The New Stratification: Differentiating Opportunity at Community Colleges by Race and Class in the United States

• In Event: Challenging the Discourse of a Postracial Future: Exploring the Continued Significance of Race in U.S. Higher Education

Abstract

In this paper presentation, the authors explore the growing policy discourse surrounding college completion in the U.S. In doing so, critical questions regarding the continuing significance of race and class will be probed in relation to the ongoing struggle that students of color and/or from low-income backgrounds experience when seeking access to quality higher education opportunities. This line of inquiry will be accompanied by an overview of the community college literature as well as an analysis of how insurgent research projects and initiatives featuring labor-intensive approaches to transforming 2-year institutions, their policies and practices, have been eclipsed by more technocratic investments to improve large data management systems and develop credit recovery and reduction of time-to-degree/certificate strategies. We argue that such systems strategies targeting community colleges too often translate into “low hanging fruit” solutions that are not capable of identifying and promoting sustainable and transformative policies and practices at the institutional level required to especially improve the quality of educational opportunities afforded students of color and/or from low-income backgrounds. In addition, we contend that a failure to significantly alter this macro-policy trend in near future will likely result in unintended and negative consequences that have the potential to undermine an equity agenda at community colleges.

Authors

• Gregory M. Anderson, University of Denver

• Estela M. Bensimon, University of Southern California