Why Differences in Community Colleges Matter

Scott Jaschik examines some of what's being learned about the differences between community colleges, including some description of the new Carnegie Classification's subcategories:

A new Education Department analysis of two-year colleges confirms widely held beliefs about them, such as that they enroll many low-income, part-time students and that their student bodies are diverse. But the analysis — by examining different groups of two-year colleges (including those in the for-profit sector) — also finds that there are significant differences within the two-year sector, and that these differences result in different demographics, faculty characteristics, enrollment goals and graduation rates.

The analysis arrives at a time of increased interest among some educators, foundation and government officials in using more subtlety and sophistication in looking at community colleges, which have too frequently in the past been assumed to all be similar and to be defined by a single characteristic of not awarding bachelor’s degrees.