Community colleges have been underappreciated, revised data show

The new data suggest that some community colleges are doing a much better job of preparing students for future success than they’ve gotten credit for.

A college degree is the key to unlocking many of the best careers in the modern labor market. But more than 20 million working-age adults in the United States are college dropouts, failed in some way by institutions that collectively receive hundreds of billions of dollars in public funding every year.

For the last two decades, the Department of Education has tracked graduation rates at colleges. Although a handful of elite colleges have graduation rates above 90 percent, many are below 50 percent — often, far below. But colleges have long complained that the federal rates are inaccurate. Back in 2008, Congress directed the department to study the matter.

Two years later (the wheels of government turn slowly), the 15-person Committee on Measures of Student Success convened. I was a member. So was Wayne Burton, the president of North Shore Community College in Danvers, Mass. Over several months, Burton argued forcefully that his college was a lot better than federal graduation rates suggested. The committee decided he was on to something and recommended that the Education Department calculate graduation rates in a new way.

Six more years went by (there was a lot going on). Then last month, the Education Department released the revised set of graduation rates. It turns out that Burton, who has since retired from academia and joined New Hampshire’s citizen Legislature, was right all along.

The new data suggest that some community colleges are doing a much better job of preparing students for future success than they’ve gotten credit for. Lawmakers and students may want to take a fresh look at them as an affordable starting point on the road toward a college degree.