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15 July 2009 1:00 PM

Education

Investing in Community Colleges

by Conor Friedersdorf

Chris Beam:


Community colleges don't get a lot of respect. Except, as of this week, from President Obama. In a speech Tuesday in Warren, Mich., he proposed sinking nearly $12 billion into revamping the country's community-college system. The plan would provide $9 billion in grant money to boost academic programs and raise graduation rates, plus another $2.5 billion to upgrade school facilities. It would also fund open-source online courses so that schools don't have to build more classrooms to admit more students.

 

The point isn't to turn Harvard on the Highway into actual Harvard. Even if the government gave all $12 billion to one community college, it wouldn't be as rich as the World's Greatest University. Nor is the purpose merely to improve the image of community colleges. And it's not to encourage enrollment: With the economy tanking and tuitions at four-year colleges and universities exploding, community colleges are in the rare position of having to turn people away. "We're bursting at the seams," says Gail Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College in New York City, which saw a 25 percent increase in students over last year.

 

Rather, the plan is designed to correct decades of federal neglect. "Too often, community colleges are treated like an afterthought--if they're thought of at all," Obama said in his speech. Right now, somewhere between one-third and one-half of American undergrads are at community colleges, depending how you count. Yet community colleges receive only 20 percent of federal funding.

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