Community Colleges in New York

Community Colleges in New York provide an invaluable service to a huge number of in-state and out-of-state students. There is an excellent range and number of Community Colleges in New York, both in New York city and the wider state.

Whilst originally established to provide post high-school education to local residents, many of the community colleges in New York have student bodies that include not just out of state students but international students as well.

The community colleges in New York state offer a full range of programs from associate degrees and the first 2 years of a four-year baccalaureate degree program to skills development and training programs for specific careers.

Academic requirements for admission into community colleges in New York are usually lower than at most four-year institutions, this does not mean, however, a lower standard for completion of the sophomore year of college. It means that a student who perhaps initially lacks strong basic skills may begin more slowly and pick up speed and efficiency as his or her growing competencies in collegiate studies permit.

On the whole, community colleges in New York are usually smaller than their four-year sister institutions. As a result class sizes are smaller too. This can be an advantage as the community college faculty can afford each student more time and attention than is often the case in larger four-year institutions.

Tuition and fees for attending a community college in New York are commonly significantly less than at four-year colleges and universities. Whilst many community colleges in New York have their own student accommodation, food services and a wide variety of student life activities, many community colleges which were designed to serve local students who live at home and commute to campus have developed similar ‘home stay’ arrangements for out-of-state and international students.

Whichever arrangement is in place at the college of your choice, the likelihood is it will cost less than at most four-year colleges.

There are 4 main areas in which community colleges in New York concentrate their efforts to provide excellent training and education opportunities to students, they are:

1. Transfer Studies

In the early years of their development, community colleges in New York were created primarily to provide the first two years of a four-year baccalaureate degree education for local students closer to home and at lesser costs. This programming mission of the community college has been recently strengthened by two trends: the rising entrance requirements and increasing costs of the four-year institutions, making it more difficult for the student to get in and stay in four-year programs; the rapid expansion of articulation agreements between two-year and four-year colleges, making it efficient for the student to take the first two years of 'university parallel' studies in the community college then transfer smoothly to the four-year college of choice.

2. Basic Skills Development

Since the community colleges were designed to help the local student succeed who might not have competed successfully for admission to some four-year institutions, all community colleges in New York offer enhanced opportunities for strengthening the basic skills necessary for success in collegiate studies.

3. Continuing Education

Following World War II, the expanding population made it necessary for community colleges in New York to provide educational opportunities to local students other than just the first two years of baccalaureate studies and the basic skills necessary to succeed therein. Local students - aged 18 to 80 - sought additional meaningful learning experiences. Community colleges in New York responded by offering an ever-widening spectrum of 'continuing education'. Skills for leisure living, participation in the arts, training for meaningful patterns of recreation, opportunities to pursue vocational interests - all have become the curricula of continuing education.

4. Career/Technical Education and Workforce Training

Moreover, during recent decades community colleges in New York have also increasingly become centres of career and technical education and of workforce training. The rapid changes of technology in countless fields of human endeavour have opened up around the world with numerous new, promising, well-paid and satisfying careers available to those with two years of specialized technical training. In like fashion, people already in the workforce have found it necessary to engage in up-grade training of on-the-job skills and to enter a pattern of life-long learning to stay on top of their career fields. To these new needs and opportunities, community colleges in New York have responded with vigor.

Many have become 'comprehensive' community colleges, offering a broad array of programs to meet local and state needs: transfer studies; basic skills development; personal/life enrichment opportunities; initial preparation for technical careers; up-grade training for career advancement; customized training for business and industry. Some have done this simply through adding more career and technical programs to their curricula; others have merged with vocational schools and technical colleges to afford this wider range of learning opportunities. However they have come about, they provide an equally rich pattern of opportunities for out-of-state students as for students of the neighbourhood.

Interested in great value for your educational dollar and an excellent course? Consider joining local students in a selected community college in New York. Community colleges in New York offer quality, customer-oriented, affordable higher education to get you where you want to go.