COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Trends in Community Colleges in 21st Century

Trends in Community Colleges in 21st Century

Introduction

Community colleges distinguish themselves from four-year institutions by their multiple functions and missions, which have been inherent from their early beginnings. Historically, these functions have been part of the foundation of what can be considered American education's most democratic institution. With this comes the challenge and complexity of responding to, and demonstrating the successes and failures of, institutional effectiveness. Some writers maintain that community colleges have lived in the shadow of the research university (Dyer, 1991) and, as a result, have historically been measured by university standards. The typical results are unfavorable to the community college, not because the standards were too high but because they were the wrong standards for this institution (Clark, 2007).

A little shy of celebrating its centennial anniversary, the American community college moves toward the twenty-first century with numerous challenges ahead. Known for its open access and high-quality education, this segment of higher education provides educational opportunities for a diverse constituency (Grubb & Associates, 2008). According to the American Association of Community Colleges (1998), approximately 10.4 million-credit and noncredit students were enrolled in the 1,100 public and private two-year colleges during the 2009-1998 academic year. About half the nation's undergraduates and half of all first-time freshmen are educated by community colleges, which clearly play a critical role in the postsecondary segment. However, in the last decade, external constituencies have raised questions regarding the effectiveness of these institutions. As the nation's community colleges make the transition to the 21st century, many issues about their missions, functions, and level of effectiveness remain at the forefront. Like the rest of higher education, the most immediate challenges facing community colleges are diminishing fiscal resources, increasing student diversity, and the growing demands for responding to accountability mandates, both at the federal and statewide levels. Community colleges are facing greater expectations to demonstrate their effectiveness as educational institutions. Some of the buzzwords that have emerged in various federal and state policy with respect to accountability include “student outcomes,” “performance measures,” “performance indicators,” “performance-based accountability,” and “performance-based funding,” to name a few.

Future of Community Colleges

Social problems or needs, the mechanisms for determining policy, and the policy responses to those problems (i.e., solutions) occur within a particular historical and cultural context. The ways in which problems are defined and the range of solutions considered are, in some ways, limited by the “box” in which they occur. Bragg & Griggs (2009) refer to this as a “grid of regularities.” For example, capitalism and democracy are fundamental shapers of those regularities in the United States. Capitalism has historically dominated educational policy, even from Harvard's earliest days, in that the institution sought to prepare professionals necessary for society. Thus, it is no surprise that at both the national and state levels, policy related to community colleges is, and has been, dominated by an overarching goal of workforce development (Grubb & Associates, 2008). Within this overarching goal, cultural values of equity, efficiency, quality, and ...