Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Colleges and Restoring the American Dream

A recent report from the Century Foundation suggests that two-year colleges are asked to educate high-need students with limited funds to a greater extent than four-year institutions, and  that two-year institutions have become increasingly unequal to their four-year counterparts and more racially and economically stratified.  Approximately 44 percent of the college population attends a community college, but only 11.6 percent of community college students  transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree.  The report recommends strategies for creating an outcomes-based funding structure for higher education that allows for additional financial support based on student need in order to reduce the racial and economic stratification between two and four-year institutions.

 Among the findings:

• In 2006, high-income students outnumbered low-income students by 14 to 1 in the most competitive four-year institutions, yet low-income students outnumbered high-income students in community colleges by 2 to 1.
  • This marks a substantial change from 1982, when students from the top income quartile made up 24 percent of community college students .
• In 2006, whites constituted 75% of students and blacks and Latinos together totaled 12% at the most selective four-year institutions, percentages that remained relatively stable over the past ten years. At community colleges, whites accounted for 58% of students (a drop from 73% in 1994) and blacks and Latinos together accounted for 33% (an increase from 21% in 1994). 
• The report’s primary recommendations to redesign the funding structure for higher education are:
  • Higher education institutions that serve students with the greatest needs and achieve good outcomes in job placement, completion rates, and transfer rates should receive more funding
  • In order to make clear the difference in financial support between four year-institutions and community colleges, the report recommends publicizing the amount of subsidies going to each sector in terms of tax breaks for private donations and tax exemptions for endowment driven income.
  • Strengthen ties between community colleges and four-year institutions to ease student transfer between community colleges and four-year institutions and incentivize four-year institutions to recruit talented low- income students.
  • Bolster funding for early college programs that are able to serve a high number of economically disadvantaged students and that help diversify community colleges that are currently racially or economically homogenous.