A new report released Thursday warns that two-year community colleges across America are facing a growing inequity crisis and makes recommendations to help address common issues related to institutional operations and government funding.
The report, titled “Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Colleges and Restoring the American Dream,” recommends that two-year community colleges should receive more funding from the federal government to help better support the students who require the most financial aid.
However, post-secondary institutional funding from the government tends to lean more toward universities — which enroll more privileged students — largely to fund the research being done on-campus.
“Two-year colleges are asked to educate those students with the greatest needs, using the least funds, and in increasingly separate and unequal institutions,” the report, written by The Century Foundation, states.
The report points out that while the federal government has worked on evening out the funding granted to K-12 schools, they have not taken direct steps to create an even playing ground in the higher education space. The report goes on to explain that using the K-12 model of government financial support for colleges could help satisfy the needs of a much larger number of lower-income students.
According to the report, 81 percent of newly-enrolled community college students wish to transfer to a four-year university to earn a bachelor’s degree, but less than 12 percent actually do earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.
“Our higher education system,” the report states, “is growing more and more unequal.”
