America’s Hidden Economic Engines: How Community Colleges Can Drive Shared Prosperity is a short book from Harvard Education Press. Edited by Rachel Lipson, co-founder of the Project on Workforce at Harvard, and Robert B. Schwartz, emeritus professor of education at Harvard, the volume is part of a larger series on Work and Learning. The workforce initiative brings together faculty from business, education, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to explore connections between education and career. Quite rightly, the project makes clear that any meaningful effort in the US that seeks to create more and better opportunities for economic mobility will necessarily rely heavily on the country’s thousand plus community colleges. This is important and cannot be over emphasized.
Five case studies comprise the heart of the book: researchers look at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, NOVA in Virginia, Pima Community College in Arizona, and San Jacinto Community College in Texas. The five institutions were selected on two criteria, prioritizing “career advancement for all learners across all programs” and “programmatic alignment with regional labor market needs.” The team compiled a lengthier list of potential community colleges, drawing from data and recommendations, and then interviewed colleges’ leadership teams. While many institutions had impactful stories to tell, the final group was chosen to reflect geographic and demographic diversity. The five, each in their own way, demonstrably illustrate the power of a community college, engaged and connected, to its students and community.
The book’s profiles follow a similar structure, documenting the economic needs of the area, effective college leadership, strong partnerships among the institution, employers and government, and data-informed decision making leading to student success at scale. The narratives are not social science compare and contrast; rather, they describe what the colleges did to support career goals of students and how they did so. Read in totality, the profiles show how positive outcomes can beget more positive outcomes and how colleges can really make a difference for students and communities.
For all who work in the community college sector and/or are advocates for higher education, there is much to cheer from America’s Hidden Economic Engines. We see discussion of how resources are thoughtfully deployed at the institutional level, as well as how different stakeholders can join forces to promote education and individual, community, and business success. The five representative community colleges embody processes and structures about as far from an ivory tower as one can possibly imagine. They create new centers, new groups, and demonstrate a willingness to innovate in support of student and programmatic growth. Each discovers means to address local problems, which invariably are cast as opportunities for increased impact. The community colleges profiled put “shared prosperity for their vision at the center of their vision,” the authors assert.
At the very end of the book, following pages of affirmation, the authors raise current challenges. They note crisis level declines in enrollment. Unfortunately, no deep discussion of the possible causes of these massive shifts follows. The authors do suggest that community colleges would be well-served by investing more in outreach and recruitment. How institutions might secure money, though, is not investigated. Finally, the authors stress that “the funding model for community colleges broken.” They propose, quickly and without much detail, that four different funding models might provide a better path forward: shared economic development; short term credentials; appropriations for student support; and changes in base formula funding. Who might pick up these initiatives and/or advocate for their adoption is not part of the book.
In sum, the book ably celebrates community colleges but only briefly mentions the significant structural challenges that hamper community college success. The inherent shortcoming of America’s Hidden Economic Engines is not unique to this one book. Case studies are useful but not necessarily determinative. Despite best efforts, we are far from certain that any one plan, model or structure will assure community college and community success and prosperity for all. While we may learn from studying what worked and how it worked at different institutions, being sure of why it worked is much more elusive. All community colleges, as far as I can tell, care deeply about shared prosperity for their localities. Yet rates of success vary widely.
What we can be certain of, though, is that the nation is not investing in community colleges at scale to maximize the vision of shared prosperity. The funding models for most community colleges do not closely align with the goals of maximizing efficiency, economic mobility, or local economic growth. In part that is because there is no one funding model. There are many models and once implemented, they are constantly changing, as institutions wrestle with ever-fluctuating tuition revenue (enrollment issues), differing levels of local, state and federal support, much of which comes from grants, and dynamic local economic conditions. Community colleges are very much like the thousand plus localities in which they are situated. Variation is found throughout the nation. Some are wealthy and growing; others are stable; some are in decline. Going one step further, some localities are fortunate to find happy coalitions of local leadership that can do much with little. Other regions encounter bad luck, less effective leadership, or other negative combinations that make sustainable long-term growth impossible. Community colleges’ impact by default reflects some aspect of local conditions.
The book makes clear that should we decide to invest in community colleges, and should colleges realize their potential, we would see significant gains in overall prosperity, wealthier individuals, families and communities, increased local cooperation across institutions, greater community belonging and pride, and healthier and happier regions. The provocative question lurking behind America’s Hidden Economic Engines is why we are not making those impactful investments. That is a worthy topic for future discussion and action.
David Potash