Community College Pathways' Conflict

Abstract

As employers update their hiring practices, such as project-based and competency-based hiring, community colleges must rethink their career and technical program content and facilitation. Community colleges are public 2-year institutions of higher learning conferring associate degrees, certificates, and industry-related credentials. Florida is an example where community colleges were rebranded as state colleges and issue bachelor's degrees while continuing to facilitate a community colleges' mission of access and completion.

Community colleges are on the front line in preparing a competent workforce with the knowledge that can transcend various domains. As employers look past grades and demand proficiency, career and technical education must comply by offering students an integrated, robust, and holistic curriculum that focuses on educating students in mass quantities, but one that offers them a framework for individual cognitive ability and critical thinking (Hirsch, 2019). Employers indicated that learning pathways that neglect to focus on the students' ability to think critically are irrelevant in the industry.

To maintain a contemporary teaching and learning, community colleges must advocate for change in that they must be willing to challenge the state regardless of the state's oversight of these institutions. Educational institutions that resort to the entrenchment of pathway dependency will be left behind as stakeholders seek more contemporary and flexible educational options.

Learning pathways are designed to align advisement and program selection in a more effective way to encourage completion by broadly structuring programs so that students can explore disciplines before choosing a focused discipline of study (Van Noy et al., 2016). Pathway development began in earnest several years ago, and many community colleges did what they always do, and continue to, divide students into groups: academic versus career and technical. Indeed, the function of the institution is to educate. All education is academic at heart, even as it may impart physical or technical skills, yet for most students, ideal education results in employment. However, many community colleges tend to force students into a divide that harms the stakeholders. Students should not be forced into choosing an academic pathway or a career and technical pathway because this choice restricts their ability to learn by suppressing learning opportunities. Blended pathways allow students to experience education in a variety of ways including work-based learning, project-based learning, and competency-based learning (Moskal et al., 2013). Flexible pathways provide students with greater mobility between programs and institutions, a greater emphasis on prior learning and work-based experience (Duarte et al., 2018). Blended and flexible pathways are more efficient as these models offer students the ability to draw connections between competencies across disciplines and apply them to core course content, not just enabling critical thinking, but offering the opportunity to practice applying a critical thought process to project- and competency-based education (Lanford & Tierney, 2015).

A blended pathway provides students with a real-world component to learning as they experience learning from environments. This real-world connection encourages students to be open-minded about education and reinforces students' need to participate in lifelong learning to support or improve their position in society and support the economy. Linked Learning is another pathway community colleges should consider. This pathway is intended to be multidisciplinary but does not have a prescribed path. Linked Learning combines career and technical education with academic education to articulate practical skill application (Lanford & Tierney, 2015) and is focused on work-based learning, high expectations, personalized support, project, and competency-based learning, and aims to reduce the stigma typically associated with career and technical education (Hamilton, 2020).

Students enroll in a community college for various reasons, and they certainly do not know whether they should follow an academic pathway or career pathway. Choosing the wrong pathway often results in frustration and failure. Many community colleges articulate credentials as a means to an end, but good community colleges articulate a holistic education as a means to an end focusing more on student's education and less on specific credentials. While many people use a community college as a steppingstone to additional education, these intuitions must work for the stakeholder while upholding the school’s values. Therefore, while community colleges do many things well (Osterman, 2011), they should not contribute to the diversion effect, but strive to contribute to the democratization of education (Leigh & Gill, 2003; Long & Kurlaender, 2009) which includes the appropriate development of CTE curriculum. An appropriate CTE curriculum prepares students for work with the skills required for sustainable employability and growth and the opportunity for continued education.

Community colleges must be less interested in phase one employment figures or the assessment stage of employment (Casto, 2000) and more interested in career adaptability and employability skills (Lamback & Cahill, 2020). As employers continue to question the validity of a community college transcript (Gauthier, 2020), these institutions must focus less on dividing students arbitrarily and focus more on their holistic education.