Summary Of The Dropout Rate Of Community College Is Problematic By Bob Rath

Bob Rath in his article “The Dropout Rate of Community College Is Problematic,” discusses exactly what its title says it does. The key focus of this entire article is about how dropout rates for community college students have risen within recent years and how it can affect our nation’s economy in the years to come. With less people in the workforce, businesses nationwide will be understaffed and as a result unable to make as much profit as it should. The author elaborates on this crisis when discussing problems that students face when during their time at college such as financial issues, students being unprepared for college-level courses, and possible remedial forms of education. Students often enrolled in community college face financial problems during college. It is stated that students and their families come from low income families and they
often overestimate the price of community college. Rath states that programs such as FAFSA work to give financial aid to all students who apply fill out the application and qualify for it; however, students with the overwhelming feeling of possible debt from the schools they attend fail to fill out the application and instead take on a job which consequently keeps their focus away from school, resulting in the students being forced to stay in classes even longer. Those classes can often pile up and become too much for students who lack preparation; often times, these students do. As mentioned previous, students arrive onto campus without the academic foundation and other preparations they need to be successful.
The article further stresses this point when it is explicitly stated that “many students are arriving at college without the academic foundation necessary to excel. Weak curricula, unclear standards, and a lack of alignment between high school and college coursework leaves students stranded in college without the academic foundation they need.” Without the students adequately prepared they can’t be expected to handle the workload colleges give to them right off the bat. This can cause students to fail in classes and force them to make them up once again, which in turn could make them pay even more money to the school. “The Dropout Rate of Community Colleges Is Problematic” then goes on to state that “The combination of outside obligations and inadequate academic preparation is often too much, causing students to drop out.” Some of the “outside obligations” as stated above would be the remedial courses the students will be forced to take if they remain enrolled in community
college. With some students lacking the proper foundation for success in their classes due to varying circumstances, colleges provide remedial courses to get the students up to speed with what will happen in their classes. While this is a good thing it has some drawbacks to students. One of the main points that Rath expresses is that these classes, once again, add to the already growing fee that students must eventually pay. The article then goes on to say that the one of the biggest turn aways of remedial classes is that give no credit toward their diploma, yet they still cost as much as any other credit holding class. This discourages students from wanting to take these remedial classes because with all the extra time they spend in school to take these classes it sill has no impact upon their goal of getting their degree; yet, they still must pay as if it was. In the end, after in depth analysis of Rath’s article it is easy to conclude that something must be done about the dropout rate community colleges are facing. These various issues remedial courses, lack of preparation, and the financial problems lead students to want to drop out more from school. “The Dropout Rate of Community College Is Problematic” realizes that this has become a serious issues and steps must be taken to rectify them as soon as possible.