North Carolina Central University in Durham has discovered the value in accepting students from the state's community colleges who are seeking four-year university degrees. Said Bernice Johnson, the university's vice chancellor for academic affairs, "We find they tend to be a lot more mature and a lot more serious about learning."

The community college system has evolved since the days when its students mainly were looking for vocational training that normally wouldn't fit into a college curriculum, with the aim of proceeding straightaway into the job market. Many students now seek courses that will enable them to move on to a university, with credits.

And that means an attractive stream of students for the universities to tap into. Johnson touched on the reasons. But there are other, important ones as well. High-tech industries, and "green" businesses -- the kind the state wants to attract -- require workforces with college degrees, and often post-graduate educations. For four-year schools to recruit those motivated community college students gives them a chance to graduate more of them into either the workplace or to programs of even higher learning.

And while the traditional model of university student, coming out of high school to work toward a four-year degree, is a fine and challenging endeavor for the state's universities, it might be said that the community college transfer is -- no offense to all those 1st- and 2nd-year university students out there -- a lower-maintenance student. Typically, community college students have some life experience, either working or in military service or perhaps raising children, that makes them no-nonsense, get-the-degree sorts of college students.

At N.C. Central, that's valuable because the university's six-year graduation rate for freshman who entered in 2000 was 49 percent (from the UNC system data) -- below where it should be. Community college transfer students are good candidates to improve that figure.

With baby-boomers' children and grandchildren coming along, the state of North Carolina knows it will have to handle more students aspiring for higher education. Officials of the university system have, in fact, already told individual campuses to plan to cope with increased demand. Community colleges have a role in answering that need, too, and it just makes sense that in enrolling students who are aiming toward four-year degrees, those colleges can mine a rich vein of talent that might not otherwise be tapped by universities.

Coping with the growth takes creativity. It's the right thing to do. Getting more of those community college students into four-year schools, public and private, that can help bring their dreams to fruition is the smart thing to do.