Hartford Business Journal

14 Hartford Business Journal • April 1, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Sean Teehan and Matt Pilon steehan@hartfordbusiness.com, mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com W hen Tayyaba Shah- baz changed her major at Manchester Community Col- lege in 2017, she had no idea it would disqualify her from receiving financial aid during her final semester. Until that point, grants and financial aid allowed her to attend MCC at no cost, while a work-study job enabled her to cover living expenses while staying with her parents, but the surprise $1,000-plus tuition bill she received was beyond reach for Shahbaz and her family. "When I found out, it really upset me. I was in class from 8:30 (a.m.) to 3:30 (p.m.), then I was at work until 8 every night," Shahbaz said of realizing that her education could be at risk. "I almost dropped out." Shahbaz, now 24 and working as a quality engineer at Manchester manu- facturer Paradigm Precision, didn't have to leave school and earned her degree, thanks to a MCC program that grants money to certain students in danger of dropping out due to unfore- seen financial circumstances. Shahbaz's experience of life and financial realities nearly conspiring to push a college degree out of reach isn't unique among community-college students in Connecticut, though her positive outcome is. In fact, the effective drop-out rate at Connecticut's public two-year colleges is 50 percent, according to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a non- profit education researcher. Community- college adminis- trators say they've been working to boost degree com- pletion rates, but argue that schools need more money to better support students, many of whom come from lower-income backgrounds and face financial hardships. That sentiment is relevant to the ongoing debate about whether Con- necticut should offer free community college. Instead, some higher-ed of- ficials say the state should spend more of its limited financial resources help- ing current students, many of whom already go to school for free, graduate. "You can get as many students as you want into a system, but unless you have the proper supports to help guide them in a structured manner through that system, then I think you're doing the students a disservice," said Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system, which oversees the state's 12 two- year colleges. Struggling to complete In Connecticut and across the country, commu- nity colleges have worse graduation rates than their four-year counterparts. It's an important topic for several reasons. For one, hundreds of millions of federal and state taxpayer dollars are spent each year in Connecticut to help community-college students learn and eventually enter the work- force, but the low graduation rates raise questions about the effectiveness of that investment, especially as two- year schools are increasingly looked upon to create a jobs-ready talent pool. Second, failure to complete their Crossing the Finish Line Amid attempts to expand community-college access, current students struggle to graduate INC. Higher Ed. S P E C I A L F E A T U R E Mark Ojakian, President, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Students studying at Middlesex Community College, which has improved its graduation rate over the past decade. HBJ PHOTO | SEAN TEEHAN PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Tayyaba Shahbaz graduated from Manchester Community College and is now working for a nearby manufacturer, but that happy ending almost didn't happen due to an unexpected tuition bill.

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