Hurricane Katrina has forced dozens of colleges and universities to close for the semester, leaving some 100,000 students scrambling to find alternatives. But while students attending four-year colleges have usually been able to relocate to schools elsewhere, community college students often do not have the means or ability to travel thousands of miles to continue their education.
Approximately 21,000 students from the Louisiana Community and Technical College System won't be able to attend classes at their usual campus this semester, said Kizzy Payton, the system's director of public information. The system's two main campuses, Delgado Community College in New Orleans and Nunez Community College in Chalmette, are closed indefinitely, along with four campuses of the technical school, she said.
Just as colleges and universities from across the country - Brown included - have reached out to assist students from four-year schools closed by the hurricane, community colleges have also extended promises of assistance to community college students in the Gulf Coast. But taking advantage of the offers might be difficult for many students.
"We've received a lot of offers from other community colleges across the state and country. We deeply appreciate the support," Payton said.
Administrators at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, which reopened most of its campuses across the state Wednesday, received offers to accept displaced students from institutions ranging from Harvard to community colleges in nearby Florida, said Colleen Hartfield, vice president for institutional relations at MGCCC.
But community college students face a variety of difficulties in continuing their studies elsewhere. The travel expenses and tuition costs, even if discounted by the alternative school, might prove too burdensome. Most community college students are also unable to easily uproot themselves and move elsewhere to continue their studies - perhaps because they support their families or work in addition to their studies.
"A lot of students are just trying to get back on their feet," Payton said.
But the outlook for affected students is not entirely bleak.
Community college students are increasingly turning to the Internet to continue their courses without having to travel to a distant campus. The Louisiana community college system is relying on electronic courses to allow many of its students to continue their educations, Payton said.
A $1.1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will fund between 1,000 and 2,000 online courses for students affected by the hurricane, said Frank Mayadas, the program director in charge of the grant at the Sloan Foundation. The courses will be provided by about 200 institutions nationwide, he added.
Almost 1,000 students - many from Delgado in New Orleans - have already expressed interest, he said.
Since 1992, the Sloan Foundation has promoted online courses to offer a chance to learn for students who can't get to a physical campus, Mayadas said. "When this disaster of Katrina came along, we asked ourselves what we may be able to do," he added.
In Mississippi, MGCCC officials expected a "significant decrease" in enrollment when its doors opened Wednesday, Hartfield said. But she added that administrators were hopeful that MGCCC would receive new students whose home institutions are still closed or who have lost their jobs.
Thousands in Mississippi are out of their jobs and might turn to education to get their lives back on track, Hartfield said.
Many students whose homes have been destroyed by the hurricane gladly returned to MGCCC's residential Perkinston campus to have a dry place to sleep, Hartfield said.
