Similar stories, half century apart at Elgin Community College

Jim Anderson may have graduated from Elgin Community College nearly 60 years before Matt Fox, but both men tell a similar story.

A two-year education at the Elgin campus, each believes, helped them overcome significant economic challenges. Fox graduated Friday from ECC with a future at DePaul University, while Anderson attended the fledgling community college from 1950 to 1952, when things were just a little bit different.

He took classes in one wing of the old Elgin High School, the Chicago Street building that now serves as Elgin Area School District U-46 headquarters.

"We would be going into the high school area to take classes," he said. "It was kind of a nonexclusive group. But you know, it was an opportunity for us at a very low cost."

Tuition was $50 for an entire semester. Students, he said, could take as many classes as they wished.

Anderson studied business at ECC, and after earning his associate degree, went into the Army. When he returned, he worked for Wausau Insurance for 37 years.

Watching the college grow and expand since his own student days here, he says, "to say the changes are enormous is probably too mild of a term."

As a student, Anderson said he can remember himself saying "this is not Harvard."

"But for us, we were from moderate income families and we didn't have a whole lot of options. We could take advantage of a college and yes we were living at home, but it was just a great opportunity," he said. "And I think probably everybody that I can think of, we were probably the first in our families to go to college."

Anderson and his wife, Sarah, were invited to attend the college's 2009 spring commencement Friday night.

Matt Fox is among the 758 candidates who hit the stage Friday night to get their diplomas. He did so with a 4.0 grade point average.

Graduating from St. Edward Central Catholic High School in 2007, Fox said he wanted to go to DePaul University, but finances made it difficult for him to attend. Things were made even more difficult when his father lost his job last winter.

At ECC, his entire tuition was paid for through a creative writing scholarship. After spending two years knocking prerequisites out of the way, next fall he'll transfer to DePaul's college of computing and digital cinema. He plans to study film with a concentration in screen writing.

Because of his good grades at ECC, DePaul gave him a $7,000-per-year scholarship.

"Being at a community (college) helped ease the burden that (my family) would have to bear," Fox said.