Community colleges' learning disability - Mark Schneider and Lu Michelle Yin

They aren't graduating the bulk of their students. And taxpayers are left holding the bag. Community colleges are central to the nation's higher education system, enrolling almost 30% of all postsecondary students. But their record of success is spotty. Nationally, only about a quarter of full-time community college students complete their studies within three years (the official measure of a school's graduation rate). At more than a third of California's community colleges, graduation rates are 20% or less. Of the full-time, degree-seeking students who entered California community colleges in 2007, more than 35,000 had not earned their degrees three years later, and most of them were no longer enrolled in any postsecondary institution.