As a community college scholar and consultant, I have long been distressed by the lack of any significant discussion about the origins and historic and contemporary contributions of Democracy’s Colleges in major texts on the history of American higher education. Historians, it seems, have preferred to focus their gaze on the most prestigious institutions in our country—the Ivys, flagship research universities, some liberal arts standouts—while the workhorses of the system have been grossly underrepresented in the texts. The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System, first published by Arthur M. Cohen in 1998, has long bucked this trend, and the third edition, written by Carrie B. Kisker, further emphasizes the centrality of community colleges to the development of our modern system and—perhaps more importantly—to its future.

As in previous editions, the third edition of Shaping presents the history of American Higher Education through six eras: Colonial (1636-1789), Emergent Nation (1790-1869), University Transformation (1870-1944), Mass Higher Education (1945-1975), Consolidation (1976-1993), and Contemporary (1994-present). Community colleges make their debut in the University Transformation Era, and their contributions to access, equity, occupational education, curricular reform, social justice, and student mobility are chronicled throughout the rest of the book. The final chapter, new to this edition, situates contemporary colleges and universities within a broader societal context characterized by political polarization, social fragmentation, and distrust of government and public institutions, and illustrates how twenty-first century institutions are grappling with some of the most pressing and controversial issues in the current landscape, including diversity, equity, and inclusion; student activism and free speech; entrepreneurial approaches to revenue generation and fiscal sustainability; threats to tenure and academic freedom; new pathways to non-degree credentials; and more. What follows is an excerpt from the book’s final chapter, titled “Equity, Accountability, Distrust, and Disinvestment in the Contemporary Era”:

American higher education as a system functioned during the Contemporary Era much as it did in the previous century, with a diverse set of institutions absorbing changes in enrollment, responding to market pressures for new or career-oriented curricula, churning out more and more degrees and certificates, and seeking extramural funding to replace that which had been provided in earlier eras by federal and state governments. Within the system, different institutions had different priorities: the research institutions lived up to their title; the liberal arts colleges and many private universities preserved residential patterns of the past; comprehensive universities, community colleges, and proprietary institutions ensured the broad-based access upon which the whole system depends; and MSIs… sought to improve the retention and support of students from historically marginalized races or ethnicities.

As a way of reducing costs and enhancing system cohesion, many researchers, policymakers, and foundation executives championed organizational and funding changes that would create what they hoped would be a seamless pathway from kindergarten through the baccalaureate, with community colleges facilitating these connections. Throughout the Contemporary Era, public institutions collaborated to improve student transfer and the articulation of credits to majors and upper-division requirements at universities, and the community colleges, in particular, strengthened dual enrollment, early college high schools, and other programs aimed at giving historically underserved students a head start in college. The states have generally supported these initiatives through policy changes, but to date most have kept governance and funding for the different sectors separate.

Indeed, the system largely continues to function as a set of nested boxes or concentric circles, with the liberal arts colleges and research universities at the core. Further out are the comprehensive institutions, then community colleges, and at the exterior, the proprietary schools. Each sector is perceived by its staff, alumni, supporters, funding agents—the public at large—as having a certain worth. The core institutions are most selective in admissions, they employ faculty with the highest credentials, and they offer the greatest amenities. Their per capita costs and the support they receive through public funding, tuition, and donations are considerably greater. Their endowments are larger; they dominate the list of institutions ranked by wealth. Other institutions play different, no less valuable roles, but their position in the system is marked by several distinct characteristics. They accept a greater percentage of applicants. Their faculty may concentrate more on teaching than research and fewer hold doctoral degrees. Their revenues and costs are lower and their curricula are more likely to be directed toward preparing people for employment in fields requiring fewer years of study.

These differences are more marked the further the institution is from the core of the system. Students and faculty find difficulty moving from the exterior toward the center. Hardly any community college instructors subsequently join the faculty at research universities. Practically no credits earned at proprietary schools can be applied to degrees at liberal arts colleges, whereas credits from the core institutions are accepted at almost all the others. (In fact, few proprietary credits are even accepted even by community colleges, although increasing numbers of community college students transfer to for-profit four-year schools.)

The diversity within the system is at once a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because it enables some types of institutions to respond quickly to various opportunities, from research collaborations to preparing people for jobs in newly emergent fields. It is a weakness because it condones program duplication, constrains efforts at cost reduction, and perpetuates socioeconomic divisions. As a whole, the system has become more vulnerable to outside influence, and although public research universities and prestigious private institutions are the most frequent targets of political ire and public dissatisfaction, negative media narratives and polarized perceptions of the sector threaten support for and enrollment in all institutions. (Interestingly, although community colleges have been championed by legislators and the media alike for their affordable price and centrality to regional economic and workforce development efforts, they, too, have suffered from reduced state and local allocations.)

In recent years, a number of commentators have questioned the ongoing viability of the system, pointing to ever-escalating costs, post-pandemic enrollment losses, and increasing percentages of Americans who consider college to be a questionable investment (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). Yet despite these very real challenges, American higher education remains a point of reference for the rest of the world. As this book illustrates, European influence on American higher education came in two stages. First was the college form, especially the curriculum and the residential pattern, imported from England. Subsequently, the German model of research, academic freedom, and public service was appended. But all that happened well over 100 years ago. Now, 19 American universities anchor the Times Higher Education’s 2023 list of the top 30 universities in the world and comprise 9 of the 10 wealthiest. More importantly, the Europeans and much of the rest of the world admire the American system’s ability to ensure access to all who desire higher learning and its success in combining research and service, academic and occupational curricula, and graduate and undergraduate studies, all within the same set of institutions. They appreciate the diversity of forms and respect how transfer pathways, while imperfect, enable social mobility for individuals and groups. Thus, despite the (many) challenges of the Contemporary Era, colleges and universities remain central to American society and to its status in the world. [pp. 465-468]

The final pages of Shaping sketch possible futures for community colleges and for the system as a whole, and the book concludes with a plea to those concerned with preserving the foundational values that have made American higher education an architype of excellence and egalitarianism for nearly 400 years:

Perhaps most important now is [the system’s] ability to adapt to changing conditions and to do so in a transparent manner, showing how institutional decisions align with the academy’s longstanding values and mores, including institutional autonomy, academic freedom and free expression, equal access and equitable support, and a commitment to acting for the public good. No one knows exactly how colleges and universities—or the society in which they are embedded—will change in coming years. The only certainty is that the diverse system will continue experimenting with forms and content, learning and adapting as it goes, while retaining meaningful traditions developed over the past 390 or so years. The American people deserve no less from institutions that—in their pursuit of reason, culture, and excellence—are manifestations of the nation’s self.” [pp. 602-603]

The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System (3e, Jossey-Bass, 2024) is available now through Amazon and other national booksellers.

Carrie B. Kisker, Ph.D. is president of Kisker Education Consulting in Los Angeles and managing director of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges. In addition to the second and third editions of Shaping, written with Arthur M. Cohen, her books include the sixth and seventh editions of The American Community College (7e, Jossey-Bass, 2023), written with Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer, and Creating Entrepreneurial Community Colleges, A Design Thinking Approach (Harvard Education Press, 2021).