Community Colleges are pivotal institutions in American society--crucial to economic competiveness and efforts to revive the American Dream. As open-access institutions located close to where students live and work, community colleges are uniquely situated to jumpstart social mobility for those who aspire to the middle class. This issue brief looks at three key issues surrounding the funding of higher education: (1) What are the overall variations in spending between community colleges and four-year institutions, and do the justifications advanced for those differences hold up?; (2) Are the current (relatively low) levels of funding at community colleges efficient, or inefficient?; and (3) Does it make sense to move toward a K-12 style system of "adequacy" funding in higher education, where public funding would be weighted toward institutions such as community colleges, which educate large numbers of low-income students? How would such a system work?