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VOA慢速英语--团体与大学帮助往届生完成大学学业

时间:2018-12-01 19:04:04

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Groups, Colleges to Help Former Students Finish Their Studies

Redding, California, is a city with few choices for students interested in higher education.

For generations, the local economy has been mostly based on sales of natural resources, such as minerals and wood from the forests of northern California.

Jobs in these industries traditionally did not require a college education, and they long offered enough pay to support a family, says Buffy Tanner. Tanner is the director of several programs at Shasta College, a local two-year college. She describes Shasta as the only public higher education institution serving the surrounding the area.

“We don’t really have a college-going culture in our area,” Tanner tells VOA. “Even with the shift in our economic base, there’s still lots of families that don’t quite understand, you know, ‘Why would you go to college? Why wouldn’t you just go to work directly out of high school?’”

Over the past 30 years, many local businesses dealing1 with natural resources have closed, says Tanner. Now, most of the local job openings are in fields like healthcare and education, which do require some kind of college degree.

The issue is that, because people in Redding have failed to see the value of higher education, few of them have a degree. In fact, three years ago, Shasta found that about 31 percent of area adults over age 25 had attended college without completing their study programs.

So, Tanner says, Shasta College decided2 it needed to do more to help former students return to college and finally earn a degree. In 2016, Shasta launched two programs, which she now leads. They are called Accelerated College Education, or ACE3, and the Bachelor’s through Online and Local Degrees, also known as BOLD.

The school designed each program with the needs of returning college students in mind, Tanner says. Such students are usually older than other students and have full-time4 jobs. And they are often earning money to support families, meaning they have lots of responsibilities in addition to work and school.

That is why the ACE program offers a path to an associate’s degree through night school as well as internet-based classes. This program’s study periods can be completed in just eight weeks, instead of the normal three- to four-month college term.

As there are no nearby public four-year institutions, BOLD partners Shasta’s returning students with public colleges and universities in other areas. It helps them earn a bachelor’s degree through classes in Redding and online at a reduced cost.

ACE also places returning students in groups that work together as they progress through the program.

And BOLD offers special classes with Shasta that help students progress through the higher education system and find jobs after completion. So, the students have better support than they might have had in the past, Tanner adds.

A societal responsibility

All of these efforts brought attention to Shasta College, leading it to join a larger movement to help students earn degrees.

In February, the Lumina Foundation research group reported on the rates of people earning college degrees in the United States. It found that almost 16 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 had attended college without ever earning a degree. So Lumina and several other groups teamed up with the Institute for Higher Education Policy, or IHEP, to launch a program called “Degrees when Due.”

Julie Ajinkya is the vice5 president of applied6 research at IHEP. She says her organization has created computer software that collects information on college students who have yet to earn a degree. Through the Degrees when Due Program, IHEP has shared those software programs with Shasta College as well as other schools.

Ajinkya says her organization plans to spend the next three years helping7 these institutions understand the data its software gathers. It will then show them how to identify and best serve the special needs of students who want to return.

IHEP wants to share its resources with as many schools as possible, Ajinkya says. But first, like Shasta, the schools must recognize the reasons why students leave college and the barriers they face to returning.

She says many leave because of a personal issue, like a health problem or family crisis8. The main reason they have difficulty in continuing or returning to college is the rising cost of higher education. And these are circumstances that are often out of their control.

“I think it’s really … all of our responsibility to support students in eventually completing,” Ajinkya says, “because we know that increasingly our job force is going to need more and more individuals who have some sort of post-secondary training. And so as a nation, we will miss a key opportunity if we don’t.

Efforts spreading nationwide

Colleges and universities across the country seem interested in this initiative9.

Dawn Medley10 is a student affairs official at Wayne State University, a public four-year institution in Detroit, Michigan. She says the Lumina Foundation reached out to the school about setting an example for how schools could help improve student graduation rates earlier this year. Together, they began examining student data and found that Wayne State had 13,000 students drop out of college without earning a degree.

So, Wayne State launched a program called “Warrior11 Way Back.”

When students leave college before earning a degree, they still have to pay back their loans, Medley notes. Schools will not release the academic record of any student with unpaid12 debt. And a student often cannot attend another college without those records. This is a big problem for returning students who left because of financial reasons in the first place, she says.

"Warrior Way Back" lets former students with some debt return to Wayne State. For every term a returning student completes, the program reduces their old debt by a third. And if they choose not to earn a bachelor’s degree, they can move to a community college to use their past work toward earning an associate’s degree.

I’m Pete Musto.

And I’m Dorothy Gundy.

Words in This Story

institution – n. an established organization

shift – n. a change in position or direction

associate’s degree – n. a degree that is given to a student who has completed two years of study at a junior college, college, or university in the U.S.

bachelor’s degree – n. a degree that is given to a student by a college or university usually after four years of study

applied – adj. having or relating to practical use

post-secondary – adj. of, relating to, or being education following high school

opportunity – n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done

initiative – n. a plan or program that is intended to solve a problem

graduation – n. the act of receiving a diploma or degree from a school, college, or university

academic – adj. of or relating to schools and education


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 dealing NvjzWP     
n.经商方法,待人态度
参考例句:
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
2 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
3 ace IzHzsp     
n.A牌;发球得分;佼佼者;adj.杰出的
参考例句:
  • A good negotiator always has more than one ace in the hole.谈判高手总有数张王牌在手。
  • He is an ace mechanic.He can repair any cars.他是一流的机械师,什么车都会修。
4 full-time SsBz42     
adj.满工作日的或工作周的,全时间的
参考例句:
  • A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
  • I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作,我不知道她是如何对付的。
5 vice NU0zQ     
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的
参考例句:
  • He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
  • They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。
6 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
7 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
8 crisis pzJxT     
n.危机,危急关头,决定性时刻,关键阶段
参考例句:
  • He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明,在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
  • The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。
9 initiative m4iyL     
n.主动性,首创精神,主动权(的行动),倡议
参考例句:
  • He went to see the headmaster on his own initiative.他主动去看望校长。
  • His employer had described him as lacking in initiative and drive.雇主说他缺乏进取心和干劲。
10 medley vCfxg     
n.混合
参考例句:
  • Today's sports meeting doesn't seem to include medley relay swimming.现在的运动会好象还没有混合接力泳这个比赛项目。
  • China won the Men's 200 metres Individual Medley.中国赢得了男子200米个人混合泳比赛。
11 warrior YgPww     
n.勇士,武士,斗士
参考例句:
  • The young man is a bold warrior.这个年轻人是个很英勇的武士。
  • A true warrior values glory and honor above life.一个真正的勇士珍视荣誉胜过生命。
12 unpaid fjEwu     
adj.未付款的,无报酬的
参考例句:
  • Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
  • He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

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