Technical colleges count

In a Jan. 10 letter to the editor, Stanley Freeman of Orono raises important concerns regarding the development of the community college system in Maine. Freeman gives four criteria for a community college: curriculum, geographic accessibility, open admissions and free tuition. As a former instructor at community colleges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and as a current full-time instructor at Eastern Maine Technical College, I’d like to address his concerns and correct several misinterpretations.

I believe, and Freeman would agree, that the technical colleges are already meeting the first criteria of offering a “constellation of courses” that support transition to a four-year institution, as evident in the recent addition of the Associate of Arts degree.

In his second point, he states that the colleges must be accessible to all Mainers and not residential. The tech colleges are accessible to Mainers; however, not all programs of study are offered at every tech school, thereby requiring appropriate housing for students from other areas of the state. Of course, a student attending EMTC for welding (offered at few tech colleges) could get an apartment in Bangor, but that would certainly entail more money and necessitate transportation as well. Clearly, the campus dorms provide a reasonably priced and logical alternative. Moreover, dorms provide a touch of “big college life” to those who chose not to go that route.

Third, Freeman describes the admissions tests at the colleges as “hurdles” to education. This might come as a surprise to Freeman but we have no admissions test at EMTC. What we have is a placement test used to place students into classes appropriate to their levels. This test is not to discourage enrollment or to provide a hurdle; instead, it is to encourage refresher work where needed and guarantee academic success. Also, due to the technical, hands-on nature of our programs, as well as the limited space and staff, we simply cannot let in everyone, every semester, who applies to those programs.

Every community college I’ve been involved with has had similar enrollment challenges. One solution is to dissolve the technical programs and offer more “academic” majors that require less physical space, equipment, and hands-on learning. In that case, we would be selling the same product as the University of Maine and Bates and Husson, et al, just as a blue-light special. The last, Freeman suggests that all community college tuition should be free. Gosh, wouldn’t I love that too. But until post-secondary education becomes “mandatory” (as K-12), it’s not likely to occur. And considering the current state budget, I don’t suppose more funding is coming along anytime soon.

As it is, our technical college system has just received yet another budget cut which translates into, among other things, hiring freezes and expenditure limits. At the same time, our enrollment has increased and, having taken on the mantle of community college, we are expected to increase the variety of our coursework. You don’t have to have an MBA to see the financial and philosophical issues at conflict here. Despite all that, the technical college tuition is still the best educational deal in the state.

Freeman has important ideas and contributions to the community college debate, but I don’t think we should toss the technical programs or the dorms to accommodate such narrow goals. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all for the community college system, we should consider a more sophisticated, interesting, and vibrant hybrid that keeps the technical instruction in place while providing more opportunities, at reasonable tuition levels, for all Mainers.

Carol Lewandowski lives in Verona.