Why Starting At A Community College May Be Bad For Young Men

Many of the young men that I’ve worked with began their post-high school education at a community college, or a commensurate technical school, and ultimately did poorly there.  Typically, these were bright young men who might have been average students, both in terms of high school grades and SAT scores, but their academic interest had not solidified because they didn’t find their “passion” yet.  Their parents felt that the “safe play” was to start at a lower-level school, since they felt that higher education success was a financial gamble for their son.  Why might this be a wrong move?

Out of the many correlates and factors for college success, student engagement is one of them.  The concept of engagement in academic terms includes the ideas of a student being involved in his or her education, being challenged at the right level, and feeling that what they are doing is meaningful.  Engagement, among other things, is the subject of the National Survey on Student Engagement, which is conducted every year at more than 1,300 participating 4-year colleges.  An equivalent version was done by the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 for community colleges, which covered more than 500 schools and 310,000 students.  What this latter survey found was that community colleges have a very low level of student engagement, and reported that some community college students begin slipping through the cracks from almost their first day.  For boys, especially those with yet-to-burgeon academic interests, a high level of engagement will help them the most.

Another reason to give second thought to community colleges for bright students was described by a former president of Princeton in his 2009 book “Crossing The Finish Line,” which was an analysis of 200,000 college freshmen dating back to 1999.  Part of this analysis found that bright students who attend a community college are actually 36% less likely to ever complete a bachelor’s degree when compared to equally bright students who started at a traditional four-year college.  Also, for above-average students, they do better at schools that are more challenging, rather than “easy” schools. 

When planning for college, parents and students need to take a knowledge-driven approach that includes student engagement, graduation rates, retention rates, and many other factors to ensure that young men are not among the 2/3 of students that take more than four years to graduate, or among the nearly half of American students who do not finish at all.

Jeffrey Ludovici, M.A., is operates Student Strategy 101®, a college planning and support program based in Pittsburgh, Pa.  For more information, please visit him at studentstrategy101.com or at his College Strategy Blog.

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