This study will provide a review of nine chapters from The American Community College, by Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer.
Chapter Five, "Finances: Sustaining and Allocating Resources," shows how community colleges secure funds and how funding efforts have changed as organizational styles at the colleges have changed. The chapter notes the changes wrought by cutbacks in public financial resources. The colleges are much larger than they were, draw more students, and enjoy much greater income from students. Tuition, local taxes and state revenues are the major sources of income.
Major questions, resolved in different ways at different colleges, are the cost and funding of different programs (remedial, occupational, etc.), the balance between local and state funding, and the formula for setting tuition and distributing student aid. In order to balance budgets, colleges have had to cut programs and personnel.
Chapter Six, "Instruction: Methods, Media, and Effects," argues that effective teaching is especially important in community colleges because it can encourage students just out of high school to pursue their education. Instructional techniques have expanded as technology has expanded, including use of television, computers, cognitive-style mapping, and writing. Despite this new technology and theory, "traditional methods of instruction still flourish" (155).
Learning resource centers expand traditional libraries to accommodate new technology and teaching methods. The technology of instruction orders teaching and learning goals and methods to maximize learning, especially in remedial courses, mastery learning, and competency-based education. Still, traditional teaching methods prevail. Assessment of student learning remains a largely undertested and controversial approach.
Chapter Seven, "Student Services: Supporting Educational Objectives," covers all those areas other than actual instruction, including ...