"They were well represented among the awards focused on workforce training but were shut out when it came to addressing larger social issues. To be fair, FIPSE wasn't alone in ignoring community colleges. As Karen Stout pointed out this weekend, The Chronicle 's quarter-century forecast drew on 50 experts from across higher education to talk about emerging trends; only one was from a community college."
"Who is at the table will affect what gets considered important. From the Chronicle group, for instance, you wouldn't know that dual enrollment has quietly but steadily redefined the barriers between secondary and postsecondary education around the country and that the funding structures and academic policies in many states ( cough Pennsylvania cough) haven't kept up. That has consequences in myriad ways, ranging from faculty credential requirements to residency-based tuition."
The recent FIPSE grants targeted AI, accreditation and civil discourse, yet no community colleges received awards in the civil discourse category. Community colleges were well represented in workforce-training awards but were shut out on broader social-issue funding. National forecasts and expert panels have similarly underrepresented community colleges, with only one community-college expert among fifty in a major Chronicle forecast. Community colleges enroll over 40 percent of students but receive minimal attention in national debates. Exclusion from funding and conversations obscures consequential issues such as dual enrollment, outdated funding structures, faculty credentialing, residency tuition policies, and effects on graduate applications.
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