Dorchester Times: Hooray For Community Colleges

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Hooray For Community Colleges

Take a look at the story below ("DHS Graduation Is May 17") and you will see a high percentage of this year's DHS graduates plan to further their education by going to community college.

Good for them!

In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, many high school students were told that chasing a four-year degree was the only pathway to success. As a result, our country and state have become too dependent on the service sector. You'll find graduates of four-year institutions working at fast food joints and retail outlets for $8 an hour. Put simply, there's more supply than demand for folks with a four-year liberal arts degree.

Many four-year college students end up not completing their degree and/or are saddled with thousands of dollars of debt for years (decades) into the future. In the U.S., one in five young people ages 25-32 currently live with their parents; many of them have a four-year degree.

Meanwhile, manufacturing, agriculture, construction and other skilled trades are hurting for workers because our nation lacks employees who know how to use both their heads and hands.

Bloomberg has just published an interesting story about the growing trend across the nation to align the curriculum of America’s community colleges with the needs of employers. The article cites several examples of how community colleges have aligned with local industries to teach usable skills, including those needed for advanced manufacturing jobs.

The article calls community colleges "a vital linchpin connecting the world of learning and the world of doing."

We agree. And we hope Dorchester Public Schools' faculty are giving community colleges a good sales pitch to DHS (and junior high) students.

Chances are, many DHS students will have a brighter future -- financially and occupationally -- if they at least start their higher education at a community college.

1 comment:

Knows-It-All in OmahaMay 8, 2014 at 11:54 AM

The price of college is skyrocketing — the average cost of tuition and fees at public four-year colleges jumped 27% from the 2008 to the 2013 school years, according to the College Board — and with it, the amount of debt students face. According to a February report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt increased $114 billion in 2013 alone to $1.08 trillion. Now, fully 71% of college seniors who graduated in 2012 had debt, compared with 68% in 2008, and the average debt load was $29,400, up roughly 6% a year since 2008, according to the Institute for College Access & Success .

What’s more, these debt burdens are so high that many students can’t pay: 11.5% of student loan balances are more than 90 days delinquent (this is the highest rate of delinquency among credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and home-equity loans), according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York .
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."