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Today we see hitherto unseen attention showered on community colleges by policymakers and politicians. This is happening in a bid to enhance graduation rates and equipping them to be trained as good workers during recession.

Ground reality is however completely different. State support has been plummeting even while enrolments cross believable boundaries. Their profile might be higher, but community colleges are a disappointed lot with no money having materialized to help them cope with rising demand and of course, meet the President’s goal of becoming the global leader in college graduation rates by the year 2020.

According to American Association of Community Colleges CEO and President George Boggs, times now a challenging and difficult. However the future looks quite optimistic, he said, as the community colleges enjoys and enhanced image in long term view.

There has been a great pressure on students and schools due to the recent economic crisis. They are forced to work long hours. Many courses have been cut by public colleges due to a great reduction in tax revenues in local and state level. Certain colleges have eliminated academic programs, slashed summer sessions or scheduled them round the clock and even reduced enrolments.

For the first time in forty years, the Wayne County Community College District in Detroit was forced to cap its student enrolment. At least 100 academic programs have been cut by the technical and community colleges in Louisiana due to a state budget cut of 4.5%.

At least 52% of the community colleges have reduced their yearly operating budgets according to a survey conducted among 128 colleges. This severe crunch has resulted in deficit funds and colleges find they do not have enough money to spend on career counselling for students to equip them to face challenges, reforms in education and other methods to enhance rates of completion.

Students who necessarily have to work to manage their college fees and other expenses find it difficult with rescheduled classes that finish as late as 10 PM. Another college that is renowned for its engineering program is the Montgomery College in Maryland. This college is facing a12 percent county money cut. The allocated funds for this college are also about $14.5 million lesser than requested.

According to Hercules Pinkney, the interim President, it is high time everyone remembered that we are the ones training the workforce for jobs. It is time everyone stopped talking only about jobs and start concentrating on us.

President Barack Obama’s landmark legislation signed recently is a face to face reality for community colleges. The student loan overhaul where banks and other middlemen are completely eliminated, will generate reduced savings for the federal government most of which will go towards expanding Pell grants for deserving and needy students and community colleges will receive only around $2 million towards job training.

According to the President of Lumina Foundation for education, Indianapolis Jamie Meristotis, role of community colleges in development of jobs is the top priority. He plays a vital role to push students to complete community colleges faster by accelerating programs.