Community Colleges

When President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative during a July 2009 speech at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., he brought “unprecedented” attention to community colleges, institutions that in some ways had previously been overlooked in higher education policy. Six years later, he upped the ante by announcing his America’s College Promise proposal, an initiative that would two years of community college free “for everybody who;s willing to work for it.”

As policymakers look for ways to train people for the jobs that are available and increase the number of adults who have earned a postsecondary degree or certificate, the role of community colleges in postsecondary education is being re-examined and, ultimately perhaps, redefined. This Topics section focuses on the evolving role of community colleges, by gathering research, news articles and other resources that examine these institutions.

As of January 2015, there were just over 1,100 community colleges, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. The vast majority (986) were public institutions, but there were 115 independent community colleges, plus another 31 tribal campuses. And, contrary to some perceptions, not all of these institutions are commuter campuses: More than 100 community colleges offer on-campus housing to students.

Public community colleges traditionally have offered among the most accessible and affordable options in higher education, with an average annual tuition in 2010-2011 that stood at $2,713 compared with $7,605 at four-year public colleges. These institutions, where the highest degree offered usually is a two-year associate’s degree, offer specific career training and education as well as some entry-level college courses to more than 12 million students—most of whom attend part-time and are disproportionately low-income, first-generation and academically underprepared.

The accessibility of community colleges is often cited as both their main benefit and criticized as their biggest weakness. By enrolling students who might not be able or inclined to pursue college otherwise, community colleges expand access to higher education, advocates say. But there are critics who argue that the disparate demographics between the student make-up of two-year colleges and four-year colleges essentially show that universities are being relieved of accountability for educating some types of students and that these groups are being deprived of full academic opportunities.

Graduation Rates

Regardless of perspective, nearly everyone who examines community colleges express concern over the low graduation and retention rates at these institutions. Just 60 percent of students who attend community college full time and only 40 percent of those who attend part time return for their second year, according to a 2011 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. The three-year graduation rate for all community college students was only 27 percent, the report showed.

As a result of statistics such as those, much of the research and policy debate regarding two-year colleges focuses on improving graduation rates. Some researchers say that part of the problem is measurement: Community colleges tend to enroll students with different academic goals and obligations than the students who enroll in the traditional four-year colleges for which the retention and graduation measures were principally designed.

Recently, the momentum has shifted in favor of the critics of current measures. In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Education’s Committee on Measures of Student Success submitted a report lamenting that federal measures of student achievement often disadvantage two-year colleges:

“Currently, the federal government gauges community college performance by calculating the percentage of first-time, full-time students that complete a degree or certificate in three or four years. … However … the measure does not accurately capture the outcomes of the many two-year college students who attend part-time, take longer than four years to complete a degree, or transfer or re-enter the workforce without obtaining a community college degree … In addition, community colleges are open-access institutions and admit many students who need remediation, which lengthens their time to a degree.”

In April 2012, the Education Department released an action plan to enact the revised graduation rate data collection policies that the committee recommended, but did not set a date for revised measurements to be in place.

Budget Cuts

Because the vast majority of the nation’s more than 1,100 community colleges are largely public institutions, they also have had to contend with significant budget cuts in recent years as states have struggled to recover economically. These cuts generally have meant that community colleges have had to limit enrollment despite increasing student demand, raise tuition, or both. Such steps have been controversial—particularly in California—because of community colleges’ historical role as open-access, affordable institutions. 

Some colleges, such as Santa Monica College in California and Lone Star College in Texas have either considered or enacted differential pricing for tuition, which charge some students different prices for the same courses. Such proposals to “ration” access to courses by prioritizing students who by various measures—whether it is previous grades or financial investment—are deemed more likely to earn a degree, led to angry protests at Santa Monica in April 2012 that scuttled that pricing proposal.

The federal government has offered some assistance.  Congress did not approve President Obama’s 2009 proposed American Graduation Initiative, which would have been used, among other purposes, to establish competitive grants meant to foster innovation, improve graduation rates at community colleges and modernize community college facilities. But as part of the March 2010 passage of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, Congress authorized the $2 billion Community College and Career Training Grant Program. The program appropriated $500 million to community colleges each year for fiscal years 2011 through 2014. The first round of grants was awarded in September 2011. As part of his proposed 2013 budget, Obama requested an additional $8 billion over three years for job training programs at community college.