VOCATIONAL AND COMMUNITY COLLEGES
The Metamorphosis of Community Colleges
According to the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, by 1975 the community-college system boasted half the total enrollment in higher education. These dramatic numbers were due primarily to the infusion of adults, who flocked to area institutions offering two-year degrees, located in major population centers, and catering to working students. Many of these students were returnees to education who had been in the workplace and who therefore had specific vocational goals in mind. The Carnegie Commission reported that one-third of the community-college students were taking vocational courses, from advertising to wildlife management.
Flexible, Community-Oriented Programs
Community colleges were able to tailor their programs to local community business and industry needs. Corning, New York, for example, boasted a special program in glassmaking, complementing the Corning glassworks nearby. An even closer tie with industry, however, was found at the General Motors Institute, the only community college designed, built, and operated by a major corporation. Located in Flint, Michigan, next to a Chevrolet plant, the college offered only two majors: electrical engineering and industrial administration, but these courses of study were augmented by numerous liberal-arts offerings in areas as diverse as black history, urban problems, and music. The 3,000-student population in 1973 included 350 black students and 111 women. After receiving a degree, 95 percent of the graduates signed on with GM
for a job with starting salaries set at a healthy twelve thousand dollars. The 1973 student body president explained that there was little antiwar activism on this campus: "There's a real sense of responsibility to the company here," he said.
Minority Groups Found Community Colleges
Among the dozens of community colleges founded in the 1970s were schools located on Native American reservations. Among them were unique community schools, the Lakota Higher Education Center and Sinte Glenka College, established in 1970 on reservations in South Dakota. Less than 1 percent of the nineteen thousand Lakota (Sioux) situated on reservations had degrees. With unemployment running at over 40 percent and the average income at two thousand dollars annually, the schools were a welcome addition to their communities. Neither school had a central campus; instead, both were set up in facilities in a dozen community buildings over the five thousand square miles of reservation. Oglala Sioux director of the Lakota Center, Ray Howe, explained the endeavor: "For over 200 years the white man has promised to educate the Indian and—especially in higher education—he has failed." Funded by federal dollars and private foundations, the school set high standards. Howe noted that students who had transferred from other community colleges off the reservation with As were surprised to receive Cs at the Lakota Center. "You don't get through because you're an Indian," Howe said. "You get through because you're a student."
Sources:
"Company U," Newsweek (9 April 1973): 91-92;
"For Indians, By Indians," Newsweek (12 February 1973): 71.
