The report paints a stark portrait of the nation’s support for community colleges, and its authors don’t mince words, writing that policymakers have “systematically shortchanged” them. Richard Kahlenberg, executive director of The Century Foundation’s Working Group on Community College Financial Resources, said the nation is “starving” them of necessary funding while “asking them to do increasingly more with increasingly less, and robbing them of their potential to serve as ladders into the middle class.”
It notes that from 2004 to 2014, per-student spending on education grew by 4% at community colleges compared to 16% at four-year public colleges.
