I am a Student of 59 years of age, attending Chemeketa Community College. My Daughter also attends CCC. She is 32 and is pursuing a Nursing Degree. We live in Linn County but for various reasons, we are attending College in Marion County. She has spent 2 years pursuing her prerequisite’s and has all A’s except for a B in Biology which she is now retaking. She has completed all the prereq’s but now finds that she will be penalized points for coming in from outside Marion County. She is concerned that because of the popularity of the program at Chemeketa that she will be denied after paying the $140.00 to apply. After all this time she is now looking around at other programs at other institutions rather than sitting for a year for the program to open up again.
It seems that every program in the state has a different set of prerequisites. If you can’t get into the program at Chemeketa because it is limited, you might at Clackamas, Western, Linn-Benton, down in Eugene or elsewhere. However, to do that you have to go back to school to obtain the prerequisites required for that institutions program. This sets back many students by up to a year or more and drives up their costs requiring more classes. My daughter claims that many are so frustrated that they give up their dreams of Nursing and change there majors to head in a direction which accepts the prerequisites they have. It makes you wonder if there are not other programs that also set students up for the same problem that the Nurses have.
Sometimes in going back to academia myself I find that there is a certain arrogance in the environment that pets ego’s and results in driving up costs for students. The road blocks these present is unnecessary. For instance every college has individual control over textbooks… It is obvious that to standardize them would increase the amounts produced and drive down costs, but every College has its own criteria for texts regardless of costs to the students. Likewise, the directors of these programs make decisions about their programs oblivious to what standardization would accomplish.
Every College should have standardization of prerequisites. If Clackamas has higher expectations bring them down. If Chemekata’s are lower bring them up, but standardize them. Once students have achieved the prerequisites and have been accepted into a program, then the individual programs can set their own expectations to graduation. Prior to that they should all be the same.
The interesting thing is that everyone talks about costs when it comes to education, and standardization is one way we can control costs. The costs to the institutions would be minimal if any to accomplish this. If the objective is to get students through their required regimen at a minimum of expense and a minimum of time and into the workforce were they will be productive, then what I’m suggesting should make sense. It is my sincere hope that all involved will pursue this end.
Britton Jones
