Higher Education and Civic Engagement

Being a student at Penn State, I'm well aware of the amount of civic engagement that occurs on and off campus. I think it's interesting when I talk to my friends who attend community colleges and find out how less engaged they are. It makes me wonder if there is a connection between institutions and engagement. 

After research, I found I was not the only person with that question. A specific article, For-profit post-secondary education and civic engagement, was written in response to a researched hypothesis regarding civic engagement and students who attend community colleges compared to students who attend Universities. The authors of the article used data from the U.S. National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), National Post-secondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS90), and Beginning Post-secondary Survey (BPS) to test the hypothesis that students who attend for-profit schools show lower levels of civic and community engagement than students in community colleges. This hypothesis does not support my theory that students who attend community colleges are less engaged, but it still goes into depth on the topic, which I found to be interesting.

During the course of their research, they consider the differences in civic behavior being the result of the different types of schools, and/or the experiences students may have in their programs. They find their hypothesis strongly supported. Students attending for profit schools show less involvement in civic and community engagement than students at non-profit community colleges. The conclusion to their research agreed with other researchers ideas that for-profit schools have more narrowed institutional goals that strictly prepare students for the labor force, which then causes these students to be less aware of others and less interested to participate in the political process and community affairs. 

After their hypothesis was supported as expected, the authors furthered their research to understand why there is such a difference. They considered questions regarding the students who attend these types of schools, the size of the institutions, and the higher education outcomes. They found that larger institutions with higher enrollments have less students who interact with faculty. They also have substantial evidence that major differences between community colleges and for-profit schools are found within the curriculum, extracurricular activities, and community service programs that foster civic engagement.