Thursday, January 21, 2010

MCC Promise - why it blew up

The MCC Promise program, which wasn't an "MCC" program, blew up. This morning's article in the Northwest Herald gives the reasons to the discerning readers. Was it was doomed to failure from the start?

When you design a new program, whether it's a college funding program or a plan to start or expand a business or whatever, the first step is to dream up all the reasons it's needed and whom it will help and all the benefits.

The second step ought to be an attempt to rip the plan apart and figure out in advance how or why it could or will fail, and then see if you can solve those challenges. Today's management gurus like to call such challenges "opportunities". That disguises them nicely. They are problems!

In the Age of Entitlement in which our kids are growing up, they believe they are owed everything. Free this, free that. Free college. Free transportation. Allowances. Snacks. Cable, satellite, cell phones (and not the cheap ones, either), Wii, the best and newest X-Box. You name it; they want it. And they want it right now.

And busy parents too often just roll over and fork them over. It's "easier" that way.

And so it was with many of those who received funds from the MCC Promise. Probably MCC did okay in the deal. It got the money, but not the students. According to today's article, only 575 students remain eligible for the Promise program, out of the 939 students who enrolled last fall. How many of those students could figure out what percentage that is?

Hint: That's 61.2% who remain eligible. Conversely, 38.8% dropped out, including "some (who) didn't show up at all, and others (who) made little or no effort." I guess if you were a high school graduate and could fog a mirror and make an "x" on the application, you got funded.

A little hard on the Promise folks? Sure. Why not? If they gave (only) $1,000 to 364 students (939-575) who dropped out, that was $364,000 paid to MCC for nothing.

A simple and easy component (condition) of the Promise grant was a short spell of volunteerism. I'm not certain but, if I recall correctly, it was 16 hours. A student could have done that in one or two weeks, (even in two days), if he really appreciated the grant; instead, many recipients put off their volunteer "until the final months" (probably "weeks"; maybe even final days) of the semester.

The Promise board has changed how it will dole out money to a reimbursement plan. The student has to fork out the tuition, pass the course, put in his volunteer time and maintain a certain GPA; then he gets reimbursed. This really means that many students will not enter the program, because they don't have the money in the first place to enter MCC.

How many students are being graduated from McHenry County high schools who can't even make it into a college freshman English or math class. According to the article, "more than half the studennts took at least one remedial class."

Maybe they shouldn't have gotten their diplomas in the first place!

Reference: www.nwherald.com/articles/2010/01/20/r_jxaayjj3tooutz2onul_zg/index.xml

1 comment:

Debra said...

This program "blew up" because the staff could not keep there records straight. They lost my daughters info twice. Consequently, she did not attend. TWICE. Not much of a promise. Having had 2 other children go to MCC I was very surprised by the turmoil this program created. What a cluster ****.