Abstract
The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of the Obama Administration’s Community College Initiative (CCI) on state legislators’ attitude toward economic funding for community colleges. Data on legislators’ attitude toward community colleges funding were collected using a customized Community College Goals Inventory (CCGI) survey developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics including measures of central tendency and dispersion as well as ANOVA, regression analysis, t-test or F-test. The results indicated that President Obama’s Community College Initiative has had a positive and statistically significant influence on state legislators’ attitude toward community college funding. Additionally, demographic characteristics and information sources, that is, where legislators obtain their knowledge to make decision about educational policies both had a positive and statistically significant impact on legislators’ attitude toward community college funding. The article provides insight into funding-attitude markers, that can be used as capital by community college presidents to shape funding policies affecting their institutions.
Highlights
Attaining a post-secondary degree or credential is no longer just a pathway to opportunity for a few talented people; rather, it is a prerequisite for the growing jobs of the new economy
Funding is one community college element function defined by Cohen and Brawer (2008) that is a part of identifying the mission of community college
The results indicate a R2 = .925, which implies that 92.5% of legislators’ attitude toward community college funding is explained by the regression model and that percent share explained is statistically significant [(F(5,106) = 261.83, p < .001]
Summary
Attaining a post-secondary degree or credential is no longer just a pathway to opportunity for a few talented people; rather, it is a prerequisite for the growing jobs of the new economy. Over this decade, employment in jobs requiring education beyond a high school diploma will grow more rapidly than employment in jobs that do not; of the 30 fastest growing occupations, more than half require postsecondary education. With the average earnings of college graduates at a level that is twice as high as that of workers with only a high school diploma, higher education is the clearest pathway into the middle class (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). We suffer from a college attainment gap, as high school graduates from the wealthiest families in our nation are almost certain to continue on to higher education, while just over half of our high school graduates in the poorest quarter of families attend college (The White House, 2013)
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