Public trust / private interest : practical and philosophical issues for community colleges and their contract education programs

Abstract

Community colleges are being pressured to increase their direct support of the economic development agendas of their communities, their states, and even the nation. These pressures develop both externally and internally, and are exacerbated when increased demands for access to community college education must be met with chronically flat-lined or underfunded community college budgets. In order to deal effectively with these pressures, community colleges may have to increase the considerable degree to which they already collaborate with the private interests within their communities. Contract education programs are one of the more powerful collaborative devices available to community colleges. But increasing their emphasis on contract education presents practical and philosophical issues for community colleges, and may even put their traditionally comprehensive missions at risk. This study suggests that the degree to which a community college is able to resolve those issues and maintain a comprehensive mission is heavily dependent upon the ability of the top leadership to balance the values and interests of the multiple organizational cultures that make up the community college and its immediate environment.