A shift among federal and state governments and foundations—coupled with a recent agreement among six of the nation’s leading organizations representing community colleges, including AACC—is directing public two-year colleges to focus on completion, the brief says. That shift will require more emphasis on student objectives, specifically course enrollment, course completion and certificate and degree attainment. 

 

Such a shift will have challenges, the brief notes. One challenge is to address the needs of emerging groups of students, including high school students, “swirlers” (four-year college students who enroll at a community college for a few courses) and “retoolers” (workers returning to college to attain new skills for current jobs or for new careers).

 

For high school students, community colleges provide opportunities not only for the academically advanced but also for those who need to further develop their potential. The demand for community college courses is apparent in the substantial growth of dual-credit programs in high schools, the brief says. Community colleges also help students in completing high school or its equivalent, which is essential to increasing earnings and future workplace, postsecondary and military opportunities.

 

Another trend is an increasing number of four-year college students taking courses at community colleges. Such “swirlers” reap economic benefits by earning credit that transfers at a much lower cost, and they can decrease the time needed to attain a degree, the brief says.

 

The current economic climate and high unemployment rates have also prompted many workers to retool their skills or attain new ones as they seek to acquire the skills needed to maintain their current jobs or to prepare for new careers, according to the brief.

 

“As community colleges focus on improving college completion rates, they may need to reconsider the impact of packaging learning opportunities one course at a time,” the brief says.

 

Doing so, however, presents another dilemma for two-year colleges, the brief notes. President Barack Obama’s call to once again make the U.S. the top producer of postsecondary graduates in the world doesn’t necessarily match well with community colleges’ missions, since most international comparisons only count associate and bachelor’s degrees and not certificates or other credentials. 

 

“It doesn’t tell the whole story of community colleges,” Christopher Mullin, AACC’s director for policy analysis and author of the brief, says of the ways data are currently compared across countries.

 

It may be difficult to define college success, but there are many examples of students taking just a few courses to help them attain their goals, Mullin says. He cites a recent Washington Post article that tells the story of a 29-year-old aspiring business owner who took one course at a community college and used it to launch her own successful wedding planning business.

 

“It reaffirms the power that one course can have in a person’s life,” Mullin says.

Federal officials and higher education leaders are already looking at other ways to collect data to provide a more fair international comparison, Mullin says.

 

“The discrepancy has started a conversation about college completion, and that it can include more than just one or two narrowly defined outrcomes," he says. 

For a copy of “Rebalancing the Mission: The Community College Completion Challenge,” click here.