Community Colleges Think, Act Locally
A recent report by the Boston Foundation calls for massive reform of the state’s community college system. While we agree with many of the report’s recommendations and share the overall goal of better aligning the system with our state’s workforce development efforts, it contains two recommendations that would radically change our community colleges for the worse: abolishing local volunteer governing boards of trustees, and limiting the focus on degree transfer programs in favor of workforce training.
For decades, community colleges have done both quite well and have balanced the two mandates on the local level.
To address some of today’s workforce needs, the board at Quinsigamond Community College has approved several new career programs, a 60-plus seat expansion of health programs, a facilities study and financial plan for a soon-to-be developed 65,000-square-foot health careers campus in downtown Worcester, and the the opening of a branch campus in Southbridge. QCC accepted more than 9,100 students for the recently completed fall semester, an enrollment increase of more than 3,000 from 2006. All this happened despite a $2.5-million decline in state funding. Even with these cuts, the board approved a fee structure and budget that enables 48 percent of QCC’s 9,100 local students to attend college on grants and scholarships. Consequently, the net cost of attendance for local QCC students has declined 34 percent over the past three years to the lowest cost among community colleges in the Northeast.
QCC’s board is in continuous contact with local business leaders, and the college is an active member on several business boards, including the Central Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board, the Worcester Business Development Corp., the Massachusetts Biotech Initiative and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. These engagements have resulted in numerous new programs with a variety of industry and education partners.
Our locally led efforts have helped increase the number of QCC graduates by about 40 percent in three years to well over 1,000 annually. Many transfer to other schools, especially WPI, Nichols and Worcester State. Others directly enter the workforce in a number of high-demand disciplines. QCC has also been awarded a “Gold” standard by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Initiative for its curriculum.
No one disputes that we need to do much more to ensure a workforce that can advance the Massachusetts economy in every region of the state and, as the Boston Foundation correctly concludes, adequate community college funding is critical to that end.
But imposing central control of community colleges through another layer of state bureaucracy is not the answer. Entrepreneurial, local responses to local challenges, done in partnership with the other campuses, provide for quick solutions geared toward local needs.
Gail Carberry is president of Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester. Rosalie Lawless is chairman of the Central Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board.
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