Maine Sunday Telegram , April 9, 2006

Getting young men back in higher ed a role for community colleges

In the past three years, the number of men enrolling in the Maine system has climbed by 1,000 students.

Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram April 9, 2006

Congratulations to this newspaper for the thoughtful and powerful series, "The New Gender Gap." It brought light to a complex and disturbing issue: the decline in educational achievement of young men in Maine.

Among the issues the series explored are two that are crucial if we are to turn these trends around. One is the importance of applied learning to keeping males (and many females) engaged in learning.

The second issue is how vital it is to teach our youth how transformed the workplace is from when their fathers and mothers went to work.

That points up the necessity of college today - including for those jobs traditionally held by men in manufacturing, automotive, construction and other fields.

Interestingly, several of the students profiled in the series are attending or planning to attend a campus in the Maine Community College System.

While the part of the series addressing trends in colleges focused mainly on four-year institutions, there are valuable insights to be gained by looking closer at community colleges and our experience with male students there.

While the percentage of our community colleges' student body composed of men has declined since the 1980s, that shift is largely a result of us broadening our program mix to reflect a changing economy that has brought an explosion of health care jobs, new technology fields, and other occupations.

It is also a result of gender-equity efforts to ensure that women feel supported and welcomed in all programs, including the traditionally male-dominated ones that continue to be a focus of our colleges.

In the past five years, men have made up roughly half of our incoming class. More importantly, the number of men entering our colleges has grown by 50 percent in the three years since our former technical colleges became community colleges. That represents nearly 1,000 more men going to college - a significant increase.
Part of that growth is due to students, guidance counselors and parents seeing community colleges - with their more prominent transfer opportunities - as an option they might not have considered before.

It is also a result of efforts to encourage more high school students to go to college, including our Early College for ME program. This college transition program offers early testing, support with admissions, early college courses and scholarships. Two of the students profiled in your series, Devin Provencal and Ryan Stuart, have found their entrée to college through this program.

Just over half, 54 percent, of our Early College students are males. Eighty-six percent are enrolled in a career program. Seventy-three percent have been successful in college.

This year, the governor included in his budget, and the Legislature endorsed, funding to expand Early College for ME from 40 Maine high schools to more than 70 schools. Our plan is to bring the program to every Maine high school by 2008, serving 2,000 students per year.

These positive trends are worth examining for what they reveal about male students.

First, that by using applied learning principles in the classroom, and tying learning to a career, students get turned on to education. These attributes are hallmarks of community colleges, and explain in large part why we continue to attract young men.

Our experience with Early College for ME also shows us that by reaching out to those students who may feel disconnected, and providing them with support and financial assistance, many more students can enter and succeed in college - benefiting themselves and Maine.

Once students see the connection to their own lives, academic achievement and higher aspirations follow.

Our students provide daily proof of this.

In three years the number of community college students transferring to Maine's universities has increased 25 percent.

And for those entering the work force, 95 percent find jobs - and 97 percent of those are here in Maine.

Another student profiled in the series offered, in my view, the most compelling message of all: Scott Pelletier, the 37-year-old father of two, who dropped out of high school and made a living in the shoe industry until his company closed.

Today, he's at Southern Maine Community College pursuing a degree in industrial electricity.

"To me, this is a good learning tool for my kids," he says. It's also a good "learning tool" for students, their parents, educators and policy leaders.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Fitzsimmons has been president of the Maine Community College System since 1990. He holds a doctorate in higher education leadership.