Talk:Community college

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[edit] Older Comments

The second half of this page duplicates City University of New York but is incomplete. Also, community colleges are better compared to senior colleges than universities. They usually grant an associate degree as opposed to a bachelor degree. This entry needs an overhaul. RoseParks

Yes. That's the thing about Wikipedia though--you don't have to content yourself with observing that something needs done--you can just jump in and do it!

I wasn't sure what the point of the lower portion of the article was, so I left it. if you know better, have at it.

I have tried to draw the distinction better with my recent edits to the top part. You use the term "senior college." I have never heard or seen that term used, though it does seem complementary to a term I have seen used, specifically, "junior college".

I'm afraid of getting lost in the complex muddle of terms, as junior colleges and community colleges are not necessarily the same thing, as a junior college might have a more regional (rather than community) scope.---- Clearly someone, or one of us, has some checking to do, before defining "community college." I am from NYC, where "community college" does refer to a 2-year or junior college with little sense of "community." RoseParks

As an employee and student of a community college, I feel somewhat qualified to write on the subject, so I rewrote the page and removed the duplicated New York material. Hopefully someone else will add more, but it's better than it was. HollyAm 01:48 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)

Should we really have a list of community colleges in this article, or one at all? There are hundreds upon hundreds of them in the US alone, and listing them all here could get messy. Also, the list of colleges and universities already includes community colleges. --Kukuman 00:44, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A separate List of community colleges article might be a good idea. While the List of colleges and universities does have community colleges, they are mixed in with the other colleges, and are thus harder to distiguish as being community colleges. A separate list could help better list them, especially since the current list here could end up being too big for this article. -- LGagnon
Done. --Calton 14:47, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It is also a good idea, however, we need to visit each States' board of community colleges website and see what is a community college under their jurisdiction. Example, North Carolina probably has loads upon loads of colleges. -- Zscout370 My Talk 16:47, 2 Feb 2005 (EST, USA)


[edit] Junior college now redirects here

Let's face it...what we are really talking about here is "13th Grade".

I change the junior college article to redirect here. Below is the text from the junior college article. Maybe some of it could be incorporated into this article.

A junior college is a two-year post-secondary school whose main purpose is to provide a method of obtaining academic, vocational and professional education. The highest certificate offered by these institutions is usually an associate's degree, although many junior college students continue their education at a university or college, transferring some or all of the credits earned at the junior college toward the degree requirements at the four year school.
The term junior college was previously used to refer to all non-bachelor's degree granting post-secondary schools. Over the last 30 years, the name junior college was often thought to have negative connotations with respect to the education received by the students enrolled in them. Since many public junior colleges in the United States served a more localized community, these schools began to replace the "junior" in their names with "community". With the advent of the term community college for public institutions, in the United States the term junior college is often explicitly used to refer to private institutions. However, the relative small number of private junior colleges and the continued use of the term in the names of many community colleges means that people often do not perceive a distinction between the two terms.
Junior colleges originated from the Chautauqua movement in late 19th century New York State. By the turn of the century, groups from established colleges and universities would travel around the nation, visiting small towns that did not have access to upper level schools, to offer eight to ten week course on subjects such as the arts, science and literature.

--Cab88 11:14, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure if I can agree with the above redirect. The terms "junior college" and "community college" are perhaps almost interchangeable in the US, but this may not apply to other locations. In Singapore, Junior colleges work on an almost different system, and are not referred to by any other name. Shall I restore the JC article and expand it?--Huaiwei 16:43, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Maybe. Probably depends on whether other Commonwealth countries use the U.S. or Singapore meaning for "junior college." If it's just Singapore, we could explain the local usage in a note at the bottom of the community college article, but if this is one of the big Commonwealth v. U.S. issues, then the original article should be restored. I don't know enough to resolve this. --Coolcaesar 06:41, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Hmm...with regards to Singapore, there is probably enough material for half an article, considering it is so different from whatever exists in this article. I am not too sure if this is wholly a Commonwealth vs US affair, thou, but I do know JCs also exist in the commonwealth countries of Australia, Malta, India (btw...notice the article Junior College still exists!), but also in China, Japan and Taiwan. They dont exist in many commonwealth countries thou.--Huaiwei 08:06, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
In the UK it's called sixth-form college. — Instantnood 08:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, but we are talking about Junior Colleges here.--Huaiwei 09:49, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
What about an article for matriculation/pre-university education in all countries? — Instantnood 10:45, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
That's a really bad idea. Pre-university education between countries differs even more than their legal systems; one could write a book on the differences in educational systems. If you look at the articles on various legal concepts, some of them, like Contract, are turning into a huge mess because people keep adding all the variations unique to their own country. That problem is why some articles, like Tort, have already been split up. --Coolcaesar 02:12, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
The article on "Junior colleges" should cover it's use other then as a synonym for community college (common in the U.S.). Any relevant text from the above text I copied over should be added to this article. The article on "Junior colleges" should explain that it is about "Junior Colleges" as they exists in Singapore and elsewhere outside the US and that the US use of the term is covered in the article "Community college". --Cab88 11:40, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Alright, I will see what I can do. Alternatively, we can make "Junior college" a disambg page, and have seperate articles for JCs in different countries?--Huaiwei 12:13, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I came here looking for the meaning of "Junior College" in India, so of course a redirection to this article took me no nearer an answer. 192.55.52.1 20:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, referring to "levels" implied (to me) a hierarchy that I don't think was intended. I would use another word; however, I have not edited the article because I was unsure of the intent. 192.55.52.1 20:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please explain the American use to Britons as well as the British use to Americans

Is this correct: in N. America some people go to a community college after the age of 18, and instead of uni? Njál 17:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Short answer? Yes.
Community colleges here serve a number of purposes but the two primary ones are training in a field that does not require a University Degree (police work, medical assisting, or some forms of nursing for example) or to allow a less expensive means to complete the first two years of a 4 year University degree. From personal experience, I completed a 2-year degree (Associate in Science) at a community college that cost $55-$60 USD a credit hour before transferring to a University for my last 2-2.5 years where it costs about $220 USD per credit hour. Some classes I took did not transfer (I changed majors) but 75 of the 90 credit hours did transfer and most of the non-transferring classes I took for fun and knew they wouldn't transfer.
Another advantage to the community college system here is that academic qualifications to enter are not as stringent. This allows someone like me who did poorly in high school to effectively have a second chance to qualify to enter the University. The community colleges also make it easier for people who elected not to go to college after high school to reenter the education system later on or to gain a lower level degree that increases their job prospects.
Oh... American schools go Kindergarten (age 5) --> Elementary School (Grades 1-5 or 6) --> Middle School (Grades 6-8) or Junior High School (Grades 7-8)--> High School (Grades 9-12) and end at about age 17-18 usually. There is no mandatory education after that point and graduates from high school may enter the work force, go to a Technical School (Job-specific/non-academic), go to a community/junior college (academic and job specific or academic only), apply for a university (bachelor's degree seeking), or perhaps perform military service.
Can't help with British schools... Deathbunny 23:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The British use is much more loose. In some areas a community college offers education other than for school pupils, e.g. adult education, evening classes; in others it is merely a school as part of a wider community centre. Tafkam 21:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the American usage is even more complicated as it varies from one state to the next depending upon the quality of funding. Many American community colleges do provide adult education and evening classes as well as associate degrees. For example, Foothill College and De Anza Colleges, the community colleges serving the western end of Silicon Valley, serve 18-year-olds trying to get associate's degrees to support transfer into universities, as well as precocious teenagers earning college credit to accelerate their passage through their university years (that is, by graduating in three instead of four), professionals in their 30s and 40s earning certificates to update their knowledge and advance their careers, and retirees seeking to learn more interesting life skills like photography, foreign languages, computer art, etc. Plus both colleges have large gymnasiums and Olympic-size swimming pools, and Foothill also has a full-size soccer/football field with bleachers, which serve users of all ages. --Coolcaesar 06:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger with Junior College

Oppose - if anything, there needs to be a split & merge. The current entry is very confused, particularly where usage differs between different countries. I'd prefer to see this page remain as a brief explanation of the use of the term in different countries, with perhaps the US section containing a brief explanation and a link to Junior College. Tafkam 12:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - this term has a distinctive meaning in the UK. the article needs to be rewritten to reflect differences between the conception of community colleges in the US and the UK.

Who Cares - use common sense, not straw polls. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 06:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Depends - if there is a difference in what constitutes a junior college/community college in the US vs. other countries, then we should have separate articles for each type. One size clearly would not fit all in that case. But if there is no difference, then the articles should be merged. I will leave that to much smarter Wikipedia administrators. Quidam65 15:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Junior and community colleges are quite different. --Coolcaesar 07:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment - There should be a division based on national systems. I think the US system has the two being much more similar than other nations. I also think this article is an utter mess, the juco article isn't great, but better. I would support separating into articles on systems --in the US, for example, I would draw a line between Junior Colleges & Community Colleges vs. Technical Colleges, though they all might fit into a well organized article. --Bobak 16:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Strong oppose. They are not interchangeable, regardless of whether some community colleges use "junior" in their name. I do a lot of work in community college policy and no one in my field would ever confuse these two. Additionally, we cannot look at this article from an American viewpoint, and there is no doubt that community colleges and junior colleges are very different in other countries. Beginning 16:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I support Tafkam and Bobak's opinions. The US usage of the two terms should be merged into a single article, but there should be pages for "community college" and "junior college" describing all usages of the terms (and linking to more detailed articles where they exist). 203.33.3.10 05:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose I oppose the merge. However, if a merge comes to be, I believe "community college" should be dominant. --68.196.104.31 (talk) 02:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Factual Accurarcy Dispute

The City University of New York system isn't really a system of only community colleges, but rather an umbrella organization of community colleges, four-year schools, grad programs, etc. Frankly speaking, CUNY is such a loose system that it would probably be considered an umbrella organization of universities in most places. I know it's a somewhat trivial change, but I wanted to give a chance to whoever wrote that to clarify what they were saying. I've never really heard of community colleges being called "city colleges" here in New York. In fact, that would strike me as very confusing since we have a pretty well-known public four-year college (within the CUNY system) called City College of New York. Bolwerk 09:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biased

Why is it that every disadvantage listed ends with "However, blah blah blah why it doesn't matter"?

Article definitely reads like it was written by community college students. Tool2Die4 (talk) 20:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Unfortunately, I'm too busy cleaning up other Wikipedia articles and practicing law and trying to keep up with social functions to clean up this mess. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Also, check this logic: "Research shows individuals with Associate's degrees earn less than those with Bachelor's degrees. However, because a correlation exists between years of education and earnings, this says more about years of schooling than the value of Associate's degrees or certificates."
This person must have taken logic at a community college, because if the un-cited research is accurate, at most we can conclude that there is a correlation between both type of degree (Associate vs. Bachelor's) and years of education. How does the additional existence of a correlation between years of education and earnings imply that this second correlation is the primary correlation, while the type of degree is less of a factor? It doesn't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.193.168.178 (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)