The New Norm: Community Colleges to Deal with Recessionary Fallout

Abstract

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, many community colleges have experienced significant declines in state revenue, increases in enrollment, higher tuition, and flat or declining state student aid. These conditions have also occurred in an environment of heightened accountability with pressure to advance a student success agenda and to meet workforce training needs. Findings from the annual survey of state community college directors conducted by the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama, in partnership with Iowa State University and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, show that the majority of state directors feel states are moving toward a privatized model of higher education and that structural deficits exist in state budgets disadvantaging community colleges. The concern is that these and other related findings demonstrate a situation that may not improve as the nation climbs out of recession; this situation is creating a new norm in community college funding.