League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, MD, Inc. Fact Sheet September 2004
Go to: LWV Montgomery County Home Page
The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County studied Montgomery College in 1964 and reached the following position: "Support for a publicly supported comprehensive community college education in Montgomery County, with an "open door" admission policy and a commitment to upholding standards of academic excellence." This position was affirmed again in 1971. The four essential parts of this position are adequate funding, comprehensive offerings, the ability for anyone to attend and academic excellence. This study by the League is intended to review what has happened and is happening to the college in the 40 years since the last study.
THE HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE
Montgomery Junior College was established in 1946 as an evening and Saturday junior college program at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, under the aegis of the Montgomery County Board of Education. Its primary purpose was to serve adults of the county, especially WWII veterans who wanted to achieve a college education on a part time basis. In 1950, the college purchased the Bliss Electrical School campus in Takoma Park and moved there. By 1964, enrollment had grown from the original 186 part time students to 2,800 students, 1,800 of whom were full-time. In September 1965, a second campus opened in Rockville with nearly 2,500 students and a goal of enrolling 5,000.
By 1951, 21 curricula were offered in two basic types of programs. One program provided the first two years of a typical college program; the other concentrated on providing general education and an occupational skill that would provide an opportunity for a technical or semi professional education. In 1964 the college began its Honors Program and also offered a Basic Studies course for students ranking in the lowest 25% of their high school class or below the 25th % on the admissions exam. To enroll in a regular full time program, these students had to complete this course either in the summer or during the first semester.
In 1969, Montgomery Junior College became independent of Montgomery County Public Schools, gained its own Board of Trustees and changed its name to Montgomery College. By the following year 8,000 students were enrolled on the two campuses, and the need for additional campus space, especially to the north, was becoming obvious. In 1975, the Germantown campus opened, with classes held in Seneca Valley High School until 1978, when the third campus opened on Observation Drive in Germantown. The three campuses now educate more than 20,000 credit students and 15,000 in continuing education courses.
The mission of Montgomery College was formalized in 1994, incorporating three primary goals: "changing lives; enriching our community; and holding ourselves accountable". Further defined, Montgomery College “seeks to encourage continuous learning for students, faculty, staff and the community, serving the global community as a place for intellectual, cultural, social, and political dialogue.” The college should be known for academic excellence through a commitment to the arts and sciences and also as a leader in meeting economic and workforce development needs.
PROGRAMS AT MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Montgomery College serves multiple functions in the county at its three campuses. Chief among them is the provision of the first two years of college to residents in the county. The University System of Maryland is now partnering with Montgomery College to offer the final two years of college education in the county by creating the Universities at Shady Grove. The college also provides several programs for high school age students. Other course offerings include workforce development and continuing education. The courses in English as a second language are extensive. Additionally, the college provides programs open to the public, such as the summer Chautauqua at the Germantown campus. At the end of this fact sheet is a chart showing the differences and similarities among the three campuses.
The First Two Years of a College Education
When Montgomery College was founded in 1946 it was a junior college offering higher education to the returning GIs. Its major role is still to provide these first two years of a college education to thousands each year. The college has built an excellent reputation among community colleges and is sometimes referred to as the Harvard of community colleges. Its honors program is selective, offers small-sized classes and includes a trip to Cambridge, England, in the summer after the freshman year. It provides an excellent, close-by and cost efficient way for Montgomery County residents to begin attending college.
The Universities at Shady Grove
The Universities at Shady Grove is a new and unique model for delivering quality higher education to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. Eight of the University System of Maryland’s 11 degree-granting institutions collaborate to offer their top programs at one location in Montgomery County. These colleges include the University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore County, College Park and Eastern Shore; Bowie State University; Towson University; University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland University College. The baccalaureate programs include business, criminal justice, hotel and restaurant management, education, social work, computer science, psychology, information systems, nursing and biological sciences. Graduate programs include business, nursing, social work, education and health care. In the fall of 2003, there were 758 students attending in the day and 1,489 in the evening. Among the daytime students, no ethnic group is in the majority with 42% white, 22% Asian, 20% African American and 9% Latino. Of these same students 78% were from Montgomery County, 7% from Prince George’s, 6% from Frederick County and 9% unknown.
High School Student Offerings
Many of the college’s programs seek to provide college-level courses to students in Montgomery County Public Schools. Among them are the College Institute, Tech Prep and Gateway to College. High school students also take courses at the college early in the morning or in the afternoon when they have completed the highest level of a subject offered at their high school. Most of these students are from the high schools close to a campus, such as Richard Montgomery High School and the Rockville campus.
The College Institute presently operates in two high schools, Gaithersburg and Wootten, and aims to offer college credit courses to high school seniors who may have completed all their graduation credits with the exception of senior English. The eligibility requirements for these students include SAT scores of at least 550 in the math and verbal examinations and a GPA of at least 3.5. Courses are offered in the high schools during the school day and cannot be used for high school credit towards graduation requirements. Professors come from all three campuses of the college. In 2003-2004, 210 students from the two high schools participated. There are plans to expand the program to down-county high schools in the future.
Tech Prep is a county-wide program which enables students to take courses in their high schools taught by high school teachers in subjects that are accredited by such groups as the Academy of Finance and Interior Design. When students have successfully completed the courses as per the requirements of the professional organization, they are awarded college credit by Montgomery College.
Gateway to College is a new program that is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is geared to high-school age students who are not presently enrolled in school. Twenty students will be enrolled at each campus starting this fall and will be offered five courses that are basically college prep; these courses can be used for high school credit. When students pass the courses, they are eligible to take the Acu-Placer, a Montgomery College entrance exam. They may then take college-level courses and earn both high school and college credits for these courses. The ultimate goal would be both a high school diploma and an Associate degree for each student.
ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE OPTIONS
As is evident from the demographic information – 34% of the students are of international origins and cultures – the college has developed a variety of courses and options for students who are learning English. These courses include reading, writing, talking, speaking, listening and composing. In order to fulfill its mission to assure the success of students including those students of diverse cultures, the college has prepared a brochure, "English as a Second Language Options at Montgomery College."
American English (ESL) as a second language is offered by the Office of Continuing Education (CE). These non-credit courses are designed to teach English from the very beginning skills where there is no English knowledge to more advanced courses which include preparation to pass the TOEFL (the exam required for admission to US colleges for non English speakers). There is no financial aid and the courses are designed more for learning English as a communication tool than developing the language skills to take credit courses at the college. The American English Language Program (AELP) is a multi-level program designed to meet the language and academic cultural adaptation needs of the non-native speakers of American English. Students in this program work to move into freshman English classes and receive the Associate degree. Admission is open to students of 18 years who are high school graduates or have a GED. Financial aid is available for any student in the program who is a US citizen or permanent resident (green card holder) and qualifies for it. Additional programs offered by Montgomery College include Command Spanish, which is designed to address work- related Spanish-language needs for workers such as police, public safety, etc., and Occupational Safety and Health Training in Spanish.
Montgomery County Council Member Tom Perez chaired a task force on ESOL offerings in the county that issued a report in the spring of 2004. The task force focused on better coordination among the large number of classes offered. As a result of the report, the adult ESOL offering of Montgomery County Public Schools will now be coordinated from the college. The locations of these classes will continue to be throughout the county.
MONTGOMERY COLLEGE DEMOGRAPHICS – FALL 2003
In the fall of 2003, 21,805 students enrolled in credit programs totaling 189,000 credit hours. These included 14,705 students at the Rockville campus, 5,000 in Germantown, 4,873 in Takoma Park and 1,765 off-campus or distance learning. A total of 64% attended part-time and 36% attended full time. Day students totaled 57%, 20% in the evening, 20% day/evening, and 3% off-campus. During the fall of 2003, 57% of the college's students were female and 43% were male, and 60% were age 24 or younger: these included 5% ages 15-17, 33% ages 18-20, 22% ages 21-24, 12% ages 25-29, 8% ages 30-34, 6% ages 35-39, 5% ages 40-44, and 9% 45 or over. A total of 16% were Asian, 28% African American, 15% Hispanic, 41% White. Of the college’s students, 90% were county residents, 4% from elsewhere in Maryland, and 6% from out of state.
One third of students in fall 2003 were international students, from 175 countries. The top 10 countries were Ethiopia, India, El Salvador, Peru, South Korea, Vietnam, Cameroon, Iran, China and Ghana. In a recent year, 3,400 students enrolled in English language credit courses and 2,400 sought to improve their English skills in introductory non-credit courses. Five percent of students reported disabilities. The most common were learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and orthopedic, deaf and blind conditions. Twenty-six percent of the Montgomery County Public School graduating classes of 2003 enrolled in Montgomery College, ranging from 7% to 39% of an individual school's graduating class.
SERVICES FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Like all public entities, Montgomery College is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to provide access and accommodations for persons who have disabilities. First, the ASA requires that all buildings be physically accessible. Furthermore, the college may not refuse any qualified person from participating in its programs because of disability and must provide needed academic accommodation. Section 504 requirements are similar.
For students seeking a degree (credit student), Montgomery College provides student support services which may include academic and career counseling and such accommodations as extended test time, note takers, signers, assistive technology and recorded texts. To qualify, the students must have documented verification of the specific disability, which, for learning disabilities, may require an extensive (and costly) series of tests. The College Access Program, for a limited number of students with specific language-based learning disabilities, provides specialized classes and other supports to prepare them for regular college work.
For non-credit students, Montgomery College has four programs. Pathways to Success provides a 15-week session in reading/writing and life-skills/career planning for students with a reading level below 7th grade to prepare them for credit courses and realistic career goals. The Challenge Program provides enrichment courses for adults with developmental disabilities to help them function more independently at home, at work and in recreation (e.g., computer use, math review, team sports). The Graduate Transition Program (GTP) is a two-year remedial academic/vocational program for high school graduates with developmental disabilities, run in collaboration with Potomac Community Resources and Target, a Westminster-based agency that provides vocational evaluation and job experiences. GTP’s objective is to help these young people attain greater independence in living and working in the community. The fourth program, Transition Training for Independence (TTI), is actually a school program for 18-21-year-old MCPS students, located on the three Montgomery College campuses. TTI is similar to GTP, providing services in a college setting that is more appropriate for these students than a high school, where most students are 15 to 18 years old; they also have access to college social and recreational facilities.
Planning for the destination of college students with disabilities after graduation from Montgomery College often begins early. In a collaborative program with the Departments of Labor and Defense, the Workforce Recruitment Program for Students with Disabilities finds summer employment for these students with the federal government. Sometimes these lead to permanent positions.
AFTER ATTENDING MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Montgomery College prepares its students to transfer to four-year public and private colleges. According to recent statistics (Fall 2002), 30% (6,657) of the students transferred to 492 four-year institutions throughout 48 states in the prior year. The transfers chosen most were the University of Maryland, College Park (1,930 students), followed by the University of Maryland, University College (888) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (633). Others students have made transfers to institutions, including Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Howard University, Johns Hopkins, MIT. Middlebury, Morehouse, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Smith, Stanford, Wesleyan and Yale.
Scholarships may be available to make it financially possible for students to continue their education,. For instance, a student from the Germantown campus was awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship. This was one of 27 awarded to graduating community college students for use at the transfer institution of their choice, enabling students to continue their education and obtain a baccalaureate degree. According to the 4/30/04 issue of "News From Montgomery College,” this scholarship awards up to $30,000 for tuition, fees, books and room and board during each of the next two years at a four-year college or university.
FUNDING FOR MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Montgomery College is funded from a variety of sources. The accepted ideal for funding of the community colleges in Maryland is roughly 1/3 from the state, 1/3 from the county or city and 1/3 from tuition and related charges paid by the students. This ideal is not being met today, with the state paying much less and the county and students providing more. In the FY2004 budget the county contributed around $65 million (45%), students paid about $51 million (35%) and the state gave around $24 million (17%) in a budget of approximately $145 million. (There are other small grants and funding sources to reach this amount.) Montgomery County is paying more than its ideal share in an attempt not to raise tuition when the state is reducing its aid.
Tuition costs to students for the fall semester of 2004 will be $151 per semester hour for county residents, $245 for state residents and $307 for non-state residents. Most full-time students take between 11 and 15 hours of classes. The cost of a full semester of 15 hours for a county resident would be $1782. (An in-state student at the University of Maryland at College Park now pays about $3700 for a full semester.) A non-state resident would pay about double the cost of a county resident at $4605 for a full year. Non-documented residents of Montgomery County who may have graduated from MCPS are considered non-state residents for the purpose of tuition and must pay the higher costs. Often these students are least able to pay. There are some fee waivers at the college. Students over 60 have the tuition waived for all credit courses and many non-credit courses.
As the expenses have gone up at Montgomery College, tuition costs to students have risen just as they have in higher education across the country. Of course, the greatest impact of these increases falls on the students with the greatest financial need. Because the tuition for each course must be paid before a student can enroll in it and classes are filled to capacity by students who register first, many of the students most in need are shut out of courses and must stay longer to graduate. Arrangements can be made for tuition paymenst to be made on a monthly basis, however students need to have the forethought and the ability to negotiate the system in order to qualify for this option.
Montgomery College offers many courses that are not offered for credit and serve as continuing education for seniors and the county in general. The cost of these classes depends on the number of sessions. A class meeting just once may cost as little as $31 while a full semester of sessions cost as much as $439 for a class like Income Tax Preparation. Some classes have additional fees, and all classes cost more for non-residents.
CHALLENGES FOR MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Enrollment in institutions of higher education is predicted to grow dramatically due to a number of factors: 1) demographics – Maryland is projected to have the fourth fastest growth rate in the nation for 18-24 year olds through 2015; 2) increased investment in K-12 education in Maryland is likely to increase the number of high school graduates seeking higher education; 3) most of the jobs in the fastest growing sectors of the nation’s economy require at least some college; and 4) due to cutbacks in state funding, tuition at universities is soaring making the cost at community colleges (which is about one fourth that of a four year institution) more attractive.
A report by a joint task force of the University System of Maryland and the Maryland Association of Community Colleges predicts that the demand for higher education in Maryland will increase by as much as 31% by 2010. Given that 61% of the county’s high school graduates who stay in state for higher education choose Montgomery College, there is bound to be a significantly increased enrollment demand in the near future. According to Charlene Nunley, MC president, as many as 700 students were shut out of the college this spring because they were not able to get into the classes they needed.
Capacity at the college is influenced by other factors besides increased student enrollment. The task force mentioned above estimated that Maryland’s public colleges are 2.6 million square feet short of the space needed today, and by 2013 could be as much as 3.2 million square feet short. Finding sufficient faculty to teach the array of courses that are demanded, student access to financial aid and adequate infrastructure such as labs and equipment all afffect the college’s ability to meet their mission of an “open door” policy.
Sources:
Education Committee Members: Carla Satinsky, Chair; Betty Baldwin, Linna Barnes, Joan Karasik, Pat Karlsen, Nancy Soreng, Lois Stoner, Nancy Wiecking and Cherry Wunderlich
ROCKVILLE Founded 1968 Largest # of students: 15,000 56% non-white 34% foreign (S. Korea, Peru highest) 33% take 12-15 hrs. Faculty: 24% non-white Largest Liberal Arts curriculum: At least 1 course in all foreign lang. (Japanese, Italian, Russian, Chinese, German, Korean – more in French and Spanish) 35 Art courses 7 Political Science 2 Business Admin. 7 Theatre and 0 Film l00+ Honors Center for Macklin Business Institute and Entrepreneur Gudelsky Institute for Technical Education (Printing, Auto, Construction) Marriott Hospitality Center Performing Arts Center Paul Peck Humanities Institute New Observatory High enrollments in Business, Education, Hospitality, Art Criminal Justice Program Engineering Program Teacher Education Program Base for Disability Support Services Sports: top men's volleyball team; also tennis, soccer, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, golf, cross- country, track Gateway to College program for 20 at-risk H.S. students TAKOMA PARK Oldest campus (1950) Midsize: 4900 students 75% non-white 40% foreign (Ethiopia, Cameroon highest) 34% take 7-11 hrs. Faculty: 37% non-white Liberal Arts curriculum not as strong Only Spanish and beg/ French 18 Art courses 4 Political Science 0 Bus. Admin. 1 Theatre and 4 Film 21 Honors Strong Health Science curriculum; Cooperative arrangement with Holy Cross Hospital Non-credit courses in CPR, Gerontology, Diagnostic Imaging, Medical Billing Business Training Center Takoma Park Scholars Program Arts Alive program for community Connection with AFI Paul Peck Institute for Amer. Culture & Civic Education Sports: teams for basketball and coed tennis Gateway to College program for 20 at-risk H.S. students GERMANTOWN Newest campus (1978) Midsize: 5000 students 47% non-white 26% foreign (India , Iran highest) 34% take 12-15 hrs. Faculty: 25% non-white Basic Liberal Arts curriculum: Only French and Spanish 6 Art courses 2 Political Science 2 Business Admin. 2 Theatre and 0 Film 14 Honors Biotechnology and bioscience center Center for International & Multicultural Students Technical Writing Certificate Millenium Scholars Program (for part-time adults) Annual Chautauqua for community Sports: top baseball team; also teams for basketball, men's and women's tennis Gateway to College program for 20 at-risk H.S. students