I graduated at an acredited Communtity College and transferred the course credits to a major 4 year school, That worked for me! Some of the math was ahead of that taught in the first 2 years at that 4 year Institute.

I graduated at an accredited Community College and transferred the course credits to a major 4 year school, That worked for me! Some of the math was ahead of that taught in the first 2 years at that 4 year Institute.

Yes my spelling is faulty.

YOUR SPELLING IS FAULTY????

LOL

I did the same and eventually graduated from a UC college in California. What I don't understand about the snooty attitude about CC's is that most people fail to understand that Psych 101 is pretty much the same regardless of what school you take it at. Same can be said for all the other beginner college courses like Bio 101, Econ 101, Chem 101 and so on. So what does it matter if you take these classes at a CC or at an Ivy leauge school? Would you rather spend $5K to get these classes out of the way at a CC or $50K at an Ivy leauge school? It would seem to me to make much more sense to get these base classes completed at a CC where it is A LOT cheaper and then just transfer to a university.

mgm531, you definitely have a point. But the problem I see as someone involved in higher education is that community colleges are cheaper for a reason: they don't pay their instructors a decent wage. Farming out general education classes to community colleges is another form of outsourcing that ultimately depresses wages for everyone, gives the impression that education is worth very little (both students' education and that of their instructors), and creates a destructive sense of competition among institutions of higher learning. Community colleges play an important role in our nation's education, but they don't have the expensive research missions that universities do. It is certainly more expensive to run a research university, but the upsides tax payers can and should expect are research and education in expensive fields like medicine and pure science. As education funding at the state level gets cut, more has to be wrung from tuition dollars to pay for expensive programs that serve our communities. If we start outsourcing credit hours to lower-wage environments, our current model of higher education may not be sustainable.

So, I'm all for excellent, well-funded community college education within everyone's reach. But right now, underpaid instructors are being asked to subsidize low tuitions to the detriment of higher education as a whole.

Actually, the larger problem beyond what instructors at CC's are paid is the fact that the majority of courses are taught by part-time faculty like myself. While this system is great for people like me who enjoy teaching and want to pick up some extra money, it means that there are fewer and fewer available slots for people who want full-time teaching positions at the college level.

4-year research universities utterly fail their undergraduate students. Because the professors are hired based on their research ability, it is very hit or miss whether they often don't bring much teaching ability to the classroom. Because their tenure is based on their work in the lab, they often bring a less than appropriate enthusiasm to teaching. The end effect is that the students get a worse education than they ought.

The lack of competition in undergraduate education has enabled universities to be insulated from doing actual teaching. Adding a little competition to the mix would be a VERY good thing. Maybe the students would actually get their needs met.

I have no problem with public support for research. Good research makes a strong contribution to society. However, if we believe that research is a public good that should be supported, we should support research without letting it suck the blood of education like a leach.

Foobs:

4-year research universities utterly fail their undergraduate students. Because the professors are hired based on their research ability, it is very hit or miss whether they often don't bring much teaching ability to the classroom. Because their tenure is based on their work in the lab, they often bring a less than appropriate enthusiasm to teaching. The end effect is that the students get a worse education than they ought.

Agreed. In many major universities, much of the actual teaching work, particularly for the freshman and sophomore level courses, is turned over to graduate assistants. I took a sophomore-level course in vector calculus and never saw the professor once the entire semester. All the teaching was done by his grad student who, while a nice guy, had a very thick Chinese accent that many students found hard to follow. The course was required for all physics and engineering students, so my section started out fairly big, with over 50 students.* By the end of the semester, all but 13 of us had dropped it.

*The freshmen calculus classes (also known as the "weed out" classes) had more than 100 students per section at the main campus. The sophomore classes had more sections offered, so they had somewhat smaller class sizes. I for one was glad I placed out of Calc I and was able to take Calc II at a branch campus with smaller class sizes before transferring up to the main campus as a sophomore.

Foobs:

4-year research universities utterly fail their undergraduate students...it is very hit or miss whether they often don't bring much teaching ability to the classroom...The end effect is that the students get a worse education than they ought.

Foobs,

I disagree with half of what I quoted above. I went to a large research institution and got a very good education. My wife went to a small private college and got a very good education. I doubt very much that either of us would be where we are now had we switched places; I wouldn't have had the lab experiences to get into the grad schools I did and she wouldn't have been able to handle 300+ person classes.

My point with telling you this: I don't think education at a big research institution is hit of miss but rather sink or swim. Some people aren't ready, and never will be, for the competition, non-classroom work, and yes, the lack of teaching that goes on at large research institutions. That's completely fine; I'm not making a value judgment on those students who don't thrive in that environment. I'm not even saying that large research institutions are the best environments for the most people to learn in. However, if you can learn in the environment of a research institution, if you can take advantage of the opportunities possible at large research institutions, and if you can rise to the top in that environment, well, you'll have gained knowledge and experiences that are going to take you pretty far in life and that you may not have gotten from a smaller school.

I don't think we should dissociate education from research institutions. Instead, I think we should provide more financial help for middle and lower income students so that they can attend smaller or private universities if they wish. I think we should emphasize the value of community colleges and increase the opportunities available at branch campuses of public universities (many of which, in my home state, didn't have a full range of majors). I think we should de-stigmatize associates' degrees and not make bachelor's degrees the default goal of our high school students.

I think, in short, that our efforts are better served not by reducing education at research institutions but by encouraging students to find the best environment for each and every one of them to learn. You say 4-year research universities utterly fail their undergraduate students. I couldn't disagree more. However, you also say that some students get a more poor education than they might otherwise get, and that is something that I strongly agree with. I don't, however, agree with your solution to the problem.

I've taught at both 4-year and community colleges, and the advantage (for both teachers and students) of the community college was the class size of <30. They do indeed need to hire more full-time faculty; my department had only one full-time instructor, and all the part-timers had to share a single "office" that looked more like a break room.

Not all of my students did their two years of community college before transferring credit. Some were concurrently enrolled at a four-year state u. a few miles away, and others came home from their four-year schools each summer to pick up a couple of required courses at reduced rates, many while also working summer jobs.

Also unlike four-year schools, the community college class schedules were arranged for the students' convenience, with many evening and Saturday classes. If there was enough demand for daytime classes, they added more sections. If a class didn't make, they cancelled it (I guess one advantage of having part-time instructors is that they aren't guaranteed classes, unlike tenured professors).

The conflict isn't between community college and Harvard, or even major state universities. The conflict is with small, mediocre state universities and colleges (some private, too) that charge state u tuition for a watered-down product. The only reason to choose a mediocre state u for the first couple of years is to get out of your parents' house and live in a dorm that's far enough away that they can't drop in unexpectedly. Don't get me started on dorms, though; most of them are overpriced, and designed according to a 1950's model when kids shared tiny bedrooms at home, too, and studied at the library rather than doing most of their work on their laptops, and ate in the dining hall instead of at fast-food restaurants (which now have unnecessary franchises in the dining halls, just to keep the dining halls in business). Community colleges with up-to-date student apartments...are there any? they'd clean up.

So, you're defense of undergraduate education at research universities includes "the lack of teaching that goes on at large research institutions"? I'm baffled that you think that is a defense. You were apparently not hurt (at least you don't think so) by the lack of teaching. Even if you are right, that doesn't mean the university didn't fail you, it only means that you were able to compensate for its inadequacies.

My point is not that research and education should be totally seperate. It is that research should be supported in itself, not at the expense of education (and make no mistake, that is the current arrangment). Education should be supported in itself, and not at the expense of research. The two are very different things that sometimes intersect. The current arrangement, at best, assumes that if research is encouraged, education will take care of itself. That isn't the case. Each requires a lot of work and they require very different skill sets.

By your own admission, teaching is short-changed at research institutions. that has been the case for so long that a good many people (you included) regard it as normal and acceptable. It may be normal, but it isn't acceptable.

Foobs:

So, you're defense of undergraduate education at research universities includes "the lack of teaching that goes on at large research institutions"? By your own admission, teaching is short-changed at research institutions.

Foobs,

My point was not that teaching is short-changed at research institutions, though I admit it can be. Instead, my point was that the style of teaching was very different, and that both not every student responds to the same style and that the occasional deficiencies that arise from legitimately poor educators can be compensated for by other opportunities available at research institutions.

With respect to the style of teaching, in high school, you might cover a statistics textbook in a year, taking maybe taking six hours a week for 36 weeks to do so. In an average college, you cover the same textbook in a semester, taking maybe three hours a week for 15 weeks to do so. By graduate school you're covering the textbook plus an equal volume of topical research articles in no greater time. One way to put that, as I wrote earlier, is to say that there may be a lack of teaching at research institutions (and graduate school). Another way to put it, perhaps less open to misinterpretation, is to say that the burden falls as much on the student to learn as it does the teacher to teach.

I'd argue that research institutions tend towards putting the burden on the student. While I do not think this is necessarily the best solution, I think it is the right solution for many people, and I don't think those students for whom this system works suffer for it.

With respect to the opportunities available at research universities, I ended up with a very good but not spectacular GPA and, more importantly, three years of research experiences and a paper publication. Could my GPA have been better, might I have learned more in class at a liberal arts college? Quite possibly. Would I have published in a good journal or gotten the same research experience? Almost definitely not. Again, though perhaps not for everyone, for many people the benefits of education at a research institution outweigh sporadic classroom deficiencies.

Neuro has a good point in that there is less expectation of a student getting individual attention than at a small liberal arts college. Although I may disagree that a community college student is guaranteed more attention, since they are dependent on part-time instructors. Part time faculty do not maintain office hours (we don't have offices or even cubicles) where the student can approach them for help.

The problem with the model used by research universities, based on my experience as both an undergrad and graduate student, is that the students that need the most individual attention get the least. Freshmen and sophomores as packed into huge, auditoriums for the introductory courses, the purpose of which (especially in science and engineering programs) is often more to "weed out" those that may lack the drive or ability to succeed in a competitive environment. Juniors and seniors advance to smaller classes where they can expect more attention from the prof while graduate students get the most, often working one-on-one with their professors as they conduct their thesis research.

But freshmen and sophonores still just out of high school, where they have gotten used to being spoonfed the material. And suddenly, they're thrust into a situation where they are among a few hundred students listening to canned lectures given by professors who wouldn't recognize them if they walked up on the street and bit them. It's only after they survive to the upper classmen ranks, where they've already adjusted to university life, do they have an opportunity to interact more directly with a prof.

Greatbear452:

The problem with the model used by research universities, based on my experience as both an undergrad and graduate student, is that the students that need the most individual attention get the least.

I agree that that is (at least one of) the biggest problem with education at research institutions (and I also agree with at least most else of what you've posted). However, I don't think the solution is to separate research and education (pardon me for making a false dichotomy from what Foobs has posted). Instead, I think we should help undergrads adjust, and, as importantly, encourage alternatives to giant state schools for those who might not succeed in that environment (by making college more affordable, by encouraging community colleges, etc).

All that said, I'm not so sure that weeding freshman out is bad. I think the mechanism (giant classes) is inefficient and not well thought out, but weeding can be a necessary evil.

All that said, I'm not so sure that weeding freshman out is bad. I think the mechanism (giant classes) is inefficient and not well thought out, but weeding can be a necessary evil.

Weeding out may be necessary, but I really don't think putting a kid, away from home for the first time, into a giant classroom with a bunch of strangers is weeding out students for the right reasons. Weed-outs should eliminate those that lack the aptitude for the coursework. These giant, impersonal classes are more of test to see how much stress an 18-year-old can take than whether they can master basic calculus.