6 million people attend community colleges in this country, and yet we somehow don’t tend to consider it as “college.”
Bart Grachan earns his keep doing everything he can to help students succeed at LaGuardia Community College, and also to helping us all change the conversation to include these students, their concerns as well as their successes.
Community colleges disproportionately serve low-income and minority students and can act as a massive social mobility device, but we put a lot of roadblocks in the way of these students making the most of this experience, especially as pertains to transferring to a 4-year college and graduating on time. In addition to helping us understand the role of community colleges in our national system of higher ed, Bart talks about those roadblocks and the kinds of things that 4-year institutions could do to help these students on their road to success.
You can learn more about community colleges here at the Community College Research Center at Columbia’s Teachers College.