Arizona Education Report Card: Community Colleges

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Community colleges serve more students than the state’s three public universities. But how will they keep up with a growing population? And should they be allowed to offer four-year degrees? We’ll take a look at the role community colleges play and the challenges they face.

Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon", community colleges serve more students than the state's three public universities. But how will they keep up with a growing population? And should they be allowed to offer four-year degrees? We'll take a look at the role community colleges play and the challenges they face. Plus, his pictures show the plight of humans around the world. This from a man who grew up in one of America's richest families. An interview with photographer Howard Buffett. Next on "Horizon".

>>Announcer:
"Horizon" is made possible by the Friends of Channel 8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, welcome to Horizon. I'm Michael Grant. Should Arizona community colleges offer four-year degrees? What are the state's community colleges doing to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population? Just a couple of the concerns facing our community college system. Tonight, we continue our Arizona education report card series by looking at the challenges facing the state's community colleges. First, let's give you a little background. Each county is allowed to establish a community college district. Yet, only 10 have their own colleges. Four counties -- Apache, Gila, Greenlee and Santa Cruz -- partner with community colleges in neighboring counties. A fourth, La Paz, was part of Yuma County until it split in 1983 and is served by Arizona Western College. Last year, community colleges served almost 365,000 students. The majority, 250,000, attended part-time. About 115,000 were full-time students. In a moment, I'll talk to leaders from two community college districts about the challenges they face. But first, we look at the role community colleges play. Paul Atkinson visited Gateway Community College in Phoenix where about 8,000 people take classes.

>> Scott Pike :
I don't know, how about X minus 4. And again, I think I'd make one more change and put an equal sign.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Scott Pike teaches an intermediate algebra course at Gateway Community College in Phoenix. His class reflects the diversity found on campus.

>> Lisa Young/Gateway CC Program Director:
Our students come from all populations, many different countries, not just our community but all over the valley.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Gateway started out as a vocational school in 1968. It's since expanded to offer a wide variety of classes. It's one of 10 colleges in the Maricopa County community college district.

>> Lisa Young:
Basically, each college has its own niche, where they serve their community. But many of our students will attend multiple campuses. And our school is mainly occupational and vocational but we do serve general studies and transfer students as well.

>> Susan Mills:
Yeah, that's really coming along.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Susan Mills teaches art at Gateway. Community colleges have a poor staff of instructors, but hire many working professionals like Mills to teach.

>> Susan Mills/Adjunct instructor:
It creates relationships between student and members in the community, who are engaged in the community, and provides an example and provides possible educational and work experiences for students.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Community college classes are more affordable than universities, averaging about $150 per class compared to about $600 at a university. But there are other advantages.

>> Tanya Smith/Gateway CC student:
It's cheaper than going straight to ASU. But for the most part it's just a little easier to get in and out of. It's more comfortable than the university setting.

>> Shine/Gateway CC student:
I actually have more fun in school at community colleges than I do at universities. It seems like the teachers are more enthusiastic about their material. Rather than, here's the material, I've been doing this 20 years, Give me your paper. They actually will help you out; they're interested in what you think about the subject.

>> Paul Atkinson/ Gateway CC student:
Casey Caldwell goes to Gateway as part of an early-college high school, where he can get high school and college credit.

>> Casey Caldwell/ Gateway Early High School student:
It's more flexible and you can take your time, easier to hold a job.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Gateway's early college high school is one of about 70 in the nation that's paid for with private funds. It's a reflection of how creative community colleges can be.

>> Lisa Young:
We're very innovative at Gateway. We're really able to grow in the direction we need to to support our students. So we've changed with technology and with time and being able to bring new programs on to meet the changing needs of industry. So we're just always changing.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Case in point, a new health sciences building enables Gateway to help meet the growing need for nurses and medical professionals.

>> Lisa Young:
a lot of our medical programs have waiting lists. So we have nuclear imaging, we have our nursing program. We work with some of the other colleges for a bilingual nursing program. So those programs are at the forefront, we're trying to meet the needs of industry.

>> Paul Atkinson:
New buildings, programs and courses are paid for with a combination of funds. Community College districts rely on property taxes, tuition and appropriations from the legislature to pay for the majority of expenses.

>> Bob Salmon/Arizona Community College Association:
Basically, what you see is the larger share of community college funding in each district comes from the homeowners, the property owners within that district. They have the biggest stake, the biggest share in getting that economic engine driving that comes through the community colleges, and that's really the lion's share, up to 50 plus percent.

>> Paul Atkinson:
Funding will be a critical issue for Maricopa county and other community colleges. Money is needed to meet one of the fastest growing populations in the state, last year Maricopa County voters approved a bond worth of almost a billion dollars to pay for new facilities and equipment. Students will pay 10% more in tuition. Making that funding count is key to community colleges.

>> Bob Salmon:
The community colleges in higher education that will numerically touch more citizens in this country than any other form of higher education, we have to get more mileage out of that, we should get more bang for the Buck. We do what we do really well and we should positively exploit that resource, not only in the state, but also in the country. Fortunately, the president of the United States recognizes that. We believe Arizonans do, too. Hopefully the legislature will continue to recognize that as they take a look at the needs of community colleges as we continue to evolve.

>> Paul Atkinson:
As community colleges brace for an influx of new students, the system must deal with the politics of Arizona's higher education, where universities fight among themselves and community colleges for money and programs.

>> Bob Salmon:
Right now there's too much bickering going on, there's too much pride of ownership if you will, and competition in an unhealthy way. Competition should be healthy. We should be competing with other states, not with one another. We have the ability to form wise partnerships, we want to form wise partnerships, we have to form wise partnerships or Arizona's going to be a big loser.

>Instructor:
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>> Paul Atkinson:
For now, community colleges such as Gateway must focus on higher education and work force development. For some students it's a chance to gain new skill or expand knowledge. But for many community colleges plant the seeds of success that quietly grow in the shadow of their bigger partners in higher education.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining me now are Rufus Glasper, he is the chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College district, and Terry Calaway, president of Central Arizona college in Pinal County. Gentlemen, thanks to you both for joining me. Before we start with that last point there, is there too much warfare between the university system and community college system?

>> Rufus Glasper:
I wouldn't agree with that. I think what we're looking at right now is the issue of access and opportunity. And I think that was mentioned on the tape, what the issue right now is not about competition, it's about limited funding. It's about what's right for our students in terms of trying to have the access that is needed for us to improve the economy in the state.

>> Michael Grant:
As a casual observer, I get the impression, that when we get to subjects like community colleges being allowed to offer four-year degrees, that the universities are a little nervous about the concept, worried about the competition.

>> Rufus Glasper:
It's new to Arizona, the concept is new nationally as we begin to look at expanding, it has been around the nation probably four or five other colleges and I understand they're up to about 11 now. But in Arizona the concept is brand new for us, when we think about something new, it takes us back to teacher colleges. When Arizona State was being developed, U of A thought it should be a research university and the same for NAU. So this is all about evolution. The evolution says there will be a time and there's a demand for more access to -- in the state of Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
Terry, how do you see that? Is there too much turf guarding on issues like whether or not community colleges should be able to issue four-year degrees?

>> Terry Calaway:
I think there has been an awful lot of turf guarding. I think the challenge really that we're facing is protecting our turf instead of looking after what the state needs, and certainly what our business partners need, And frankly, what they need is more access, more availability of classes, of opportunities both in the urban and rural communities. What we don't see today is a border to border opportunity for folks to come and participate in either Baccalaureate programs or masters and doctorates.

>> Michael Grant:
Is this a concern, look the other way, because I think there's a lot of people in the state that think the community college system does a very good job at what it does. And if you broaden that mission, it no longer does as good a job as what it does.

>> Terry Calaway:
I don't think you necessarily can only have one or the other. Certainly it's true that the community college faculty have the academic credentials be it masters or doctorally prepared faculty at our community colleges, to take on those types of roles. I think the challenge for us is, how do we make sure that we can create a vibrant economy in Arizona and how do we make sure that it happens statewide? I think with just three state universities being able to offer BAs, there are some gaps. I think you have heard from community colleges, from the legislature and the public is that there are some opportunities today that are going unmet. And certainly community colleges are ready to step up to the plate.

>> Michael Grant:
What's the community college's prime audience? I mean, we ripped off the sheer numbers of enrollment and they are pretty substantial. What's the primary audience for the community college?

>> Rufus Glasper:
Our primary audience right now is the work force and we're increasing the number of high school graduate students. As we began to look at our average age of students approximately five years ago, it was 32. We're now down to 27. A number of reasons, our numbers are expanding, population is one, affordability is another. Students are looking for additional opportunities. There's a comfort level in coming to certain of our colleges as well, in order for students to be able to be successful.

>> Michael Grant:
I was doing some fast math, that's always dangerous for me. But I want to say a 15-hour class load at Maricopa County community college, now around $900 a semester. And of course, that's - now what are we up to at the university level, about three grand?

>> Rufus Glasper:
We believe it's about three grand. As we begin to calculate our numbers, we believe it's about two-thirds of what the universities are.

>> Michael Grant:
I mean, affordability obviously is one element ---

>> Rufus Glasper:
Definitely.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, Terry, what's the different challenges that you will face in an area like Pinal County than Rufus is going to face here in Maricopa County?

>> Terry Calaway:
I think our challenges are going to very quickly become common to those that Rufus faces. The challenge in Pinal County certainly is dealing with the growth. We have what previously was a county of 180,000, today is around a quarter million people, and by 2015 we're certain our numbers will be near a million people. Our challenge is how do we make sure we're not a bedroom community to Tucson or Phoenix. We have tried to build a strong economic strategy, to work that route we have worked very closely with companies like Intel, with their local medical center to try to meet the needs. We think we have another opportunity, we can help draw new business to our community as we think about building homes, we also need to provide jobs and the college is to make sure that we have the, can provide the work force that those businesses will need.

>> Michael Grant:
We were talking before we went on the air, both of you were giving good examples, the health care industry was another where one of the things that the community colleges do is act as drivers and potential partners for things like the technician level of professional employees. Explain that a little more.

>> Rufus Glasper:
The example that I had given earlier is as we began to look at the growth in our economy and begin to focus on what the economy's needs are in the State of Arizona and Maricopa County as well, we talk about bioscience as one of the major economic drivers, and the MD's and Ph.D.'s that will be leaving. We don't talk enough about the technicians who will be supporting those professionals. For every M.D. and Ph.D., they will need 8 to 12 technicians. These are individuals who can be lab technicians; X-ray technicians, research technicians and these are good jobs. These are jobs that average between $60,000 and $70,000. They can add to the wage level here in the state of Arizona, and then also to increase to our revenue stream.

>> Michael Grant:
It's a very interesting point because when we talk about the knowledge-based economy, I think most of us are drawn to the highest levels of the knowledge-based economy. And your point is well made that there's a lot of levels of knowledge that as you get there and also have to support the very top level.

>> Rufus Glasper:
There are a number of jobs that individuals can have as they ascend to be a M.D. or Ph.D. And along the way they can make choices, and I think it's the same in some of the technology fields as well as the accounting fields and others. We provide the foundation. We provide the entry into the new job. You can test new jobs by coming to us. We're the largest provider of work force training in the state. Community Colleges produce the most number of individuals that are going into the work force on an annual basis.

>> Michael Grant:
Funding challenges, your mix is what about 60% or so the local tax and then the rest tuition state, Terry?

>> Terry Calaway:
Right.

>> Michael Grant:
Do you sweat bullets of the state component part of that?

>> Terry Calaway:
We sweat bullets every day over the state component. The challenges that the state has faced over the budget have clearly hit us. We actually receive less money today than we did around 2000, 2001. Some of that challenge had to be made up in other ways. We are trying to keep ourselves cost effective for the students. There's a certain fact of the matter that you can price yourself out of the market and we are trying to keep our tuition low.

>> Michael Grant:
Obviously, the level of funding you get or don't receive from the state will put pressure on the local property tax rate.

>> Terry Calaway: As well as our tuition rate. Our college is lucky in that because we have had so much growth in our community over the last several years we've been able to reduce our tax rate a bit and still maintain services and keep the tuition rate low. There's clearly a dynamic there as you look at what happens with the state numbers and our local numbers.

>> Michael Grant:
You guys have building permits coming out your ears. Maricopa County is doing pretty good on the property taxes also but you mentioned predictability of funding is a challenge.

>>Rufus Glasper:
Predictability of funding is definitely a challenge. Property taxes, because of the reliability, it's a funding source for community colleges. You look at the notion of affordability, we're concerned that tuition numbers are going higher than we would like them to be, we are asking the state to look at what they're providing and stabilize it and at an amount that we can do projections for the future. As you well know, Maricopa community college passed the bond referendum last fall, and we are trying to prepare to have funding to open those facilities over the next 10 years. So predictable funding and stable funding will allow us to do that and open those buildings in a timely manner.

>> Michael Grant:
All right, Rufus Glasper, Chancellor of the Community College district, we appreciate you joining us. Terry Calaway, president of Central Arizona College, our thanks to you as well.

>> Terry Calaway:
Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
He grew up the son of one of the wealthiest men in America. So what is Howard Buffett doing touring some of the most God-forsaken places on earth? The former wildlife photographer now trains his camera lens on the struggles of people in the third world. He sat down with "Horizonte" host, José Cárdenas, to talk about his latest book, "A Tapestry of Life".

>>José Cárdenas:
Mr. Buffett, thank you for joining us today. You've written six books on photography, a seventh on the way. I would like to talk about your most recent one, "Tapestry of Life." Tell us a little bit about that.

>> Howard Buffett:
"Tapestry of Life" is really kind of a combination of probably about 40 international trips and a few domestic trips and it's just an effort to show through photography what's happening around the world and what some of the challenges are for different people, different cultures, different conditions. Some might be very different from what we see around the United States and some might be similar in specific areas.

>>José Cárdenas:
Some of those pictures are in a booklet that was put together for a visit to ASU that brought you here. You talked about your start in photography, first wildlife and then people. Tell us a little about that.

>> Howard Buffett:
I started my photography mainly when I - I also farm, both farms in Nebraska and now in Illinois. I started taking photographs while I was on the farm. Seeing these great moonrises and sunsets and coyote and deer and fox. So I started taking photographs on the farm. Then I kinda graduated to where I wanted to go beyond that, so I started traveling around the world photographing all sorts of animals. And that eventually led me into the discovery of how interrelated all of the issues that you think of in terms of poverty and lack of health services and how that all integrated with impacting the environment and then of course animals. And really in the last few years I have spent a lot more time photographing people than I have animals.

>>José Cárdenas:
In addition to the commentary that you have in the book that was prepared for ASU, there are a number of photographs that I would like to chat a little bit about. One of them is a gentleman saluting the American flag.

>> Howard Buffett:
That's Everett. He is in West Virginia and the Appalachians. We were driving by, I saw him out getting his newspaper. I mean he is just about one of the thinnest individuals. His ribs were showing. You could tell he was malnourished. We stopped; it was a busy street. I was across the street, wanting to take his photograph. My colleague went up to talk to him. I yelled out, ask him if he is a veteran. He immediately saluted the flag on the porch. Then we went over to visit with him and he wanted to get out his medals and talk to us. It was amazing to me --, it was a great example of somebody who had spent their life serving our country and really had gotten very little back. He lived in this home with basically no furniture, almost nothing in his cupboards. We tried to then later after that to help him a little bit. I was going to go back, he had asked the gentleman we were with, have that guy that took the pictures come back and see me, I want to take a picture in my uniform. And we tried to find him, and we did not find him. It was only about six months later, he went into the hospital and nobody could tell us where he went.

>>José Cárdenas:
You also have pictures of poverty in other parts of the world that are here. A particularly striking one is of a young child covered with flies.

>> Howard Buffett:
I use that in an effort to try to convey more than just the fact that there's a single issue. You have hepatitis A and B, and typhoid mellangitis, and all these different various diseases that are dealt with on a daily basis, losing tens of thousands of individuals suffering in a difficult way and in a difficult environment. And this kind of photograph usually gets people's attention.

>>José Cárdenas:
You also captured the horrors of the Rwandan massacre in a picture that's here.

>> Howard Buffett:
I've gone back - I have a difficult time pronouncing this woman's name. She is in a genocide site in a church, where the priest had actually participated in getting about five or six hundred people into this church, this was a common thing that would happen during the genocide, they would fill the church with people, telling them it was a safe haven, then lock the doors behind them, put semi-automatic weapons through the windows, and fire at will, throw some grenades in and then finish off any survivors with machetes. There were close to six hundred people killed in this church. That photograph shows how the church was left, it's undisturbed, the bodies, the bones, the skulls are all still there. They are just starting to clean it up this past year. This woman was under her dead husband and dead three children and didn't come out for a full day. And that's how she survived, one of four survivors.

>>José Cárdenas:
Your visit to Arizona is in conjunction with yet another book you're preparing. Tell us about that.

>> Howard Buffett:
My mother, when I came out with "Tapestry of Life," said you've got to try to do a similar book of images of the United States and some of the same similar type challenges that we have here which in some ways it's more interesting because we have the resources to deal with these issues here and it's usually a choice or politics or whatever it is that gets in the way.

>>José Cárdenas:
You have been traveling the throughout the state.

>> Howard Buffett:
Yes, on a trip to Arizona, we were able to go up and spend a couple days on the Navajo reservation, which was a great education for me, an exposure to some of the issues there. We went into Mexico and went on the Mexican side of the border where they have about 5,000 immigrants crossing every day. We saw the living conditions in Altar and were then able to go up to what the call the brick yard, on the other side of the U.S. border where they transfer thousands of people into basically, they're like herding cattle but it's herding people. Then they go in and obviously attempt to cross the desert. One thing that really stuck with me is these people, as you interview them and talk to them, they know that some of them face certain death. They are absolutely determined. Many say if I don't make it this time, I'll try 5 times, 10 times, 15 time, I'm going to make it across the border.

>>José Cárdenas:
Mr. Buffett, my last question to you is what you asked in your introduction and that is do these images really have impact?

>> Howard Buffett:
Well, you have to have a little faith they do, because sometimes it's hard to see. I will tell you that, different times, different presentations, I have had a lot of people walk up and say how do I drill a well for somebody in Ghana, and help eliminate the kind of disease you show in your photograph? Or how do I help a child caught in the cycle of prostitution? And I've directed them places, and I've seen a lot of people write checks and writing a check doesn't always solve the problem but every organization that's working on it has to have money. So I guess at least in that sense, the images have moved some people to action and that's all I can hope us.

>>José Cárdenas:
Mr. Buffett, thank you for joining us on our show. We look forward to your next book.

>> Howard Buffett:
Thank you.

>> Merry Lucero:
Arizona's university system is stressed by record student enrollment and faces huge demands from future population growth in our state. We examine the Board of Regent's project to redesign the university system as well as the partnership between ASU and Phoenix to build a new campus downtown. That's Wednesday on "Horizon".

>> Michael Grant:
Thanks for joining us on this Tuesday. I'm Michael Grant. I hope you have a great one. Goodnight.

Rufus Glasper:Chancellor, Maricopa County Community College district;Terry Calaway:President, Central Arizona College, Pinal County;

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