By Shelby Holliday
UWIRE Contributor

(UWire)--The gloomy job market, sluggish economy and spike in college tuition has students looking to summer classes at community colleges to get ahead with cheap credit hours.

Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio has seen a 10 percent increase in applications for the summer quarter.

"If you have the summer off from your four-year university, it's a good way to get a few extra credits that will transfer over and save quite a bit of money." 

-David Wayne"If you have the summer off from your four-year university, it's a good way to get a few extra credits that will transfer over and save quite a bit of money," said David Wayne, the media relations coordinator at the school.

Giles Rafol is a student at the University of Illinois Chicago, but he chose to take Calculus 2 at a community college in his hometown of Kansas City this summer. The class will fulfill a general education requirement for Rafol's Computer Science major at a much lower cost.


"Taking one math class at the community college was much more affordable and didn't require taking out a loan," Rafol said.

University of Alabama student Joni Vaughn also is looking to get ahead in her education. Vaughn is taking a chemistry class at Southwest Tennessee Community College this summer so that she can enroll in a biology course at her university in the fall.  

"You get the class out of the way, and normally, the class isn't as hard," said Vaughn.

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While community colleges can provide students with cheap and fast credits, some students say summer school classes have disadvantages too.
 
"Since the class has to go through the same amount of information in a shorter time, you might not get the same level of education as you would at a public four-year college,"  Vaughn said.

Rafol, who is working full-time this summer, said, "taking classes this summer will definitely cut into my (work) hours, which is unfortunate since I need money for my new apartment in Chicago."

An informal survey of more than 100 colleges by the American Association of Community Colleges indicates that, on average, community colleges have seen about a 10 percent increase in enrollments in the spring semester.  This trend is expected to carry on throughout the summer.

"I haven't seen numbers across the country for their summer sessions, but I would expect if we're seeing it here, many community colleges are seeing something similar in their numbers," Wayne said.