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The CollegeLorain County Community College was granted a charter by the Ohio Board of Regentsto provide higher education services in 1963. In 1964, the Lorain School of Technologywas incorporated into the community college. 4 Most students at Lorain County CommunityCollege go to school at the forested main campus in Elyria, but some students take classes at thesatellite campus in the nearby city of Lorain.Lorain is a well established community college that offers a range of programs leadingto an associate’s degree or a technical or vocational certificate. During the 2003-2004 schoolyear, when the study began at Lorain, the most commonly pursued academic and vocationalprograms at the college were (1) Health Professions and Related Clinical Sciences, (2) LiberalArts and Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities, and (3) Business, Management, andMarketing. Notably, Lorain is the only community college in the state that offers a UniversityPartnership Program, in which students can earn bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees from5any of eight four-year institutions in Ohio without leaving the Lorain campus.During the fall 2003 semester, Lorain served approximately 9,400 students, and, as isthe case at most community colleges, the majority (about two-thirds) attended part time. Abouttwo-thirds of the students were women and nearly half were over 25 years of age. The studentbody is predominantly non-Hispanic white. The in-state tuition at Lorain for the 2003-2004school year was $2,565, and about half of the first-time, full-time students received some formof financial aid. 6Owens Community CollegeThe EnvironmentOwens Community College is located in Toledo, Ohio’s fourth largest city, with a populationjust over 300,000. Over two-thirds (70 percent) of the city’s residents are white, andabout one-fourth (24 percent) are black. 7Toledo is in the northwest part of the state, on the western end of Lake Erie. Like Elyria,it is in the Rust Belt and has a high concentration of manufacturing plants, including large4 See www.lorainccc.edu.5 For more information, see Lorain’s Web site, www.lorainccc.edu.6 The information in this section about the 2003-2004 school year at Lorain was originally drawn from theU.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), atwww.nces.ed/gov/IPEDS. The 2003-2004 data are no longer posted. Updated information is available athttp://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=203748.7 See www.factfinder.census.gov. The population estimate and the race breakdown are from 2000.14