What Should Trustees Know About Community Colleges?

Why are community colleges important in today’s higher education ecosystem?

Community colleges are linchpin institutions in American society. They offer widespread, affordable access to postsecondary education and training, which has become essential to securing living-wage jobs and participating fully in a rapidly changing, technology-driven society. Nearly 40 percent of undergraduates attend community colleges, including the largest share of Hispanic, Native American, rural, low-income, and working adult students.

What makes community colleges indispensable is the combination of roles they play: providing workforce training that leads directly to family-supporting careers, preparing students to transfer affordably to bachelor’s programs, and expanding early access to higher education through dual enrollment for high school students. No other institutions offer these opportunities to as many communities nationally.

At the same time, these institutions face serious enrollment and completion challenges. Enrollment in community colleges has been declining for nearly 15 years. Although the reasons for this are complex, one key reason is that fewer than half of students who start at a community college earn a postsecondary credential from any institution within six years. In a new book, More Essential Than Ever: Community College Pathways to Educational and Career Success (Harvard Education Press, 2025), my CCRC colleagues and I draw from a decade of research on community college whole-college “guided pathways” reforms and present five strategies for addressing these challenges and ensuring that community colleges continue to fulfill their promise not just as access institutions but as engines of upward mobility and economic vitality.

What should a board of trustees understand about the community college transfer rate?

Transferring from a community college to a four-year institution has the potential to offer students an affordable, high-quality route to a bachelor’s degree, yet the transfer pathway is broken. Although most community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, only about one in three transfer, and fewer than half of those graduate within six years. Too often, students lack clear guidance on what courses they should take for their intended majors and lose credits along the way.

This isn’t solely a community college problem. Historically, many four-year institutions—especially regional publics—have competed with rather than partnered with community colleges for students. But with the impending “enrollment cliff” of high school graduates and rising demand for affordable routes to a bachelor’s from students and policymakers, neither sector can afford to continue unproductive competition.

Trustees should understand that improving transfer requires intentional collaboration between two- and four-year institutions. That means building clear, affordable degree pathways that help students choose a field of study early, take courses that apply to their intended major, and gain confidence as independent learners. Done right, transfer expands educational opportunity, diversifies bachelor’s degree attainment, and strengthens the workforce, since the largest number of family-supporting jobs to be created in the next decade will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

What questions can trustees ask in an effort to improve the success of educational outcomes for community college students?

In our new book, we argue that if community colleges are to continue to play a linchpin role in advancing upward mobility and talent development for their communities—and to attract and retain students—they need to ensure that their programs are worth the time, money, and effort students need to invest to complete them. To that end, community college trustees should be asking how they can help their colleges ensure that:

• Their college’s programs enable students to secure jobs paying a living wage and pursue a bachelor’s degree with no excess credits in their major field of interest.
• Incoming students are helped to explore career and academic opportunities, connect with faculty and others in fields of interest, and plan and gain momentum in a program of study aligned with their interests and aspirations.
• Students have rich opportunities for “learning by doing” both in their classes and in the community, as well as through work-based learning.
• Busy working students can complete their programs in as little time and cost as possible.
• Graduating high school students who do not have plans to pursue postsecondary education and training—including those who took dual enrollment college courses from the college—are encouraged and helped to enroll in the college’s programs immediately after high school.

–Interview by Elena Loveland, Trusteeship editor-in-chief