The challenges facing higher education are almost always analyzed in terms of four-year colleges and universities, even though more students attend community college than any other type of higher-education institution. In my career as a faculty member, dean, and president in New York, California, Kansas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, I've found that colleges and universities too often pay only lip service to recruiting community-college transfers. Sadly, only 15 percent of community-college students earn a bachelor's degree within six years. The reasons? Poor advising about how to take courses that will help at the transfer institution, lack of financial aid, and the cultural gulf between community-college students and the colleges and universities that do little to welcome them.
And yet, community colleges are essential to four-year institutions. Three reasons for this are particularly important: They provide an open door to college that is vital for many young people and that can rarely be duplicated by four-year institutions; they reach a far more diverse group of students than do most four-year colleges and universities; and they are essential for higher education's goal of serving the national interest.
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