How should community colleges be funded? They occupy a unique and important place in the nation's workforce development system, providing the link between education and job training. In many cases they do both, and they often serve as a bridge to help disadvantaged workers and job seekers not just get a job, but get the education and training that will help them get a better job.
Should we continue to fund their important work with a consistent flow of taxpayer dollars? Or should we force them out into the world of begging for foundation grants and alumni donations? Because that's where it looks like they're headed.
In a thoughtful post, Charity and Sustainability, blogger Confessions of a Community College Dean argues that forcing community colleges into the philanthropy game will lead to tuition increases in the long run. That's because donors don't want to fund the "boring" operations stuff like salaries for administrative staff and the electric bill. They want to create new programs and projects that make a big splash. But those programs put new demands on operating costs that may continue long after their donation runs out. He says
I'm concerned that with public sector support for higher ed falling by
the wayside, the cc's will fall into some of the same traps as the
four-year colleges. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
I've heard a similar complaint about alumni donations from a colleague who works at an urban four-year teaching school. Donors want to give to scholarship funds with their name on them, and want to meet the talented young person who benefited their largesse. Great, but what her department needs is money for copy machine supplies. Professors would like to return to the day when they handed out a syllabus on the first day of class. They think many students would benefit from that too.
I can almost imagine the engraved bronze plaque: The X. Y. Smith Memorial Toner Cartridge.
More than this, is it realistic to expect community college alumni to cough up enough money to make up for public funding cutbacks? While many of their graduates are successful people, most aren't the kinds of elites who can write multi-thousand (and upwards) dollar checks to Harvard or Stanford. Are we asking community college development departments to do the impossible?
This doesn't even get to the dirty little secret of university fundraising: donors who renege on their promises.
He says it so well - let me quote Community College Dean again:
But there's no substitute for sustainable, predictable operating
funding. That's what makes really successful programs (and reasonably
successful cost control) possible over the long term. To the extent
that we're being pushed away from predictable -- by which I mean public
-- support, and towards philanthropic funding, I'm concerned that we'll
start making some of the same mistakes I've seen elsewhere.
Before those of you in the nonprofit and four-year college world start saying, "Hey, I have to fight for philanthropic dollars, so community colleges shouldn't get a free ride courtesy of taxpayers," let me ask this: Is there really enough philanthropic money out
there to meet all the needs of all the education and training programs
that have seen funding cuts in recent years?
What will happen on the day when the need for money outpaces supply? Who will get to decide who gets those limited resources? Will that decision be made based on the needs of workers and job seekers, on labor demand from employers, or by donors who want their name in lights?
The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has just announced they plan to make $10 million in grants through a Technology-Based Learning (TBL) Initiative. According to the grant announcement, the purpose of the grants is to "expand the vital role of TBL in helping workers quickly acquire the training and skills they need to be successful in today's global economy, and thereby increase the nation's economic competitiveness and growth." 
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