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Discussion Paper
Following the Money: State and Local Funding for Community Colleges in the Fifth District
Public colleges and universities (including community colleges) represent the largest sector of undergraduate higher education in the United States. In the fall of 2023, community colleges and public four-year universities enrolled 73 percent of all undergraduate students. These institutions receive most of the public state and local funds designated for higher education, but the level and composition of funding varies across states and institution types.State funding formulas have historically directed significantly more money toward four-year institutions than to community colleges — a ...
Journal Article
New from the Richmond Fed’s Regional Matters blog
Journal Article
Viewpoint: competitiveness and the community college
Bill Green is living proof that community colleges can lead to a great career. In this ?Viewpoint,? he makes the case that they also can help U.S. business maintain its competitive edge while improving the economic resilience of local communities.
Journal Article
Partnering Colleges with Their Communities
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assists historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) with grants through the Office of University Partnerships. The office helps the HBCUs expand their role and effectiveness in addressing community development needs in their local regions. HUD grants are awarded to help revitalize neighborhoods and promote affordable housing near HBCU campuses.
Discussion Paper
Student Parents: The Power of Wraparound Supports
Many community college students juggle work and family responsibilities alongside their academic pursuits. Wraparound services — such as transportation assistance, child care, mental health counseling and housing — help students meet their non-academic needs, which improves colleges' retention and completion rates. These services also attract adult learners, a key population of community college students.As we have written about previously, funding wraparound services is complicated. Community colleges rely heavily on local, state, and federal funding for their academic programs, but this ...
Discussion Paper
The Changing Role of Community-College and For-Profit-College Borrowers in the Student Loan Market
In the first post in this series, we characterized the rapid transformation of the higher education market over the 2000-2015 period, a transformation that was led by explosive growth of the for-profit sector of higher education. In the second post, we found that most of this growth was driven by nontraditional students entering these institutions. Given this growth and the marked change in student composition, it is important to understand what impact these patterns might have on student loan originations, student loan volume, and the borrower pool in the various sectors of higher education. ...
Journal Article
President's Message: Zooming in on Community Colleges
Even as overall labor market conditions have normalized over the past year, employers in the skilled trades continue to report a lack of available workers. The overall supply of workers has improved, but the supply of workers with the right skills remains limited.Employers are not the only parties invested in strengthening the talent pipeline. Communities recognize that to be competitive, they need a strong workforce.
Journal Article
Features: Community Colleges and Workforce Training in the Criminal Justice System
Darrin Casper was ready to start fresh."I was just tired of doing the things I was doing. I needed to do something different because I kept winding up in the same place," says Casper, who was released in April 2024 after serving four and a half years in prison in North Carolina. "My family members have always been there for me, and I just needed to make the change."Casper's aunt had been looking for local programs that could help him with the transition and eventually discovered the Craven-Pamlico Re-entry Council. Operated by Craven Community College, the council provides a range of services ...
Briefing
Community College as a Steppingstone
This article explores a model based on a theory of education in which high school students face three choices upon graduation: Join the workforce, enroll in a two-year college or enroll in a four-year university. In this model, academic two-year colleges can act as a steppingstone. Students enrolled in these two-year colleges can learn about their academic skills in a less expensive environment and transfer to a four-year university with a portion of their credits. This model finds that the options such as transferring and dropping out explain a large portion of the return to enrollment in ...
Discussion Paper
Who Falters at Student Loan Payback Time?
This is the final post in a four-part series examining the evolution of enrollment, student loans, graduation and default in the higher education market over the course of the past fifteen years. In the first post, we found a marked increase in enrollment of 35 percent between 2000 and 2015, led mostly by the for-profit sector?which increased enrollment by 177 percent. The second post showed that these new enrollees were quite different from the traditional enrollees. Yesterday?s post demonstrated an unprecedented increase in loan origination amounts during this period?nearly tripling between ...