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Certain amount of well deserved respect is finally been given to our community colleges. These colleges have always been overlooked. Pledging support to these colleges that have recently been forced to cut budgets due to state revenue shortfall, President Obama has set a goal of at least an additional five million students by the year 2020.

A grant of $35 million has been announced for these colleges by the Bill Gates foundation. This again goes towards enhancing rates of graduation. Helping to bring these underappreciated institutions to prominence, a hit comedy called Community is to be premiered for the third season by NBC.

In our country, community college enrolments have been on the rise. This is predominantly due to the recent economic meltdown that made university tuitions unaffordable for many and that made jobs scarce. Community colleges became attractive alternatives for students.

In the fall of 2010, at least eight million students enrolled in the for-credit courses say the American Association of Community Colleges. As compared to the 2007 levels, this is a 20% rise. Graduation rates however is a totally different picture altogether. At these institutions, over a period of three years, only about one quarter of students graduate.

There is no doubt that it is not really possible for every single community college student to graduate. According to Institute of Higher Education Leadership and Policy executive director Nancy Shulock’s study report, seventy percent of the totally tracked 250,000 students in California community colleges did not graduate or within the next six years did not transfer to four year universities.

It is imperative to start efforts towards retaining students in these institutions. Working on first year students and ensuring that as many of them as possible stay back is the only way to boost graduation numbers. Remedial education is the key to achieving this says Texas Tech University’s David S. Fike’s 2008 report.

In the Community College Review journal, he writes that passing a developmental reading course is the way to predict retention. In order to read and understand college textbooks, students must have a certain level of reading comprehension and statistics.

This is a self evident fact that many community colleges are not ready to acknowledge says the University of Texas, Austin’s 2008 report. The depth of challenge faced by these colleges with more numbers of students who come academically unprepared is not ready to be acknowledged by state officials and educators. No steps are taken towards finding a solution.

Urban Texas community college data was analyzed by Fike who found that odds of retaining students increased to a great extent if remedial math course is provided to them. It is not really necessary for them to complete the course. Just taking the course gave them a lot of confidence.
He recommends providing students with developmental education based on research.

This should include building the foundation by including mandatory placement and assessment. Retention rates are not same in all community colleges. It is a good idea studying what drives some of them to be more successful than others and working out and implementing solutions at the earliest.