ELITE COLLEGES IGNORE STUDENTS FROM POOR BACKGROUNDS

Ideally, college presidents should be leaders, not just for their own institution, but for society at large.  At least one college president, Anthony Marx who is now leaving Amherst College, has fulfilled that role by opening the doors of his institution to applicants of modest means as documented in the NYTimes:
Top Colleges, Largely for the Elite By David Leonhardt .


Amherst under Marx is, unfortunately, the exception as most elite colleges and Universities fill their student body with the sons and daughters of the wealthy and the upper middle-class.  


Recent numbers are provided in a March 27, 2011 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Elite Colleges Fail to Gain More Students on Pell Grants .  The Chronicle found that "just under 15 percent of the undergradu­ates at the country's 50 wealthiest colleges received Pell Grants in 2008-9, the most recent year for which national data are available. That percentage hasn't changed much from 2004-5, around the time that elite institutions focused their attention on the issue. And Pell Grant students are still signifi­cantly less represented at the wealthiest colleges than they are at public and nonprofit four-year colleges nation­wide, where grant recipients accounted for roughly 26 percent of students in 2008-9. Individual colleges among the wealthiest have made gains in enrolling Pell Grant students, who generally come from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000. But others have lost ground."  


Where does that leave public colleges?  Some public Universities are among the elite - University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas at Austin - but most public Universities are decidedly not.  Public colleges need to strive to hold down costs and attract a student body that mirrors the economic profile of their state.  This is a tall order as the publics face  increased pressure from state budget cuts.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRADS NEEDED FOR MIDDLE SKILL JOBS

So called middle skill jobs - those that require some college education or an associate degree - are in the news as policy makers and researchers look at the future of the American economy.  These jobs include positions such as network administrators, nurses, physical therapy assistants, computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine operators, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), respiratory therapists.  


While unemployment continues to plague the United States and young people, even those with college credentials, struggle to find jobs, the future may look very different as labor shortages may develop.  Why?  Because our population growth will slow, and the new economy will require more education.  Meanwhile this generation appears to be falling behind the college attainment of their parents just when more education is predicted to be necessary for a decent paying career.  For documentation that New England will suffer a shortage of labor in middle skills jobs see a recent report of the Federal Bank at the link:


Federal Reserve Brief on Middle Skill Jobs in New England

What should be done?  We are missing a golden opportunity to encourage additional post-secondary education.  Because of high unemployment many young adults have the time to go to college - especially community college.  But state and federal government are making it harder for them to attend by withdrawing support for public higher education forcing colleges to raise charges on students.  If we are to secure our economic future we should, as a society, invest in that future.  That means not scrimping on the college education of our youth.

SPRINGFIELD ARMORY CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT

The picture above is the cover of the newly completed cultural landscape report by the National Park Service for the Springfield Armory, the national historic site that is the home of Springfield Technical Community College.  The purpose of a cultural landscape report is to record the exterior elements of a site - plantings, terrain, significant markers and monuments, water elements - and to use this document as the basis for managing the site.

Because the Armory site has a long history having been established as the first national armory by President George Washington in 1794, the site has gone through many changes which are thoroughly documented by the report.  For example, buildings on the site constructed by the US Army date from 1807 to the mid 20th century.  During this period the grounds changed with new plantings and landscape changes necessitated by new buildings.  However, as the report makes clear, the basic contours of the site remain true to that developed by US Army Lieutenant Colonel Roswell Lee, superintendent of the Armory from 1815 to 1833.

While the closing of the Armory by Secretary of Defense John McNamara in 1968 (see headlines below) created a campus for Springfield Technical Community College, the loss of the Armory produced an economic challenge for the Springfield and surrounding area.  The Armory had employed thousands of individuals who did research, development and production of small arms, especially rifles, for the US Army.  Moreover, the Armory supported the development of a precision machining industry up and down the Connecticut River Valley that supported companies like Smith and Wesson, Pratt and Whitney and Colt Arms.  The closing of the Armory was a great blow to the regional economy, one that is still being felt today.

GREAT IDEAS AT STCC

From my own experience, colleges and universities are often late adopters to new ways.  That is because these are fundamentally conservative institutions whose job is to transmit the wisdom of previous ages.  Additionally, most higher education institutions are non-profits operating outside of the competitive economy.

All that is now changing as many higher educational institutions are under tremendous financial pressure from shrinking state and federal budgets and exploding college debt of American students.  These institutions now seek ways to control costs while maintaining service to students.

Our college has taken a page from the industrial sector by instituting an idea system - called Great Ideas at STCC - designed to mobilize employees to suggest and implement improvements in how work is done. We are using as our mentor University of Massachusetts/Amherst Professor Alan Robinson co-author of the important book Ideas are Free.  We are as far as we know the only higher education institution in the United States implementing such a system.

Robinson claims and our experience shows that 80% of all the potential savings of time and money are located at the bottom of organization.  The genius of a well-designed idea system is that the intelligence and creativity of the majority of employees are listened to and acted upon.  The organization improves and with it employee morale.   This is, to be sure, a different approach to managing an organization but one with great opportunities.

To learn how we are doing at STCC, you can visit our Great Ideas webpage at  www.stcc.edu/greatideas

COLLEGE DEGREE NEEDED FOR ENTRY INTO MIDDLE CLASS

2010 Springfield Technical Community College graduates celebrate at June 2 commencement exercises.

This week another report has been issued that confirms what most Americans know – that a college degree is becoming essential for a middle class job.  The latest study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce cites an increasing share of American jobs requiring at least some college education: “Between 1973 and 2008, the share of jobs in the U.S. economy that required post-secondary education increased from 28% to 59%. According to our projections, the future promises more of the same. The share of post-secondary jobs will increase from 59% to 63% nationally over the next decade. The share of post-secondary jobs will increase from 59% to 63% nationally over the next decade.”(http://www.nebhe.org/2010/09/10/more-than-2-million-job-vacancies-forecast-for-ne-by-2018-but-do-our-workers-have-what-it-takes-to-fill-them/)  

The authors of the study - Anthony P. Carnevale and Nicole Smith – argue that in the next ten years, high school graduates and high school dropouts “will find themselves largely left behind in the coming decade” for decent paying  jobs. They conclude that post-secondary education will become essential for entry into the middle class. 

Meanwhile, the cost of college is escalating – a vicious circle for those of modest means who must obtain a college education to enter the middle class but often do so with substantial college debt.  During the “Great Recession” as it has become known students are flocking into colleges, especially public colleges, using this time of high un-employment to earn a degree or retrain with additional post-secondary skills.  Our society should support them with higher levels of financial aid and additional funds for public colleges.  To do otherwise will increase the pain of the “Great Recession” for our youth who will either be locked out of college or leave with college loans that will take decades to pay off.

COMMUNITY COLLEGES HELP MANUFACTURING SHINE

Professor John LaFrancis demonstrates the operation of a computer controlled milling machine at the Smith and Wesson Center at STCC.  Students are left to right David Santos, Daniel J. Miller, Shurwell C. Roach and Ryan T. Maheu.

US manufacturing is growing – one of the few stars of the US economy over the past six months. Releasing their August survey of hundreds of US companies, the Institute for Supply Management reported an increase over July of their manufacturing index from  55.5 in July to 56.3 in August.  Numbers above 50 indicates growth in the sector which accelerated according to the survey in August.

US manufacturing has changed dramatically over the past two decades with an infusion of capital equipment increasing productivity and product sophistication.  This has caused a change in the needed education level of factory workers.  More technically trained employees – usually at the community college level – are needed to run factory robots and computer controlled machinery.  The modern competitive American factory is not your father’s facility.  It is clean, well lit, highly efficient and filled with expensive, often made to order, machines.  Employees are valued for their knowledge and skill with opportunity for educational advancement. 

Community colleges around the country have responded to the demand for skilled factory employees by establishing new programs and revising existing ones.  At Springfield Technical Community College the Mechanical Engineering Technology trains students for jobs running Computer Numerically controlled machines (CNC) machines in the areas precision manufacturing industry.  Enrollment is full and graduates are snapped up by local companies.  While the program is rigorous requiring good mathematics skills and geometric ability, graduates look forward to well paying jobs and stable careers.

WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS BUOYED BY HIGHER EDUCATION

Map of Massachusetts showing the four Western Counties of Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden and Berkshire.  Source: Wikipedia

Massachusetts has a metropolitan area – Boston – that is economically dynamic while much of the rest of the state has not transitioned from an older New England economy.  This is the case in Western Massachusetts which consists of the four counties –Berkshire, Franklin, Hamden and Hampshire, occupying the Connecticut River Valley and the Berkshires Mountains.  While these four counties have suffered economically as manufacturing, especially in the metal industry, has declined, higher education has prospered.  The region boasts the following 19 public and private colleges and universities:

American International College Amherst College, Bay Path College Berkshire Community College Conway School of Landscape Design Elms College Greenfield Community College Hampshire College Holyoke Community College Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Mount Holyoke College Simon's Rock College of Bard Smith College Springfield College Springfield Technical Community College University of Massachusetts Amherst Western New England College Westfield State University Williams College

In a region of farms and small cities, these institutions collectively are a powerful economic force with over 12,000 full time and an additional 4,000 part time employees. Over 72,000 students are enrolled in colleges and universities in Western Massachusetts representing 9% of the total population of the region.  Finally, direct expenditures of these institutions was estimated to be $1.432 Billion, contributing to the vitality of the region. 

(All figures in this posting are from “Economic Impact of Higher Education Institutions in Western Massachusetts: Fact Sheet” published by New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The figures are for fiscal year 2007 and are undoubtedly somewhat higher today. I want to thank Nadia Alam of NEASC for producing this information.)  

American International College

Amherst College,

Bay Path College

Berkshire Community College

Conway School of Landscape Design

Elms College

Greenfield Community College

Hampshire College

Holyoke Community College

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Mount Holyoke College

Simon's Rock College of Bard

Smith College

Springfield College

Springfield Technical Community College

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Western New England College

Westfield State University

Williams College

A view of the main artery in Springfield - State Street - with Springfield Technical Community College campus in upper left of picture.