After completing years of college coursework and walking across the graduation stage, some students find their education put on hold, and their dream job slipping through their fingers.
Education is the key to opportunity, but what happens when institutions designed to create opportunities become barriers to students? Community colleges should not prevent graduates from accessing their academic transcripts because they owe money.
TCC requires all financial obligations to the college to be paid off before they will release a student’s transcript. This might seem like an understandable position. TCC has been struggling financially due to decreased state funds and a freeze on tuition.
However, this method of recouping funds is both cruel to students and inefficient for colleges.
According to The Hechinger Report, an independent non-profit newsroom that focuses on education, 6.6 million students are unable to get their transcripts for having unpaid balances, sometimes as low as a few dollars. Some could argue that students should just pay off the low balance, but for some it is the deciding factor in whether they can get a job before another applicant is chosen.
People who have taken college courses in the past also are prevented from continuing their education later if they have student debt.
Most of those students are community college graduates. Community colleges present themselves as affordable options for low-income students. How can low-income students ever be successful when they find themselves unable to find a job that will help lift them out of debt?
That is why 12 states have now outlawed the practice of forcing students to pay off debt before they receive transcripts. The federal government outlawed the same practice but with federal loans. It is widely understood to have a chilling effect on the job market because it prevents qualified workers from entering the workforce.
The solution isn’t the total forgiveness of student debt, no matter how appealing it may sound. Complete debt forgiveness would require a total overhaul of college funding. In a time when colleges are facing uncertainty in funding, it makes sense why they would employ every tactic at their disposal to secure owed money.
But colleges already can garnish wages through state courts or send off the debt to collection agencies. The federal government can bypass the courts completely.
The transcript withholding method of recouping student debt is ineffective as well. According to a study by Texas Appleseed, a non-partisan non-profit justice center, schools collected an estimated 7 cents on the dollar using this method.
TCC’s new funding model prioritizes getting its graduates jobs in their field. State appropriations are directly tied to degrees earned in high-demand fields, and transfers to 4-year colleges.
These factors make it even more confusing as to why TCC would continue this practice. It is harmful to students, and counterproductive to TCC’s goals. If withholding transcripts harms students, the job market and doesn’t even work for the institutions using it, then there must be an alternative.
