Community Colleges at the Crossroads

"California's community colleges serve over 2.1 million students and constitute by far the largest higher education system in simple student numbers of any in the country, far outstripping the California State, SUNY and other state systems. I taught at nine of these community college campuses across the course of thirteen years, an experience as common and kaleidoscopic as America itself. Given who this system serves, a vast and diverse working-class, it has become both microcosm and mirror of many of this nation's practical aspirations."

"With Gen Z's vast working class currently coming of age fully aware of the student loan debt burden that their Gen X and millennial forebears will carry to their graves and consequently wary of university education, the community colleges sit at a crossroads in our class and culture wars. The solution to this Higher Education Problem will not be to jettison advanced study, nor to do Turning Point-style culture war on campuses, as many on the right would like,"

California's community colleges serve over 2.1 million students, forming the largest higher-education system by student numbers and outpacing other state systems. They educate a vast, diverse working-class population and reflect the nation's practical aspirations and social concerns. Community colleges deliver education at a fraction of university costs and train students across a wide array of workforce-ready occupations. Many Gen Z students, conscious of earlier generations' student-loan burdens, are wary of university and see community colleges as pivotal amid class and culture conflicts. Effective responses require expanding visions of community and college rather than abandoning advanced study or waging campus culture wars. The defunding of vocational programs exemplifies de-industrialization's long-term impacts.

Read at The Nation