Emerging from COVID-19: The 2022 Report of Finance and Access Issues
- Emerging from COVID-19:The 2022 Report of Finance and Access Issues
This year marks the 20th year of our National Access and Finance Survey (NAFS) studies of access and funding issues in public higher education. Over the last 20 years of this survey, we've received an average of 46 responses that typically ranges from 40 to 50 each year conducted. The survey has seen consistently great cooperation among our evolving staff and respondents, and we thank all 50 National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges (NCSDCC) members, and countless other staff across the nation, for participating again between July 12 and August 31, 2022, we also thank our advisory panel for survey input. We survey NCSDCC members because of their broad knowledge of access and finance issues across education sectors and state government as well. For 2022, our first after the COVID pandemic, survey respondents could respond online or by paper. We offer two important caveats: first, differences exist in funding, assigned state missions, and organization of community colleges, and they are greater at community colleges than at public higher education's other two sectors: flagship and regional universities. Second, since most NAFS items are on a Likert scale that ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree, results are perceptions.
Our two main research questions for looking across the current and past surveys are, first, what are current budget drivers, and how does that fit with what we have seen in the past?, and second, based on past and current responses, what are expected trends for the future? Details on survey collection and methods can be found in the introduction to this volume.
why survey state community college leaders?
For millions of academically-talented, low-income, first-generation, and minority students, community colleges are the portal of entry to higher education and the [End Page 251] American Dream. They offer developmental education for underprepared high school graduates, non-graduates, and older workers with antiquated skills. Their dual enrollment, developmental education programs, technical programs for the workforce (often in tandem with secondary schools) and transfer offerings put community colleges in the middle ground between secondary education and upper division public flagship and regional universities, and private colleges.
The sources of revenue are highly varied within the community college sector, a reality rarely acknowledged by policymakers and scholars. The revenue mix is much more consistent across state lines for our nation's 439 public Regional Universities and 107 public Flagship Universities than at our 951 public Community Colleges that are in the Mission-Driven Classification (MDC). Only community colleges among the three sectors receives local tax revenues. A 2008 Illinois State University Grapevine study found local tax support for community colleges comprised 10 percent or more of total revenues in 25 states, while in many of the remaining 25 states, such as Florida, Georgia, and Indiana, local support approaches zero.
These stark variations in community college revenue patterns across state lines are based upon the differing philosophies behind the state enabling laws passed between World War II and the end of the "baby boom" in the mid-1970s. They have profound policy implications today.
One author of this article remembers interviewing the system president of a large multi-campus Texas urban community college district in 2001, as the Lone Star State began its "Closing the Gaps" initiative. One of its four key policy goals was to enroll a million more students between 2000 and 2015. "The 13th and 14th year will be financed by local taxpayer, and not the state," this system CEO flatly predicted, a prediction that has come true.
By 2013-14, the 157 U.S. community colleges received 15 percent or less of their total revenues from state funds, and 57 received five percent or less from their states, including Joliet in Illinois, the nation's first junior college. By 2016, local support as a percentage of total revenue exceeded 10 percent in just 16 states, down from the 25 reported by Grapevine in 2006. As policymakers ponder national policies for community college funding, such as...
