Growing up in Utah sometimes I heard jokes about going to Utah Valley State College and people calling it “High School by the Highway.” A few years and a good deal of refiner’s fire induced maturity later, that “High School by the Highway,” is now Utah Valley University and nobody needs to defend choosing to go there for college. It has programs that other more erudite Universities in the area don’t like Aviation and their education program is highly competitive.

I’ve grown to respect community college and when I saw Slate.com this afternoon I saw that I just got a HUGE endorsement. From Mr. Obama himself. In a speech Tuesday in Warren, Mich., he proposed sinking nearly $12 billion into revamping the country’s community-college system. The proposal allocates $9 billion in grant money to boost academic programs and raise graduation rates, plus another $2.5 billion to upgrade school facilities. It would also fund open-source online courses so that schools can do more classes online.

And no, I’m not suggesting that the College of Rural Town, USA is going to comparable to Harvard. I don’t think many are under that illusion either. The truth is that many of the nation’s hardest most intelligent workers come from all walks of life. You don’t have to be a Vanderbilt anymore. So it’s time we started supporting more money on the Johnsons and the Smiths.

I don’t want to make any hasty generalizations so take the following statement with a grain of salt: Community colleges are filled with people who actually want to go to college.

The Slate article describes it perfectly, “We live in a knowledge economy, and we’ve set up education as if we’re an agrarian culture. It used to be that you could educate the top 10 percent, he said, and the rest of the population would get unskilled jobs. But in a global economy, where even professions like cashier or truck driver require constant upgrades in technology and information, a high-school diploma is not always enough. That said, a pricey Ivy League degree may not be necessary, either. Community colleges fill that hole….With jobs going overseas at ever-faster rates, America needs an educated, flexible work force ready to change jobs on short notice. That work force is more likely to emerge from community colleges than from, say, the Dartmouth English department.”

So whether you are currently writing your thesis on Milton over at Harvard or if you take online classes after work, embrace your inner Don Henley and “Get Over It.” Community College is here to stay.

Many of these schools are also involving the students and rewarding them for their contributions in helping the college save money. I would not be surprised if some of these budget improving exercises were thought up by the students themselves. I think these colleges are setting a good example of financial responsibility. If they can eliminate even more expenses maybe in the future this can even help make college more affordable.

Here are some of the ways that these colleges cut their expenses without directly affecting faculty jobs:

1. Got rid of unnecessary landlines. $1100/month
2. Held virtual athletics events and saved travel expenses. $900 on bus travel
3. No new faculty bus tour.
4. Less window washing. $22,300/year
5. Less sidewalk power washing.
6. Weekly trash pickup instead of daily trash pickup.
7. Made professors teach 6 classes instead of only 5.
8. Cutting back on FREE student laundry service. $150,000/year
9. Eliminating FREE ESPN and HBO in student rooms. $75,000/year
10. Eliminating one day of new-student orientation. $50,000/year
11. Putting a cap on student FREE printing per semester to $50/semester.
12. Turning down thermostats.
13. Getting rid of trays in the cafeteria. $30,000/semester
14. Reducing paper based brochures and directories and moving to digital.
15. Low flow shower head.
16. Energy-saving light bulbs.
17. Holding dorm contest to see who can reduce energy costs by the most.
18. Switching from bottled water to tap water. $10,000+
19. Rebuilding old computers instead of buying new ones.
20. Limiting vehicle purchasing.
21. Scheduling more video-conferencing creating less travel.
22. Eliminating voicemail systems and equipment now that most students and faculty use cell phones.
23. Staffing students in the summer in professional positions to give them work experience while paying them less. $725,000/year
24. Hiring students to renovate dorm rooms at minimum wage giving them a summer job.

If all colleges could implement multiple combinations of similar expense cuts, college could become even more affordable. We need to encourage colleges to be smart and follow the examples of these schools.

If you want to read the original article I pulled this information from, it’s titled “For Colleges, Small Cuts Add Up to Big Savings”. It’s a well written article and goes into details on what schools did what and how much they saved. I’d like to thank Tamar Lewin for such a great article.