GreggYour.com

infoneer-pulse:

“This is better,” Conrad recounted in the student lounge of the bustling downtown campus one recent day. “The teachers really do hands-on kinds of things.” Conrad also has a job while she studies, organizing events for the Hudson’s Bay Co. department-store chain.

Hugely popular for emphasizing practical skills that lead directly to careers, community colleges — most of which simply call themselves colleges, as opposed to universities — get much of the credit for making Canada second in the world in the percentage of young people ages 25 to 34 who hold some sort of postsecondary degree, according to a 2011 report from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. More than half of all Canadians have such degrees, and half of those went to community college.

That’s an upside-down version of the American system, in which community colleges — while enrolling nearly half of all undergraduates — are a drag on the nation’s higher-education standing. The OECD puts the United States at 16th in the world in the percentage of young people with a postsecondary qualification. South Korea ranks first.

» via Washington Post