Advocating for community colleges in the college completion agenda

Abstract

Community colleges are essential to meet state educational attainment goals, yet the colleges are largely underfunded to serve underprepared students entering through the open door of access. As resource‐dependent institutions, community colleges need to engage in the politics of higher education through advocacy. This chapter presents results from a qualitative study of community college advocacy practices in three states with bifurcated higher education governance. Interviews with the community college system, state community college board, state president, and trustee association leaders, and college presidents and trustees were conducted to identify advocacy practices and challenges to increase state appropriations in support of the completion agenda. Findings point to three advocacy challenges, the stigma of community colleges, competition with the university system for limited state higher education funding, and getting the attention of legislators to understand the value of community college degrees and credentials. The chapter offers recommendations for expanded advocacy.

Challenges in Implementing and Sustaining Community College Organizational Change for Student Success

“…In their study of pathways for career and technical programs, they proposed four dimensions of structure focused particularly on: program prescription, program alignment, access to information, and active program advising and support (Van Noy et al, 2016). However, these dimensions do not take into account the broader and complex college structures beyond programs including leadership, governance, funding, and reporting structures (McPhail, 2016;White, 2022a;Wyner, 2021).…”

“…Jenkins et al (2022) found that the ability to fund or budget for organizational change including staffing, technology, and other direct instructional costs becomes difficult given declining enrollment which impacts institutional funding models and other financial challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this often creates a barrier to sustaining the change effort. White (2019White ( , 2022a) indicated that states with governing boards may create policy environments that impact internal institutional funding to support college completion and educational attainment and noted that these mandated policies can often pose a significant barrier to college-level organizational change.…”

Governing towards democracy: Challenges and opportunities of trustees at urban community colleges

“…Because “[l]eaders are challenged to transform the very nature of the urban community college” (Myran & Parsons, 2013, p. 7), a look at one particular group of decision‐makers is important. Trustees of community colleges play “…a vital role in college and student success through governance and oversight of the mission of open access higher education” (White, 2022, p. 63). A challenge before community college boards is that they govern institutions with direct ties to the community and “are called upon to serve a wide variety of needs of people throughout their neighborhoods, cities, and regions, as well as their states” (Polonio, 2005, para 3).…”

“…Governing boards of community colleges perform key functions, including selecting and appointing the chancellor or president of the institution, establishing policies ensuring fiscal integrity, and performing other management functions (Kater et al., 2022; Lovell & Trouth, 2002; White et al, 2022). Boards of urban community colleges must address pressing issues facing their institutions.…”

“…For example, the mission statements of most community colleges highlight their essential transfer role (Hagedorn et al., 2008). Yet community colleges struggle to support their students in transfer and are underfunded to serve their students (White, 2022). Instead of continuing to perpetuate the narrative that students are unprepared or that institutions have low transfer rates, what would it mean to frame this challenge as community colleges have failed to live up to their mission and hold community college boards accountable for any incongruence?…”