Now there is a price to pay in acquiring familiarity in any given academic institution. You learn what the fastest way to any given building is, or in our case how to bypass those formidable Ohlone stairs. You discover through experience what teachers to avoid and which to take. You make the mistake by taking classes you enjoy and delay registering for general education courses. But, like with all things, there is a trade off that more often than not means waking up one day to the realization that you are still not progressing any further along in your path to transferring. The initial plan was that you were supposed to be at community college for two years. And now you are on the end of year three. Where is “real” college anyway? And once you get there did you learn the lesson from community college that the priority ought to be on academics not extracurricular? In the Oct. 26 issue of “Newsweek,” Congressman Lamar Alexander proposes the idea that what higher education needs is a three year solution. That’s right, three years to complete an undergraduate degree instead of four. As it is, the average students are now taking approximately six and a half years in order to complete their B.A or B.S degree. And the three-year plan is being equated as higher education’s version of a hybrid vehicle, not for everyone.
The three-year plan operates on the premise that by eliminating one year, students will benefit. Students will save approximately 25 percent off their general tuition and will be taking at least 10 units more per academic year. Currently one out of five students begins college already having attained some college credit from taking an Advanced Placement course in high school. The three-year plan will hypothetically reinvent the American system of higher education as we know it. The question then becomes how could something that looks so good on newsprint in actuality be so deceiving? I think first we ought to drop the hybrid car metaphor like it’s hot and replace it something considerably more dignified, the Travel Channel show, “Man vs. Food.” Yeah, I just went there. The three-year plan is indeed comparable to competitive eating. In other words, the first sip of that milkshake may be delicious, but the accelerated speed in which you are drinking it will produce an intense brain freeze. It may appear that finishing in three years is a good idea, but it will come at a certain cost. A school, whether it be a community college or a university, functions through a variety of components. The most vital of course being the faculty. Teachers are arguably overqualified and under paid for the work that they do. Not to mention that professors also have to battle the entrenched system of reaching tenure, which has a way of more often than not leading toward a slippery slope of entitlement to some extent. This policy of tenure produces camaraderie and a stagnant state of intellectualism among those who are teaching us to be free-thinking individuals. The job security that occurs comes attached with the death of youthful enthusiasm and passion for any given subject matter. What the three year plan does to the current model of education is it makes the occupation more difficult. It takes the present pressures of lack of resources and depleting financial capital and exacerbates the quandaries that already existent within the system. On the surface, the three-year plan promises to reduce costs of tuition for students. However, they will be paying for the accelerated degree in other ways. The cost of tuition is constantly on the rise and by having to take more classes per semester so that one can finish in three years means having to pay for more classes. It will significantly lead to less breathing room in terms of persuing extracurricular, which tend to uphold the principle of team building above self interest. And can teach lessons far reaching the confines of a campus. The three-year plan requires drastically reinventing how we as a society envision the academic year. The school year of fall term to spring term has historically never been amended despite the Industrial Revolution, which led to the shift away from an agrarian based economy.
According to Ohlone’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, Jim Wright, “The whole school year is built around an agricultural society that does not exist anymore.” Let’s apply the concept of the three-year plan to the community college system. Subtract a year from the two years that you are supposed to take here. Imagine how many more classes you will have to take. How the nature of community college will adapt to speed up not slow down. And how when you apply in the fall you will not have a sufficient record of how well you perform as a college student since you will only have been here for roughly half a semester. Now your prior academic record becomes the more accurate reflection of your intellectual brilliance. “It would be condensed. It would be intensive. It would think only fit the lifestyle and interest of a few students particularly at a community
college. And it would be more costly. Now that does not mean that it couldn’t be done. If you had the money to do it, the students who were interested, and the faculty who wanted to teach that way,” Wright said.
The idea of the three-year plan that Congressman Alexander has proposed is a nice idea in theory. But, we need to apply a heavy dose of practically to this Washington quick fix. The allocation of money should rightly be placed in reinventing and repairing the American education system.
By MANIKA CASTERLINE
Opinions editor
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