The authors of this article describe the effect that cost-cutting policies have had on community college student outcomes and how this has weakened the capacity of those colleges to produce returns to students and taxpayers. Many colleges are instituting reforms to help more students graduate with useful credentials. While these lower the cost per completion (and thus increase college efficiency), they increase expenditures per student. The emphasis of policy and practice moving forward should be on improving efficiency: the cost per completion of a high quality credential. The quality of that credential can be monitored in part by tracking graduates' employment, income and further education. Such monitoring, however, should not be used to rank colleges, which operate under differing local circumstances.