Colleges across the country continue to face budget cuts, but advocacy efforts can educate legislators on the effects the loss of important dollars can have. It’s a necessary move, because community colleges long ago cut the fat from their budgets, says David Baime, AACC’s senior vice president of government relations and research. Any further cuts […]

Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC), in Kalispell, Montana, discovered something extraordinary when conducting a 2012 study: Private donor money impacts student success more than Pell Grants alone. This was the first time the college had reached into the institutional research that revealed this important insight, ultimately leading to even more scholarship funding, according to Colleen […]

Bradley M. Gottfried, president of the College of Southern Maryland (CSM), regrets not finishing his associate degree before transferring to a four-year college. Because he left before completing two full years of community college, Gottfried ended up paying higher tuition for the credits he could have earned before transferring. He says it cost him thousands […]

Washington state’s Student Achievement Initiative is regarded as one of the nation’s most carefully designed performance-based funding systems for higher education. As with other such systems, Washington bases college and university funding on whether institutions meet certain state benchmarks, thereby creating a financial incentive for institutions to do so. Using information from the U.S. Department of Education’s […]

By now you’ve heard about “America’s College Promise,” President Barack Obama’s proposal to provide “responsible” students in America with two years of free community college. Specifically, the White House proposes to waive tuition for students who attend community college at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA and make “steady progress” toward completion. Federal funding would cover […]

Free community college programs garnered a lot of headlines last year. Missouri is already offering its program, and Tennessee and Chicago will kick off programs this fall. Free community college tuition is the kind of ambitious reform that resonates with the public. And at the College Opportunity Day of Action this past December, the White […]

As at other community colleges, financial support for many students at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, N.Y., means more than just covering tuition. “We had a student walking two hours a day because he couldn’t afford the $120 for a MetroCard,” says LaGuardia President Gail Mellow. “Our students are holding down two or […]

Tony Zeiss could see the writing on the wall. In 2006, the state and federal governments covered 69 percent of the costs to operate North Carolina’s Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC). Today, that number is 40 percent. “I could tell that we were going to have to be more involved in entrepreneurial enterprises,” Zeiss says. […]

Bond measures provide crucial funding for community colleges, but voters aren’t always motivated to pass them. A bond to upgrade facilities across the Lone Star Community College System (LSCS) didn’t succeed in May 2013, but with a focus on the system’s role as a catalyst for workforce development, its leader hopes that the second time […]