The prevailing narrative about higher education is that it serves as the most direct pathway to a better life for individuals and families. That’s especially true for community colleges that serve the most diverse student populations in higher education.
But like so many prevailing narratives, this is still a narrative of privilege. As Dr. Anthony Carnevale states in The Merit Myth that the reality is that “higher education essentially preserves intergenerational racial and class inequality.” Too many barriers still exist that lead to inequitable access to different sectors of higher education, selective programs, and higher-earning careers, equity gaps in dual enrollment, and biased placement and entrance exams, to name just a few.
Dr. Karen A. Stout
Across the nation, community colleges are putting equity at the center of their institutional reform efforts. They have made addressing out-of-school factors such as housing and food insecurity essential parts of the student success agenda. Many are now thinking more deeply about the student populations they have failed to reach and whether the programs they offer meet the education and training needs of all of their communities. We know that college access is more than something we do to bring students to our campuses and that it is a perspective that must also extend into our classrooms.
bell hooks once called education “the practice of freedom,” and teaching and learning is the area which may play the greatest role in dismantling the structures that sustain inequalities on our campuses and in our wider communities by enabling what Hooks calls “a movement against and beyond boundaries.”
Moving Beyond Boundaries
