Abstract
It’s a little known fact that 46 % of undergraduates in the United States attend community colleges (American Association of Colleges and Universities, 2015). This hidden-in-plain-sight sector of higher education made headlines in late 2014 when President Obama announced his proposal to make 2 years of community college education free to the majority of students (The White House, 2015). Greeted with much fanfare, this proposal solidified public perceptions of community colleges as vocational institutions built on the idea of “education as the gateway to future success,” even as our globalized economy offers ever diminishing prospects for vertical mobility (Noblit & Pink, 2015, p. XX). Also mostly unknown to the general public is that open access community colleges throughout the U.S. struggle mightily to graduate just 22 % of our students in 3 years and face a growing lack of resources to serve the most disadvantaged students (Snyder & Dillow, 2012). According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Digest of Educational Statistics 2013, as cited by Columbia University’s Center for Community College Research, 68 % of community college students arrive academically underprepared and require at least one course in developmental reading, writing or math. In addition, 36 % of community college students are the first in their families to attend college, 17 % are single parents, and 62 % of full-time students work full- or part-time (American Association of Community Colleges, 2015). Clearly, community college education is fraught terrain.
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Schnee, E., Better, A., Cummings, M.C. (2016). Introduction. In: Schnee, E., Better, A., Clark Cummings, M. (eds) Civic Engagement Pedagogy in the Community College: Theory and Practice. Education, Equity, Economy, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22945-4_1
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