Higher Education

The College of Micronesia, where I teach, is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which means that they are expected to maintain the same academic standards as colleges in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Roughly ninety-nine percent of the students here qualify for Pell Grants through the U.S. Department of Education, as it is income-based, which in turn provides the school with much needed funding. The students then take home the difference between what is covered by the Pell Grant and what the school actually costs, which can mean a refund for as much as a thousand dollars per semester. This helps offset the economic reality of inflation and extremely low wages by providing what amounts to a supplemental income for families with one or more members of the household attending college. I have no problem with that. Unfortunately, though, it also seems that the Pell Grant refund may be the single most significant motivating factor for a large number of the students here to attend college in the first place. I say this because after the checks were issued, attendance in a couple of my classes diminished considerably.

Granted, this is mostly speculation on my part, but the timing is rather hard to ignore. Meanwhile, since the college is also desperate for revenue, it would seem that they have little choice but to be complicit partners in this exchange. Quite frankly, without the Pell Grant, the College of Micronesia would cease to be. However, as I suggested, this also makes for a larger percentage of students who don't really want to be here. In that sense, it's almost more like high school than it is college, and when you consider how ill-prepared many of these students are for college-level writing, I have had my work cut out for me, to say the least.

Of course, now that my classes have been whittled down to those who actually do want to be here, this has considerably changed the dynamic - and those that do want to learn have proven to be relatively adept at it. With that said, I maintain hope that all of my remaining students will be writing at a level indicative of a college education by the end of the semester, and also that those who dropped out may see a value in higher education that goes beyond the instant gratification of a refund check - before it's too late for them to receive continued financial aid.

If I didn't believe that there was a benefit for these students to learn this stuff, I wouldn't be here. However, and this is probably true just about anywhere, on some level, I can only effectively teach those who genuinely want to learn, who are ready for the responsibility of being college students. I recognize that it's not for everybody, but for those who choose to get more out of this than a mere refund check, it provides a rare opportunity for long-term upward mobility, and from a broader economic perspective, it can also be viewed as an critical investment in human capital. I only wish that more people would take advantage of the education as opposed to simply taking advantage of the educational system.