versus vocation or polls or how we deal with all these cutbacks we're talking about community colleges and what would be the best way to reform them. Should the focus be on workplace education should these schools continue to be all things to all people from offering a GED to putting students on the path to getting a Ph.D.. The conversation continues on eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston Public Radio. No. Funding for our programs comes from you. And Boston youth symphony orchestra. A Little Night Music b y eso Spring Gala on May 10th at

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Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Hi I'm Brian McCreary from classical New England. Letting you know that time is running out to secure your spot on our classical New England learning tour through the Swiss Alps this August will fly from Boston to Zurich for six days in the cool crisp air of the Swiss Alps. We'll visit some of the best classical festivals in all of Europe and enjoy the foreman says Bongo London Symphony Orchestra. The Berlin Philharmonic. And more. Space is limited. Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime trip. Visit WGBH dot org slash learning tours for more great question What is a great question and that's a great question. It's a great question. Rick great question on FRESH AIR feel hear unexpected questions and unexpected answers this afternoon. You're on eighty nine point seven pm. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us we're talking about community colleges with a focus on Governor Patrick's proposal to overhaul our community colleges.

I'm joined by Julian Alstott the executive director of workforce Strategy Center and Joseph blunt president of the Massachusetts community college Council. So there's a couple facts I want to put on the table so that people can understand what's at stake here and in a larger sense about half of the nation's graduates attending community colleges. That's a lot of people so sure that's the first thing that we we need to understand I'm not sure that I knew that before all of this attention came to this. President Obama has proposed an 8 billion dollar Community College to Career fund and he wants to train 2 million people and high growth skills that lead directly to jobs and wants to. In doing that put together some college business partnerships. Now Governor Patrick here in Massachusetts wants the 15 community college to come into a single streamlined system underneath one chancellor who. That would allow for transfer of credit more uniformity and courses and some other stuff. And what he would do is give increased the budget by

10 million dollars we talked in that just moments ago about how money has been cut. So if you would go with his plan then he would add 10 million dollars to the pot. And I wanted to just give people a chance to hear Governor Patrick Urias on WGBH TV's show basic black addressing how the mission of community colleges squares with accountability. I think it is entirely appropriate for the community colleges to make a claim for additional resources given the significance of their mission. And I think it's entirely appropriate for me in exchange to say there's some accountability that goes with it to align yourself with what we're trying to do for the whole state. So. What's being said there essentially Joseph is you want the money. Go with my plan. That's how I heard it. You know the tension but I would point out again in we love the attention but it's a 4.9 percent increase which is not a whole lot to provide I've seen in print just in the last half year. Hundred nineteen

thousand twenty nine thousand eight hundred thirty nine thousand I just saw last week 200000 jobs out there and I don't know if those jobs are real but I will tell you that 4.9 percent will not. It's a great start but just a start. If you could take that to mean dollars and do something else with it how would you use it. I would hire new full time frontline employees. You know that's where you transfer and that's where you transform librarians teachers counselors librarians and anyone who works face to face with a student. There you have a chance to really transform a kid's life. OK. So Julian That seems you know reasonable if you would take that money and spread it out and hire and understand that if the focus is boosting up the educational strengths of the students and what they get. Let's have more faculty let's improve the faculty that you have. Let's when I go out so many part timers it makes sense right.

Well I mean this you know I have no issues with the idea that we need you know many more faculty and certainly the professional development for faculty is a huge huge part of this. But I but I also think that there are inefficiencies in this in the current structure that would all would help save money and help really help ultimately help help the students in a big way and so what you typically do. Well let me be specific and these are very consistent in our work just in the in the research that we do. We really didn't do original research this was really sort of building on this kind of scrolling discussion about the role of community colleges and workforce development. We were asked to interview and interviewed 50. Conducting interviews in focus groups with 55 heads of organizations that that that business and civic institutions higher ed and workforce experts civic leaders employers industry group representatives workforce professionals community leaders and representatives of government and community college presidents to really get a sense of their take on this and the themes were consistent so we heard

that number one employers in Massachusetts don't look to the community colleges as a trainer of choice because they say the curricula is out of sync with the skills required in the workplace that the process for developing and updating curricula are too are too slow and inflexible. There's a lack of alignment from one college to the next John touched on this earlier credits may not transfer there are different course numbers. So credit for a course at one cost you know there may be credit offered for a course of one's college but not the next. And this is consistent with what's going on nationally the American Association of Community college or community colleges or association. There's just a couple of weeks ago issued a pretty major report that was based on a lot more interviews that ours that. Essentially said community colleges need to reform themselves to function effectively in the 21st century and one of the big points they described was and I've written this down and on comfortably large gap between the skills students learn at college and those needed in the local workforce.

So I'm going to ask you the same question I asked John Marcus Why is this the responsibility of the community colleges to fix that uncomfortably large gap. Well first of all I don't think it's the responsibility of the community colleges to fix that uncomfortably large gap. The number that's been bandied about didn't come from our report but one hundred twenty one hundred eighteen thousand. But what's really needed is to understand that number and the role of that and which aspect of that number the community college is going to dress what are the schools need to be doing. What are the four year institutions really doing to close that gap. And but we do know something about that information so a report from the National Schools Alliance a major national group that projected that through 2016 three quarters of the job openings in Massachusetts require some will require some form of post-secondary education. Thirty eight percent are sort of what we call middle skilled jobs who require more than a high school diploma but less than a four year degree and that's forty five percent of the state's job base. So if you leave so your point is if you dealt with just that that was huge it's

OK but I would say what we really need to do is we now have the technique we have the technology to to to to analyze those jobs we could today see what those jobs are because we can scrape job postings and see in real time what those jobs are and what the skill requirements on what we really need is to pull that information down and have a have have discussion among college faculty community college faculty for your college faculty and and school the schools about exactly what we can do to fine tune the curriculum appropriately. But no way should this be put on the community colleges. Now let me just ask this of both of you and that is there are some in our in the Massachusetts system that have some curriculum. Back to your point about uniformity of curriculum that speaks directly to the community they are in. So there are some really situated community colleges and there their curriculum is speaking to that community. So I know that's what's needed there that's what's been asked for from from the folks that live there. And likewise. So if you would transfer what they were doing there into the city let's just give an example

doesn't work. And maybe vice versa. Now obviously there's going to be some that go across but there is some specificity there that is unique to those communities and those community colleges what happens there. Julia what do you want is this. You want a system where it makes sense. The colleges are working together to achieve economies of scale around how you buy stuff around setting standards and policies so it is easy for students and companies and and then to to work with the system but then you want to construct in such a way that each college functions effectively in their own region and is able to maintain that community aspect. But it's striking that balance and I think having 15 colleges each with their own line items into the state with no so sad set of sort of standards to guide them. It's very difficult. So I'm going let you answer that question. The uniqueness of the curriculum tied to the locale of some of the community colleges. Some of the leaders at the communique said hey it's

just not going to transfer because it's not speaking to those other communities we have some curriculum that's meant to go just here in our area even though there may be courses that can be uniform. Well to begin with I and Charlie agree with that point that what's right for a greenfield of the Merrimack Valley and North Shore. Of Roxbury or the Kerry they they don't have completely parallel needs. I would like to correct the point that was made in that there is no concern with transfer of credits from two year school to to your school in this state and I do think that the process has to be clean and transparent. We do have a concern as our students transfer from our schools to a four year school from that point and we need to work to address that. So you're saying that the whole transfer issue is really about two year to four year not two year to two year. Exactly. Oh OK. So Julian that's incorrect and because that's one of the things we didn't factor in was the tens of thousands of credits a year.

It is not a concern to for example transfer an English composition course from. And you see see where I teach to greenfield or Springfield or wherever they want to go. OK. So it's really comes down to the two year into the four year which we're going to get to it in just a second. But so if you're talking about. OK. There is some specificity in each of these communities but there are some courses that can be taught it. Each place and easily work and have some uniformity of those courses what's wrong with that. Well we try to address a lot of that with what we have online I think that there's a lot that can be done online but there are some I mean I'm hearing a lot of this and I'm concerned about program closings. Let's say that the state thinks with this great program they have a GED that they'd like to have one in Springfield to Greenfield. But how the heck is a student able to drive to Greenfield to Lynn. It just cannot be done I mean our students are the have nots they have kids of their own. They work two three jobs and there is no way that they can transport

themselves from one end of the state to the next. Now that's a. The real issue Julie and I and I'm going to say that I don't think a lot of people understand that we just sent over half of the nation's graduates attend community colleges that the population is often different. You will have some some kids coming right out of high school into community college. But you also have an older pop slightly older population with a lot of people with kids and a lot of people working. So they are working around those other extenuating circumstances to get an education that makes them very different from your average student. I don't know Harvard or I think it was Simmons. It's just different. Oh it definitely is it definitely is but I think what you want is is is is is is this isn't a system where I mean we found some excellent examples in Massachusetts and there's great examples and it's not just a couple here and there there are a number of really good examples of of to build on so you know bunker Hill's Workforce

Development Center and you know Middlesex community colleges health professions Academy and we heard about North Shore and. New in that state is one this big Federal Trade Adjustment Assistance out granted a home. Well I think all the colleges are participating and there's great examples that there's real challenges. How do we bring that to scale so that every college is seen as the trainer of choice for the industries in their region and by that I mean kind of commuting distance for that college level someone got driving a good career track job every one of the community colleges a trainer of choice and they have their and they're just the companies would only turn to each of them and that's what we're talking about it's not saying you know that that that colleges should be held back and in fact they have to be of their communities. Well but but to Josephs point I mean transferring it getting yourself from one into the state to the other if if what you're trying to do is become the machinist and it's only at North Shore and you're at Roxbury Community College currently and it's this is a very real situation and you have a family and you work and you've carefully

built your education around being able to get back and forth. I mean my point is is that the population require some other kinds of support that is not necessarily factored in when you think about you know your typical four year university student. And the process of his. Her him getting an education there. You know it's a very good point but I do think that you know that there at some point we have to make decisions and one of the things we see we've not worked in 23 states with scores of communications. I come from a community college background and we've seen again and again and again colleges that may have programs that where there is a very small likelihood of students in that community moving into and into a given career and they're just not connected to industry and if you know if push comes to shove I'd much rather know that I can go to my local community college and move from that into a good job without a whole lot of difficulty but you know but the distance that offers great promise is just that.

And I can't leave this let alone leave this conversation without pointing out that in your conversations is you interviewed all those folks that as much as they said we need some people very specifically tied to some training and some jobs that we have now. We also want the folks who have critical thinking skills and can read and write well. And those are the skills that you get in those years when the students want to transfer from the two years they are in and go to a four year school but you know if those courses aren't told and they community colleges become only a vocation then you know nothing happens here because you can have the best machinist but if there's no critical thinking there and no ability to read or write I can assure you I don't even know how to machine. How to be a machine is this some point you're going to need those skills. I do know that you know I know it's a really good point and one of the things that I like to point out which is I think critically important all of this and it kind of goes back to the the even just the Massachusetts situation where you have the you know the intellectual capital of the world we have these amazing higher ed institutions and the community colleges really truly have been you know brushed aside or

disregarded in so many ways. It's amazing. And having grown up here I've seen it as well first hand the the what's happening in this new economy is the jobs these entry level jobs. They all require people have a sound academic grounding and an ability to apply themselves and so what we're not this this whole it's interesting to me how this debate is seems to be the sharp divide. And I think that that's really missing the mark because every student in community college whether they go to the program that was highlighted by the Globe at North Shore or they're an English major at Middlesex they all need to have solid academic preparation and a sense of how they apply themselves and where they're going. The problem is we have too many students wallowing around coming in who just don't know where they're going and for those who come from less privileged backgrounds whose family who are probably the first people their family ever to go to post-secondary you know they need they need some good guidance and support with that and that's a place where colleges didn't really have to address that so much in the past that's what we have to now.

So make the case Joseph and last words here about maintaining those courses that teach those critical reading and writing in and critical thinking skills but but also as Julia said you know making a space to provide something that can lead directly to a job. I mean tell us why that that doesn't work that's a combination that doesn't work. Well I could tell a tale about a class I taught this spring I mean we were covering some early American poet I think Bryant. And you could say well what does he have to do with the jaw. And I'm hearing workforce work force workforce jobs jobs jobs. I think hire it. It's a key to a job that's quite true. But it's it's a key to your life as well and I asked my students what brought them to any CC about half said that they'd like transfer to a four year college. About half so about twenty five percent or so said I want to become a nurse or a

cop or what had you they have a particular career in mind and 25 percent had no clue. You know so we have a lot to do and it's not just about jobs it could be about poetry or what have you. All right well this is definitely going to be a debate. And there are a lot of people involved here and a lot of jobs at stake and a lot of some critical educational courses at stake as well so I'm certain I probably have you back. To continue this conversation as we move toward whatever Governor Patrick's going to do with us thank you so much for talking to me today on the subject we've been talking about community colleges and what their role should be in the face of Governor Patrick's proposal to overhaul them. I've been speaking with you. It was Julia Nelson the executive director of workforce Strategy Center and Joseph LeBlanc president of the Massachusetts community college Council. Coming up we continue the conversation with a look at an unconventional idea to keep community colleges keep community college students in the classroom. You're listening to eighty

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Bid high bid offer keep coming back daily features. It's all online at auction to WGBH dot org. Morning essential. Help to get your brain go. You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News on CNN MORNING EDITION by here on WGBH Boston Public Radio a good Wednesday here on WGBH radio. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about community colleges this hour. I'm joined by wick Sloan. He teaches English at Bunker Hill Community College and writes a column for Inside Higher Ed in a recent column he proposed paying students to study by using the funds that are dedicated to work study programs like Sloan welcome. Welcome I'm glad to be here. Thank you. I just want to read the beginning of your piece so people understand why you've made a proposal to pay students to study here is the beginning of Wickes loans

column. Students have been crying in my office at Bunker Hill Community College every week since September and some weeks every day hungry often homeless often jobless. One who is hungry and nearly homeless had an A in calculus. Have you eaten today is a question I use more often then do you need help with your homework. She wouldn't say as the student cried in my office and spoke with a gentle colleague. I bought a sandwich some fruit and a bottle of orange juice from the cafeteria. The student drank the juice and put the food in her bag to take home. So you were talking about extensive hunger among your students who are making a tradeoff to get their education rather than eat. I am that's what I came in to Bunker Hill a few years ago looking for what are the policies that can help this. That can help this population. And that's where I come at it from a different angle than the than the prior discussion on your show of let's reorganize governance of community colleges and that will make a

difference I I just don't see it that way I think we need to address the poverty issues that many community colleges and what it seems to me that when you have the motivated students that the Globe article described I agree they come to my class at 7:00 a.m. when I've taught at midnight they come at midnight. But what what they'd need is a few more hours to study in a in a quiet place and my colleagues and I agree that three four extra hours a week to study could make a huge difference and so it appears to me that the best national policy we could have for these students albeit a controversial one is don't make them have to decide between earning earning money and in studying pay them to study. And then then that will give them the time to launch them into the the jobs and awareness of their education that your prior guests were talking about. So before we hear the details of how you would pay for. This pay to study program. It's important to remember that half of the nation's

graduates go to community colleges and the population is in many ways significantly different from the population at four year universities. They're usually slightly older have children and are working. So it really is does come down to am I paying the rent am I eating if I want to try to get this degree often. Well yes it does and that's where financial aid is misunderstood sometimes that paying a student's tuition at a community college again with you know needs based find out what their income is first but paying paying that is only the SPT the start of it because every hour they spend commuting every hour they spend in class every hour they spend studying is hours that they could spend working and earning money. And these people these are people with a lot of money to begin with so we we have students who are trading off textbooks. For for food and until we address this how we govern the community colleges I think is a question that's down the road not one that we need to wrestle with today.

So how would you pay for it and again understanding that the population is mostly low income at community colleges. Go ahead. My proposal again I say this with a somewhat of a twinkle in my eye I don't expect this to be quickly embraced but we already have nearly a billion dollars in a federal program called Work study that's where is part of their financial aid. You get a job on campus and some of these jobs are you know there's times we could change them so I'm proposing taking 250 million of that and running pilots around the country and paying the students $10 an hour from those funds which are already in the budget I'm not talking about new taxes and see if there are if their grades and their retention stick. And again so we're talking about is a work study job as usually you know busing in the cafeteria Reese shelving the library books. So you're saying instead of you know sort of make do jobs here and let me you know you say hey go to study right and again when the work study program came up and this was in the

nineteen sixties and when Lyndon Johnson enacted the Higher Education Act where the Pell Grant in the Stafford loan and the work study started it was a perfect idea but the country has changed in terms of who's in these colleges now so I think amending a program and again I'm I'm reasonable I'm only asking for 250 million out of out of a billion. So let's go back to the center the core of the hunger because you at the core of your piece which is about addressing hunger. You cite me an example of students who some of had to drop out just as they couldn't make it and others really struggling every day and you and your colleagues slipping this one of your to the cafeteria or going to the grocery store to buy groceries. I can imagine some people listening they say OK this is just an exaggeration maybe there's one or two OK but I just don't believe that it's extensive. How do you respond to that. Well I've heard that and again that you said there's eight million students in community college in the nation I'm not Clint talking for eight million of them I'm talking for the ones

the ones that I deal with every day. And it depends on the population as you've discussed before community colleges reflect the economy of where they are so this is this is this is the community where we are. Since I wrote that article I've been somewhat overwhelmed with phone calls and. And emails with people saying this is exactly what's happening at our campus as well it's about time somebody put it on one one. One result is we got a call from a group in Concord that collects extra bread from Pinera at the end of each day and they deliver cases of bread to us in the morning so my colleague Kathleen O'Neill who was the gentle colleague mentioned here and I start the day giving out bread. I know that this is what it's gotten to it sounds like it's it sounds dramatic but there's no shortage of hungry people that I see every day. I wouldn't make a case that it's all of them.

My guest is wick Sloan He teaches English at Bunker Hill Community College and he wrote a column recently about how hunger and it is a real issue for students who are choosing having to choose sometimes whether to continue with their studies or to even leave school in some dramatic circumstances. But it just can't function because they're they're hungry. I have to say. Professor Sloan that I just I was so surprised by this that I just started checking around and again this is anecdotal nobody's done a big study with friends of mine who teach at other community colleges not yours. And to a person they all said Well this is tragically true. So it's a little bit shocking for those of us to understand how much food is around and to understand that this is could be a big factor for students either coming to the classroom or not. You have a very another tragic case of a student doing very well who had to leave. So this is happening at least anecdotally from the people that I know at other community colleges as well. No I mean we got a call we talked we talked last week to people from Delaware who

want to open food banks on their pieces and again I am saying in my in my scheme of things even if it's only some of the 8 million if the million people are hungry we better do something about it. That's where I'm coming from. And to your point these are very committed students you know they're getting up early or staying late they want to get this degree they want to get the education. And you know they're just struggling to do it. So this leads me to getting you on the record for how would you prevent fraud because I can hear people now saying we got enough with the EBD for us. So here we go now you know having a whole other population of people who will use this fraudulent Lee if we were to you know have food stamps or something more available to them. Well you would and again in politically and socially in America is you know one of the issues is that people have opinions about the poor as though it's one group that's all identical people and I've got lazy students I've got motivated students you've got some of everyone here so. So the

idea that one size is going to fit all here. But the federal application for free federal student aid the FAFSA form is what's the basis of the Pell Grant which is the core of the federal financial aid system and in general the people who qualify for a Pell grant it's a recognition of low income not high income are more often than not qualified for food stamps and so that would be the same eligibility the eligibility for work study now also goes through that the FAFSA financial aid forms of the people who are using this money now have been have been vetted for for fraud as well. How soon after you started teaching at Bunker Hill did you notice this. I mean and did you have any sense of this problem prior to teaching. I had a sense of of this problem when I when I started about five years ago because because our president Mary Fyfield told me that she

told me about it when I first met her is that this was an issue. And then I listened around and other faculty have told me again before I got there that you should never miss an opportunity to have to give your students some food. And so many faculty you were able to bring along food and I brought along cookies for a while and realized that wasn't nutritious enough for one course and so we started to slip in sandwiches and when you watch how far how fast they go again you know you can tell people looking for a free handout and people who are truly hungry and there's there's enough of both so that I think we should make some progress on this. How does it make you feel. I mean we're talking very clinically about a way to try to stem this about ways in which your colleagues have assisted you about even the president of the college acknowledging it as a problem and people I know outside of Bunker Hill saying yes this is a problem. But I wonder as a teacher you know just how does it just

get you. It does. It beneath it. These are stories that you can't believe. And again this is where this is where conversations such as the there there is as you know a debate raging here in Massachusetts about should you centralize or de-centralized and that my just I feel like screaming except you'd throw me out of the studio if I did because it's so far off. That's question 45 that we need to answer that. The complexity of what's right under our nose the daily survival of thousands of students here and millions in the nation is just not addressed and it I mean it just breaks your heart I mean you you know my colleagues and I are you know as I said in the column we we refer people to food stamps as much as we help them with their expose a Tory writing you know to be giving away bread every morning to people who need it is is it's a her situation to be and you just say Is

this what what is going on in the United States of America in 2012 that this is happening and. If we didn't have the bread I'd be even madder but at least we can help a few. Well your column was very poignant and I appreciate knowing about it now and feel so glad that I'm relieved of my ignorance on this and hope that other people take it to heart as well and include this in the debate as we're talking about community colleges in a holistic way. Thank you so much You're welcome. We've been talking about an innovative way to keep community college students from going hungry and stay in the classroom. I've been speaking with Whit Sloan. He teaches English at Bunker Hill Community College and writes a column for Inside Higher Ed. You can keep on top of the callee cross the shell at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter. Become a fan of the callee cross the show on Facebook today show was engineer by Jane Pippin produced by Chelsea murders will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka. We are a production of WGBH

Boston Public Radio.