Community colleges have often gotten short shrift on the spectrum of higher education. Their policy of accessibility to all has often relegated them to a lower status than traditional, four-year institutions; and because they offer a wide range of programs, community colleges often defy easy description. But a challenging economy and a shift to…

Three years after U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's national commission on higher education, and nearly a decade after No Child Left Behind revolutionized k-12 accountability, there is little agreement on what accountability in higher education should look like. While more students are enrolling in (and failing to complete)…