{"id":2370,"date":"2015-07-10T07:35:30","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T13:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2370"},"modified":"2015-07-10T07:33:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T13:33:33","slug":"part-time-student-the-rahmfather-says-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/07\/part-time-student-the-rahmfather-says-no.html","title":{"rendered":"Part-time student? The Rahmfather* says no."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(* Yes, I\u2019m stealing this from John Kass.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s well-established that graduation rates at community colleges are rather low; after all, a part of the intention behind the establishment of Arrupe College, as described the other day<\/a>, was to counter these low rates, which were cited<\/a> as 5% nationwide, 7% in Chicago. \u00a0\u00a0And there are many reasons for this:\u00a0 some students are only interested in a certificate program or a small grouping of classes, others take classes without a real plan in mind or want to try a class or two rather than make a commitment, but still others do indeed get pulled away from a program of classes and a credential that they very much want to earn because their progress is too slow, and they aren\u2019t able to focus on their classes due to a part-time schedule dictated by family responsibilities and the need to earn a living.<\/p>\n

Hence, the City Colleges of Chicago, that is, Chicago\u2019s community college system, introduced a program<\/a>, the \u201cStar Scholarship,\u201d\u00a0to provide free tuition to students, so long as they begin their course of study immediately upon graduating from high school, attend full-time, and meet various other requirements.\u00a0 The program is also limited to Chicago Public School graduates (including charter schools) and is funded (so far as I can tell) by general revenues, though its costs are minimized because it only pays any remaining tuition after Pell and other grants are applied.<\/p>\n

And now, according to today\u2019s Tribune<\/a>, they\u2019re taking this a step further, and sharply increasing the tuition for part-time students to push them into full-time status:<\/p>\n

Starting with the fall semester, the seven-campus college system would drop its $89-per-credit-hour tuition structure in favor of a three-tier \u201cflat fee\u201d payment structure. City Colleges Chancellor Cheryl Hyman billed the new tuition setup as designed to encourage full-time status for students by making it less expensive on a per-class basis to carry a full load of more than three courses per semester.<\/p>\n

But for the many City Colleges students who take a class or two per semester while working, tuition costs will rise significantly. Taking a single three-credit class would cost $599, up from $267 under the current tuition structure. Students taking a pair of three-credit classes now pay $534, but that price that would go up to $1,069. Course loads of 12 credits or more per semester would be $1,753.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now it may be true that in some circumstances, students who earn their way through college one class at a time would be better off taking loans to cover living expenses, and paying them back with the higher income they\u2019ll have after gaining their degree or credential.\u00a0 And conceivably this is also a possible course of action for a non-traditional student; it\u2019s a lot more difficult to cover living costs if you\u2019ve got a family to support, but it\u2019s doable \u2013 just ask the families living in married student housing at any university, who live on tight budgets, and, depending on the particulars, may make use of food stamps or other government benefits.\u00a0 Certainly there\u2019s no good reason for a student to take classes part-time if they have no family obligations and are even supported by their parents \u2013 well, except for students who simply aren\u2019t able (e.g., due to a disability) to attend full-time.<\/p>\n

But should the government be in the business of encouraging this? \u2013 of creating inducements to attend full-time, and penalties for part-time attendance?<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it almost, well, un-American to establish a policy that says, \u201cdon\u2019t try to pay your own way,\u201d and to penalize those students who try to do so? \u00a0In any case, there\u2019s a chance it backfires, and scares away students who\u2019d otherwise try one or two courses.<\/p>\n

Anyway, because I\u2019m just a bit nerdy, I dug up more details. \u00a0How did the tuition rates, before and after, compare with other community colleges? \u00a0What\u2019s the overall impact on tuition? \u00a0etc.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the Civic Foundation\u2019s report on the FY 2016 budget<\/a>, which contains all the data you could want.<\/p>\n

Some key points: \u00a0due, it\u2019s said, to an improving economy, enrollment dropped 10.2% from FY2014 to FY2015, and is expected to decline a further 1.1% in FY2016. \u00a0In other words, the \u201cStar Scholarship\u201d program isn\u2019t expected to have a measurable impact on the enrollment, except perhaps to mitigate an otherwise even-sharper drop-off in numbers. \u00a0At the same time, the budgeted revenues from tuition and fees are expected to increase by 10.4%, so this new tuition structure is not a simple reallocation that nets out to similar totals. \u00a0(Note, though, that tuition had been held constant for the prior four years.)<\/p>\n

Also: \u00a0the sums involved in the \u201cStar Scholarship\u201d are not high: \u00a0the money budgeted for \u201cwaivers and scholarships\u201d were $5.2 million in FY 2015, and have increased minimally to $6.0 million in FY 2016. \u00a0Compare this to a total dollar amount of tuition increase of $12.0 million, and total operating funds of $309.4 million in 2015 and a projected $208.0 in 2016.<\/p>\n

As to the actual costs (page 27 ff): \u00a0only students taking 10, 11, or 16 or more credit hours will see increases equal to or less than the composite 10%, and some of the increases for everyone else are brutal. \u00a0A single 3-credit class: \u00a0a 73% increase. \u00a0Two 3-credit classes? \u00a074%. \u00a0Even two 4-credit classes\u00a0produce an increase of 35%, and 12 credits, 38%. \u00a0This looks worse than it actually is because, at least according to the news article, these figures aren\u2019t apples to apples, but the 2016 rates eliminate special fees for certain programs.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll grant this: \u00a0tuition at the City Colleges had been moderate enough that even the new tuition amounts are still not that far out of line compared to suburban community colleges \u2014 see the table on page 29 (which I\u2019d copy over if I could). \u00a0The 8-credit cost increase of 35% still puts a student at $1069, where suburban rates range from $932 to $1,222. \u00a0For a 6-credit cost, it\u2019s still $1069, vs. $704 to $916.50.<\/p>\n

But even so: \u00a0fundamentally, this is an experiment. \u00a0Can a \u201cblock tuition\u201d model boost graduation\/completion rates? \u00a0Unfortunately, it\u2019s an experiment with an awful lot of involuntary guinea pigs, and potential collateral damage.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(* Yes, I\u2019m stealing this from John Kass.) It\u2019s well-established that graduation rates at community colleges are rather low; after all, a part of the intention behind the establishment of Arrupe College, as described the other day, was to counter these low rates, which were cited as 5% nationwide, 7% in Chicago. \u00a0\u00a0And there are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPart-time student? The Rahmfather* says no.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(* Yes, I\u2019m stealing this from John Kass.) 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