With campus enrollments ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 students, about 62 percent of CC students were enrolled part time in 2006. That compared with 27 percent of students at public 4-year campuses and 25 percent of students at private 4-year campuses. Community colleges are spread out geographically, while public schools tend to be in urban areas.
Average annual CC tuition and fees are less than half the amounts charged at public 4-year campuses and one-tenth the amounts at private 4-year colleges and universities.

Two-thirds of CC faculty members have part-time appointments. They are likely to have a master’s degree or less and do little or no research. As a percentage, more women and minorities are teaching at community colleges.
Among the high school seniors of 2004, 28 percent who enrolled at a community college intended to use it as a stepping-stone to a bachelor’s degree.  An additional 39 percent revised their original plans to attend a 4-year college and instead began their postsecondary education at a community college.

Bachelor’s aspirations were raised even among 2004 high school seniors who enrolled immediately in a community college with no intention of pursuing any education higher than an associate’s degree.

Yet persistence and graduation rates at community colleges remain fragile, and they lag behind four-year schools.  By 2006, forty-five percent of 2003-04 community college freshmen had left school without earning a degree or certificate. 

Sixteen percent of students entering a community college in 2003–04 earned a degree or certificate by 2006, and 40 percent had not, but were still enrolled.
 
Tom Robinson is an editor of The Greentree Gazette.
He can be reached at trobinson@greentreegazette.com.