I've always felt you could do the most good by funding a good chain of community colleges. One of the big causes of the explosion in for profit colleges is that in many areas have more students that want to enroll in community college than they have the ability to provide. For-profit schools fill the gap.
Community college has the stigma of "not real college," and I think they tend to get short shrift on funding because of that. What, you don't want everyone to go to a four year school?
There's a great article in the Atlantic[1] that makes the case that the way work used to be structured meant a more consistent learning curve - you got better at working one machine, you could transfer those skills to the next and learn on the job - whereas now there tends to be an initial barrier you have to clear before you can learn anything. You can't get a job programming machines until you know the languages and have the math skills, but there's no way to get there through another job. You have to put your life on hold before you can get to an advancement path. That's the main hurdle - once you're past that point you're on the more experience/better skills track again.
Community college shouldn't the focus so much because it'll reach nontraditional students and save money for students who want to transfer to four year schools but because the separation between no college and a good two-year degree is the biggest, hardest gap to cross and once you get people across it they're already most of the way to accomplishing whatever they want to next.
I think this too. There are millions of unfilled jobs right now because people don't have the skills. The answer to that problem is not more crappy four year for profit colleges. Its community colleges that teah what people need to learn.
You can throw money at existing community colleges - but what good does it do if there's no visionary leadership?
Myself being primarily involved with filmmaking and film classes at North Country Community College - I am attempting this year, before I graduate, to change the filmmaking culture that currently barely functions at my CC. Ive seen enough from the students here, in 3 semesters worth of film classes, to know that these kids who have great interest and talent at our CC, who migrate towards taking film classes, they all have talent. Theres a spark of magic in each of their shitty flip-cam produced final projects. And these kids just slip through the cracks after the semester is done, because theres no infrastructure to catch or support them.
Flip cams do not command high levels of creative performance. They just dont, and its a shame these kids dont get the chance, now, to use better. Especially with the price of technology today.
I began attempting to make a change at the end of last Spring's semester, and get the school to budget competitive equipment for film classes. The process; Everything I tried doing through traditional bureaucratic methods of improving the school's filmmaking situation, was either a barrier or unefficiency.
By the time I go through the proper channels to make visionary culture change at the CC, Im already gone. Everything is a process of approvals and appropriations. Meetings. Decisions. Levels. Kicking things upstairs, come on! Ill be transferring to a top ten film school, like USC, that already has all that good stuff Id like to play with. And at that new school, im 'happy to be there' guy. That emotion, buries the ones I have attached to my CC. Once I have that access to proper filmmaking equipment, I could give a shit about the ills of the CC, regardless how much I loved the school.
However, I believe if I could now have the proper filmmaking equipment at my current CC, I would be making great films now, not two years from when I first started, and not at a 50k a year institution. If im making great films now, at 5k a year, dosent that shift my perception about what I would need out of continuing my education at a four year? wont my decision making be different at that point?
Im definately interested in the future of filmmaking and community colleges. So, heres a nice place to plug the fundraiser I set up to help get our school filmmaking equipment and establish a new film club.
> You can throw money at existing community colleges - but what good does it do if there's no visionary leadership?
It's hard to have leadership when 90% of your job is triaging "things to cut this year," and the rest is dealing with the fallout. It's been like that in California for over a decade.
It's pathetic, and someone with a couple spare billions deciding to prop up the system would be welcome.
A bit of unsolicited advice for your indiegogo campaign: dropping the f-word in your campaign title (“seed filmmaking equipment for our college, you f ckers”) probably isn’t a great idea. I am not at all offended myself, but I think it may be off-putting to quite a few folks out there who may otherwise be interested in helping.
The rest of the copy of the campaign is also very poor, and makes me feel like OP is likely immature and that if I donated, my money would be poorly used. And the F word is what bothers me the least.
Community college has the stigma of "not real college," and I think they tend to get short shrift on funding because of that. What, you don't want everyone to go to a four year school?
There's a great article in the Atlantic[1] that makes the case that the way work used to be structured meant a more consistent learning curve - you got better at working one machine, you could transfer those skills to the next and learn on the job - whereas now there tends to be an initial barrier you have to clear before you can learn anything. You can't get a job programming machines until you know the languages and have the math skills, but there's no way to get there through another job. You have to put your life on hold before you can get to an advancement path. That's the main hurdle - once you're past that point you're on the more experience/better skills track again.
Community college shouldn't the focus so much because it'll reach nontraditional students and save money for students who want to transfer to four year schools but because the separation between no college and a good two-year degree is the biggest, hardest gap to cross and once you get people across it they're already most of the way to accomplishing whatever they want to next.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-i...