League for Innovation in the Community College January 2019 | Page 9

LLEGE MISSION:
to Capabilities
BY JOHN S. LEVIN
For decades, access has served as a proxy for the mission on to employment or to further education. By the 2000s,
of the community college, used to suggest a number practitioners and policymakers began to understand that the
of conditions: entry to a career or to further education; open door of community colleges was a revolving door for
an opportunity for all classes and categories of people many, and that student outcomes had to be more equal. This
(notwithstanding the segregated condition of these institutions awareness and subsequent actions modified the mission of the
before the 1970s); and lack of barriers, including geographical community college to the extent that access was a term that
and financial. Yet, while entry was conceived of and implied was subordinated, and the primary term became “success.”
as equal for all, exit was not: Large numbers of students did
not leave community colleges with the same outcomes as Yet, access did not disappear as a significant component of
others, whether that was academic achievement or movement the community college’s principles. Access became more
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