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Wednesday, November 13,2013
Come in, be welcome,
leave informed
Donny Beach
Associate Copy Editor
Imagine a tourist arriving in
Paris on her first visit to France.
The language is unfamiliar, the
road signs a complete mystery,
and she has an itinerary of places
to go and things to do, but no idea
of where those places are or -how
to get there.
Now imagine that it’s not
Paris, but a prospective recruit’s
first time visiting the Clackamas
Community College campus. A
lost student with places she needs
to be and nowhere to get started.
Enter the CCC Admissions
Welcome Center, where prospec
tive and new students can go to
get help with their admission
counseling needs, sign up for
a new student .advising session
or campus tour and ensure that
their first experience at CCC
goes smoothly.
The Admissions Welcome
Center opened in Roger Rook
Hall this January when the
Admissions and Recruitment
team (formerly Student Outreach)
moved out of the Community
Center building during the sum
mer.
The college’s goal was to con
solidate many of the admissions
and “getting started steps” into a
central location, to answer ques
tions and connect people with
services.
Tracy Huddleston, part-time
enrollment services special
ist, loves helping people in the
Welcome Center who come in
wanting to go to school, but who
don’t quite understand the admis
sion process.
“It’s the light bulb effect —
you see the light turn on in their
eyes — they get it! It is so excit
ing!” Huddleston said.
The Welcome Center assists
with a variety of newcomer ques
tions. From help completing the
online application for admis
sions, to understanding how to
apply for financial aid and filing
FASFA to admissions counsel
ing. Student Ambassador Taylor
Miller knows what being a new
student feels like.
“I think it makes people feel
less intimidated to talk to some
one peer to peer?” said Miller.
In addition, the admissions
and recruitment team is responsi
ble for off-campus recruitment at
high schools, college and career
fairs, coordinating campus tours
and hosting on-campus recruit
ment events.
Ariane Rakich, lead admis-
sionsand recruitment specialist is
honored to have the opportunity
to talk with people about their
goals and challenges, and to help
them see how CCC can play a
part in helping them achieve their
dreams.
“I really enjoy the admis
sions counseling part of my job,”
Rakich said.
Many students can navigate
the getting started steps with-
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Student Ambassador Taylor Miller covers the front desk and processes paperwork in the Welcome Center ’s new
double-door foyer office. ;
out needing help and Dustin
Bare, admissionsand recruitment
specialist, encourages anyone
who’d like help getting started or
would like to talk with someone
about whether CCC is the right
place for them, to contact the
The Clackamas Print
Seen something at CCC that defies reason?
Let us know — new scd(a clackamas.edu
Paying it forward,
one student at a time
Associate Copy Editor
Today’s job market is highly
competitive, and while business
es are placing a huge priority
on having a college degree, it is
the students who bear the brunt
of most of that weight. Because
of the rising demand for college
degrees and certificates in order
to earn a living wage, not going
to college isn’t feasible anymore.
Earlier this year, the amount
of student debt in this country
passed the one trillion mark.
This insanity has to stop, some
advocates for students say.
Portland State University
students made waves in the
Legislature earlier this year
with a pay-it-forward approach
to funding college tuition, one
that would give Oregon students
easier access to higher education.
With the help of the Oregon
Center for Public Policy and a
group of PSU students and the
Oregon Working Families Party,
the students created a proposal
suggesting participants in a pay-
it-forward program pay about
0.75 percent of their income per
year they were in the program
for 24 years instead of borrowing
against their futures to pay tuition
costs up front. That translates to
a 1.5 percent per year payback
for a two-year program or about
3 percent for a four-year degree.
Barbara Dudley, an adjunct
professor at PSU and co-founder
of the Working Families Party,
says the House Bill 3472 — the
pay-it-forward program — is a
home-grown Oregon solution to
take wealthy banks out of the
education equation. Pay it for
ward isn’t a debt, it’s a contract
between student and state, she
said.
“And it makes it easier for a
student when they graduate, they
don’t have this terrible debt-to-
income ratio that makes it impos
sible for students these days
to even buy a car, much less a
house, because they have this ter
rible debt on their credit record,”
Dudley said.
Even though the student is
making a commitment to pay a
percentage of his or her income
when done with school, it’s not a
debt, so when they aren’t work
ing they are not accumulating
debt — the student doesn’t owe
anything if they are not working,
they are just paying a percentage
when they are working.
Dudley said it will allow stu
dents to make decisions about
what kind of work they want to
do once they are done with school
without having to worry about
how the heck they are going to
pay back their student debt.
“To me it is much more fair
and amicable,” she said. “It’s not
Drop-in to see the Admissions
Welcome Center team from
Monday through Thursday
between 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., or
contact them to make an appoint
ment, or simply email or call
them for help with questions.
W hat’s up with that...
Check us out online
www. thecl ackamasprint. net
Donny Beach
Admissions Welcome Center.
“Helping students feel com
fortable with getting started in
college and providing them with
the tools to success is one of my
favorite aspects o f my job,” said
Bare.
really making it free, it’s just
making the student’s contribution
to higher education more man
ageable.”
John Burbank from Economic
Opportunity Institute in Seattle
has done a lot of research on
the pay-it-forward model, but
only Oregon has taken steps to
advance his ideas.
There was a lot of media
hype initially when the Oregon
Legislature unanimously passed
HB-3472, which directs the
Higher Education Coordinating
Commission to study and create
a pilot program based on the pay-
it-forward idea before the session
in 2015.
The commission will meet on
Monday, and state Rep. Michael
Dembrow will present the pay-
it forward concept. There also
will be a working group whose
job will be to design the pilot
program.
Sami Alloy of the Working
Families Party says that taking
the time to properly design the
program to make sure it is going
to be user friendly, accessible
for students and affordable is the
right thing to do.
“I think it’s a really great way
to do it, in steps like this, because
it is something so new and so
outside of the box, we wanted to
make sure it is sustainable and
that the public will be educated
and excited about it,” Alloy said.
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