After reading the article about community colleges and the role they play in the education of students here in Iowa I find myself a little upset and agitated by the discourse and ideas used in the article both by Senator Hammond and the writer.

“I chose NIACC first.” Pardon the clich‚ advertisement, but I chose to go to a community college because it offered the things that I wanted not because I was “forced to marginalize the first half of [my] university education at a two-year school.” I chose to go to NIACC for many reasons; first, I received an academic scholarship to attend there and my first two years of school were mostly covered and ISU could not provide that for me. Second, I wanted a smaller class size. I had no desire to attend classes with 350 of my closest friends. Third, if done properly, I could attend NIACC and then transfer to ISU and not have to worry about the general education classes and I could then focus on the classes needed to fulfill my major. Finally, I could get all this done for a lower cost.

After graduating from NIACC I had 70 credits, of which 65 transferred to ISU — a student can only transfer 65 credits from another institution — so saying that “not all classes transfer to ISU” is true but misleading. The academic advisers at community colleges, NIACC especially, will work with students and help them take classes that will transfer so they are not wasting time and money. Since I had academic advisors that cared about me, and professors that genuinely enjoyed teaching at NIACC, I was able to finish with my B.A. after four years, which is something rather rare for a student who attended a university first.

Current dogma indicates the schools like NIACC, DMACC and other community colleges offer sub-par education but this is completely false. The education at most community college is as good or better than the “factory style” education offered at the university level. I will have to politely disagree with Senator Hammond and her view that community colleges are only for the shy and those with “marginal grades.” Community colleges are a great way to get the best education for your dollar and get out of school in a reasonable amount of time. As far as the handicaps suffered from going to NIACC, Senator Hammond, I had none, other than having to deal with people like yourself and others who believe they are somehow better than I because they did not go to a community college.

Karl H. Hehr

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Curriculum and Instructional Technology