Nationwide, community college administrators are attempting to maintain financial stability amid extreme budget challenges. The problem that was addressed through this study is that some community college administrators at a large Northeastern state lack strategies to sustain financial stability, which threatens the 14 institutions' ability to…

Community colleges serve the largest percentage of under-represented, under-prepared, and under-resourced students yet they are often underfunded in state budgets. This article demonstrates challenges and opportunities for community college leaders in state and federal political advocacy from the perspective of a community college state system…

Public community colleges have struggled with reduced funding allocations, unstable enrollments, low completion rates, and growing racial equity gaps while facing increased accountability for outcomes. As a result, public community colleges are trying to determine how to efficiently use limited funds to effectively meet equitable student outcomes.…

Community college boards of trustees are not highly visible, but they play a vital role in college and student success through governance and oversight of the mission of open access higher education. The stakes are high as community colleges compete for scarce resources in state budgets making the local and state-level trustee/governing role as…

The Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER) Fund had two main purposes: (1) to ensure that colleges could continue to provide education to students in the wake of the pandemic and (2) to provide emergency financial assistance through colleges directly to students. Four years after the onset of the pandemic, this ARCC Network brief uses college…

Nebraska's constitution and state statutes require the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education (CCPE) to review the budget requests of the University of Nebraska, the Nebraska State College System, and the community colleges in light of specific criteria set forth in the statutes. The Commission also makes recommendations on major…

The article is an analysis which focuses on the years after the Great Recession, to show the interplay between federal and state policies. The first year after American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) federal stimulus funds ended, Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, coincided with new federal Pell Grant eligibility restrictions. State appropriations for…

California's public higher education system has catapulted the state into global leadership such that, the state is the 5th largest economy in the world today. A bachelor's degree, in particular, provides unrivaled economic and health benefits for the individual earning the degree and for the state. To better understand how California's public…

Since the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people worldwide. Seemingly overnight, colleges and universities transitioned their entire operations online. There is no playbook for how to best respond to this global pandemic. While it is virtually impossible to predict the lasting impact that COVID-19 will…

An ongoing debate in K-12 education policy has been between the "reform" agenda, including charter schools and school vouchers, and advocates of traditional public schools, led by educator unions. A similar split has emerged in higher education, particularly community colleges. Using California as an example, this paper: 1) summarizes…

The Tuition and Fee Report is produced annually by the Colorado Department of Higher Education to provide detailed information on the tuition and fee rates at Colorado's public institutions, as well as to give context regarding the state funding environment in which tuition and fee rate-setting occurs. Colorado has mirrored national trends over…

Few things can impact the success of students at community colleges more than budget and planning. Faculty must therefore have a basic comprehension of budget processes and of faculty roles in them. This paper aims to serve various purposes. It provides a primer on how the system-wide budgeting process works prior to colleges receiving monies from…

The Tuition and Fee Report is produced annually by the Colorado Department of Higher Education to provide detailed information on the tuition and fee rates at Colorado's public institutions, as well as to give context regarding the state funding environment in which tuition and fee rate-setting occurs. Colorado has mirrored national trends over…

This publication is an overview of Higher Education in California to provide readers with a deeper understanding about how the public systems work. The primer outlines the mission, enrollment, cost of attendance, and governance and funding structure of each of California's public higher education systems. This resource also provides critical facts…

The 2017-18 State Budget Act allocated $5M to the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges (CCC) to support a Veterans Resource Center (VRC) grant program designed to help CCC establish or enhance on-campus VRCs. In an effort to better understand the current state of VRCs in the wake of this funding, Irvine Valley College (IVC)…