National Profile of Community Colleges


Book Description

This book offers a national view of trends and statistics related to today's community colleges. The new edition includes completely revised text as well as updates to charts and tables on topics such as enrollment, student outcomes, population, curriculum, faculty, workforce, and financial aid. Informative narrative introduces and provides context for the data. An excellent resource for presentations, public information, media relations, and long-range planning. Chapter 1, Community Colleges Past and Present, recounts the history of community colleges and summarizes some of the more pressing issues facing them today. Chapter 2, Community College Enrollment, provides detailed information and demographics concerning enrollment at community colleges and puts it in perspective with the rest of higher education. Chapter 3, The Social and Economic Impact of Community Colleges, describes the impact of community colleges on students and their communities through measures such as degree and certificate completion, employment data, and educational attainment within the general population. Chapter 4, Community College Staff and Services, offers a view of staffing at community colleges, from the presidency and senior administration to faculty and support staff. Chapter 5, College Education Costs and Financing, focuses on the financial aspects of community colleges, as they affect the institution and its students. Chapter 6, A Look at the Future, presages trends and issues that will define the community college of the future. The book also contains a Preface, Glossary, References, Index, and About the Authors. (Contains 39 figures and 77 tables.).










Reinvention


Book Description

Reinvention chronicles an unprecedentedly comprehensive approach to community college reform and the leadership challenges encountered along the way. As chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, Cheryl L. Hyman implemented an ambitious program of systemwide reform called Reinvention. The program's impressive achievements included doubled graduation rates, improved transfer rates, and streamlined connections between college and careers. Informed by leading research on effective community college programs, Reinvention emphasized a shift in focus from access to outcomes, putting the priority on student success. Hyman offers a wake-up call for community college leaders and those concerned with student success, arguing that a significant cultural and operational shift will be required for community colleges to fulfill this mission. The story of Reinvention--its failures as well as its nascent successes--offers an inspiration and a roadmap for those seeking to make change in higher education. "Hyman's fascinating book forces us to contemplate the possible speed of college change. What emerges are valuable lessons, deeply rooted in the author's fierce determination to promote social mobility. It's a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the essential relationships among college leadership, campus culture, and the critical goal of dramatically improving community college student success." --Joshua Wyner, founder and executive director, Aspen Institute College Excellence Program "Cheryl Hyman took the job of chancellor of Chicago City Colleges with a deep idealistic commitment to serving the low-income students striving to improve their lives. This book describes her vision, efforts, and the ways she transformed the system. Her efforts are inspiring and instructive to all who want to improve educational opportunity in the United States." --James Rosenbaum, professor of sociology, education and social policy, Northwestern University Cheryl L. Hyman is the former chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago. Davis Jenkins is a senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.










Mismatch


Book Description

The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration; many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affirmative action has become, showing that while the objective is laudable, the effects have been anything but. Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of color, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish; why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates; why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites; and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races. Sander and Taylor believe it is possible to achieve the goal of racial equality in higher education, but they argue that alternative policies -- such as full public disclosure of all preferential admission policies, a focused commitment to improving socioeconomic diversity on campuses, outreach to minority communities, and a renewed focus on K-12 schooling -- will go farther in achieving that goal than preferences, while also allowing applicants to make informed decisions. Bold, controversial, and deeply researched, Mismatch calls for a renewed examination of this most divisive of social programs -- and for reforms that will help realize the ultimate goal of racial equality.




Crisis in Higher Education


Book Description

In 2005 Adrian College was home to 840 enrolled students and had a tuition income of $8.54 million. By fall of 2011, enrollment had soared to 1,688, and tuition income had increased to $20.45 million. For the first time in years, the small liberal arts college was financially viable. Adrian College experienced this remarkable growth during the worst American economy in seventy years and in a state ravaged by the decline of the big three auto companies. How, exactly, did this turnaround happen? Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America was written to facilitate replication and generalization of Adrian College’s tremendous enrollment growth and retention success since 2005. This book directly addresses the economic competitiveness of small four-year institutions of higher education and presents an evidence-based solution to the enrollment and economic crises faced by many small liberal arts colleges throughout the country.