write an essay on community resources in education

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Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you're applying to college, there's a good chance you'll be writing a Community Essay for one (or lots) of your supplementals. In this post, we show you how to write one that stands out.

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays . You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

When schools admit you, they aren’t just admitting you to be a student. They’re also admitting you to be a community member.

Community supplemental essays help universities understand how you would fit into their school community. At their core, Community prompts allow you to explicitly show an admissions officer why you would be the perfect addition to the school’s community.

Let’s get into what a Community supplemental essay is, what strategies you can use to stand out, and which steps you can take to write the best one possible.

What is a Community supplemental essay?

Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you’re applying to.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1: Rice University

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

2: Swarthmore College

Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community?

Community Essay Strategy

Your Community essay strategy will likely depend on the kind of Community essay you’re asked to write. As with all supplemental essays, the goal of any community essay should be to write about the strengths that make you a good fit for the school in question.

How to write about a community to which you belong

Most Community essay prompts give you a lot of flexibility in how you define “community.” That means that the community you write about probably isn’t limited to the more formal communities you’re part of like family or school. Your communities can also include friend groups, athletic teams, clubs and organizations, online communities, and more.

There are two things you should consider before you even begin writing your essay.

What school values is the prompt looking for?

Whether they’re listed implicitly or explicitly, Community essay prompts often include values that you can align your essay response with.

To explain, let’s look at this short supplemental prompt from the University of Notre Dame:

If you were given unlimited resources to help solve one problem in your community, what would it be and how would you accomplish it?

Now, this prompt doesn’t outright say anything about values. But the question itself, even being so short, implies a few values:

a) That you should be active in your community

b) That you should be aware of your community’s problems

c) That you know how to problem-solve

d) That you’re able to collaborate with your community

After dissecting the prompt for these values, you can write a Community essay that showcases how you align with them.

What else are admissions officers learning about you through the community you choose?

In addition to showing what a good community member you are, your Community supplemental essays can also let you talk about other parts of your experience. Doing so can help you find the perfect narrative balance among all your essays.

Let’s use a quick example.

If I’m a student applying to computer science programs, then I might choose to write about the community I’ve found in my robotics team. More specifically, I might write about my role as cheerleader and principle problem-solver of my robotics team. Writing about my robotics team allows me to do two things:

Show that I’m a really supportive person in my community, and

Show that I’m on a robotics team that means a lot to me.

Now, it’s important not to co-opt your Community essay and turn it into a secret Extracurricular essay , but it’s important to be thinking about all the information an admissions officer will learn about you based on the community you choose to focus on.

How to write about what you’ll contribute to your new community

The other segment of Community essays are those that ask you to reflect on how your specific experiences will contribute to your new community.

It’s important that you read each prompt carefully so you know what to focus your essay on.

These kinds of Community prompts let you explicitly drive home why you belong at the school you’re applying to.

Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Draw out the values.

This kind of Community prompt also typically contains some kind of reference to values. The Rice prompt is a perfect example of this:

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community . The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

There are several values here:

a) Collaboration

b) Enhancing quality of life

c) For all members of the community

d) Residential system (AKA not just in the classroom)

e) Sharing unique life experiences and cultural traditions with other students

Note that the actual question of the prompt is “What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community?” If you skimmed the beginning of the prompt to get to the question, you’d miss all these juicy details about what a Rice student looks like.

But with them in mind, you can choose to write about a life perspective that you hold that aligns with these five values.

Find detailed connections to the school.

Since these kinds of Community prompts ask you what you would contribute to the school community, this is your chance to find the most logical and specific connections you can. Browse the school website and social media to find groups, clubs, activities, communities, or support systems that are related to your personal background and experiences. When appropriate based on the prompt, these kinds of connections can help you show how good a fit you are for the school and community.

How to do Community Essay school research

Looking at school values means doing research on the school’s motto, mission statement, and strategic plans. This information is all carefully curated by a university to reflect the core values, initiatives, and goals of an institution. They can guide your Community essay by giving you more values options to include.

We’ll use the Rice mission statement as an example. It says,

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research , unsurpassed teaching , and contribution to the betterment of our world . It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor.

I’ve bolded just a few of the most important values we can draw out.

As we’ll see in the next section, I can use these values to brainstorm my Community essay.

How to write a Community Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt closely & identify any relevant values.

When writing any supplemental essay, your first step should always be to closely read the prompt. You can even annotate it. It’s important to do this so you know exactly what is being asked of you.

With Community essays specifically, you can also highlight any values you think the prompt is asking you to elaborate on.

Keeping track of the prompt will make sure that you’re not missing anything an admissions officer will be on the lookout for.

Step 2: Brainstorm communities you’re involved in.

If you’re writing a Community essay that asks you to discuss a community you belong to, then your next step will be brainstorming all of your options.

As you brainstorm, keep a running list. Your list can include all kinds of communities you’re involved in.

Communities:

• Model United Nations
• Youth group
• Instagram book club
• My Discord group

Step 3: Think about the role(s) you play in your selected community.

Narrow down your community list to a couple of options. For each remaining option, identify the roles you played, actions you took, and significance you’ve drawn from being part of that group.

Community: Orchestra

These three columns help you get at the most important details you need to include in your community essay.

Step 4: Identify any relevant connections to the school.

Depending on the question the prompt asks of you, your last step may be to do some school research.

Let’s return to the Rice example.

After researching the Rice mission statement, we know that Rice values community members who want to contribute to the “betterment of our world.”

Ah ha! Now we have something solid to work from.

With this value in mind, I can choose to write about a perspective that shows my investment in creating a better world. Maybe that perspective is a specific kind of fundraising tenacity. Maybe it’s always looking for those small improvements that have a big impact. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, I can write a supplemental essay that reflects the values of the university.

Community Essay Mistakes

While writing Community essays may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of ways they can go awry. Specifically, there are three common mistakes students make that you should be on the lookout for.

They don’t address the specific requests of the prompt.

As with all supplemental essays, your Community essay needs to address what the prompt is asking you to do. In Community essays especially, you’ll need to assess whether you’re being asked to talk about a community you’re already part of or the community you hope to join.

Neglecting to read the prompt also means neglecting any help the prompt gives you in terms of values. Remember that you can get clues as to what the school is looking for by analyzing the prompt’s underlying values.

They’re too vague.

Community essays can also go awry when they’re too vague. Your Community essay should reflect on specific, concrete details about your experience. This is especially the case when a Community prompt asks you to talk about a specific moment, challenge, or sequence of events.

Don’t shy away from details. Instead, use them to tell a compelling story.

They don’t make any connections to the school.

Finally, Community essays that don’t make any connections to the school in question miss out on a valuable opportunity to show school fit. Recall from our supplemental essay guide that you should always write supplemental essays with an eye toward showing how well you fit into a particular community.

Community essays are the perfect chance to do that, so try to find relevant and logical school connections to include.

Community Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: robotics community.

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

From Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” videos to ZirconTV’s “How to Use a Stud Finder,” I’m a YouTube how-to fiend. This propensity for fix-it knowledge has not only served me well, but it’s also been a lifesaver for my favorite community: my robotics team(( The writer explicitly states the community they’ll be focusing on.)) . While some students spend their after-school hours playing sports or video games, I spend mine tinkering in my garage with three friends, one of whom is made of metal.

Last year, I Googled more fixes than I can count. Faulty wires, misaligned soldering, and failed code were no match for me. My friends watched in awe as I used Boolean Operators to find exactly the information I sought.(( The writer clearly articulates their place in the community.)) But as I agonized over chassis reviews, other unsearchable problems arose.

First((This entire paragraph fulfills the “describe that community” direction in the prompt.)) , there was the matter of registering for our first robotics competition. None of us familiar with bureaucracy, David stepped up and made some calls. His maturity and social skills helped us immediately land a spot. The next issue was branding. Our robot needed a name and a logo, and Connor took it upon himself to learn graphic design. We all voted on Archie’s name and logo design to find the perfect match. And finally, someone needed to enter the ring. Archie took it from there, winning us first place.

The best part about being in this robotics community is the collaboration and exchange of knowledge.((The writer emphasizes a clear strength: collaboration within their community. It’s clear that the writer values all contributions to the team.))  Although I can figure out how to fix anything, it’s impossible to google social skills, creativity, or courage. For that information, only friends will do. I can only imagine the fixes I’ll bring to the University of Michigan and the skills I’ll learn in return at part of the Manufacturing Robotics community((The writer ends with a forward-looking connection to the school in question.)) .

Want to see even more supplemental essay examples? Check out our college essay examples post . 

Liked that? Try this next.

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Extracurricular Magnitude and Impact

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How to Leverage Community Assets for Powerful Learning

Practice | insights   16 september 2020 by kelly young, education reimagined, and timothy jones, #hiphoped, and joe hobot, american indian oic, and josh schachter, communityshare, it is really about listening to our community, listening to our youth, listening to our educators and adapting and designing approaches to address what we’re facing based on what we’re hearing versus what folks think is best for the system., josh schachter, director and founder, communityshare.

On September 10th, 2020, Education Reimagined’s Kelly Young hosted a panel on leveraging community assets for powerful learning during and after COVID-19. The panel explored what possibilities emerge when we see our communities as the playground for learning, rather than confining learning to a single school building. Ultimately, what if what public education provided was your home base: the place that you got to be loved and nurtured to make sense of your learning, to set goals, to create learning pathways, and where you, in partnership with the community, navigated your learning pathways?

Below, you can watch the recording of the webinar or read the lightly edited transcript.

[00: 05:55] Kelly Young: I want to start laying the groundwork for our conversation, because each of you have had amazing experiences, where you have seen how community assets—the people, the places, the history, and the culture—has actually transformed kids’ relationship to themselves, to their learning, and to their community.

Could each of you share any experiences where you have seen how igniting community assets has the ability to transform kids’ experience of learning?

[00:06:41] Timothy Jones: I’ll give a quick example. It was in Washington, D.C., in 1998, and we were coming up on the 30th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination and the resulting riots in different cities. I had a group of teenagers who were near the 14th street corridor (near downtown D.C.), which, at this time, there were still areas of their neighborhood that had been damaged since 1968, that had never been built up.

We spent the summer making a video project called 14th Street Freestyle: 68 2 98. In order to do it, we identified individuals in their mid-to-late forties who were teenagers in 1968, who actually served as teachers: giving firsthand accounts of the experience of being a teenager in 1968.

We also went to Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Library and began to do research. We began to take pictures of what it looked like, and so we started pulling in all of these different resources, tying in the music history of what was going on at that time, including the advent of Go-Go.

The kids spent the summer studying, writing, and researching more than the ten months previously in school. And, we did it in partnership with the Wooly Mammoth Theater. At the end of the summer, we had this video that a number of them took back to school and their teachers actually incorporated it into their history classes.

That’s one example, where the young people brought the community together, and were then able to take a tool back to their class, to enhance what was taking place inside of the classroom.

[00:08:53] Kelly Young: How did it impact the young people to get to work on a project like that?

  [00:09:02] Timothy Jones: It impacted them in a number of ways. It really helped them understand the history of Washington, D.C. through a different lens. They each had an opportunity to sit down and interview someone who was an elder and could share about being a teenager in the city in 1968. It also impacted them because they spent a lot of time talking to their parents in new ways because a lot of them were second and third generation Washingtonians. 

So, in addition to the research for the project, it was also: “I’m gonna go to Northeast and sit down and talk to my grandmother,” because now they just started connecting the dots. It’s very interesting, because three to four of them ended up going into some field around education. And, so it strengthened the bond between us and it helped them see themselves as a stakeholder in the community in a different way than they did before the project.

[00:10:12] Kelly Young: Joe [Hobot], I want to turn to you next. When we first spoke, you shared a story about how schools you visited actually got their start by doing after school programming and engaging the community. And, I’m wondering if you could share one of the stories of why engaging the community led to an alternative design for education.

[00:10:47] Joe Hobot: In my journey as an educator and in these sites that I was lucky enough to visit in 2017 with the National Urban Indian Family Coalition, it really acknowledged a crisis point in our youth and their educational processes.

What we were taught by our elders and what we’ve come to learn about the history of public education really was informative to the practice and the work, and a reality check of what we’re contending with. Where these schools emerged from was an understanding that public education really isn’t about the development of critical thinkers. At least not in its original design. 

This is particularly true for Indigenous peoples where education and public education was weaponized against us to rob us of our culture. And, as we began to really dig into the history of public education and that space architecture: it’s really predicated on assimilation and acculturation into a prefabricated identity known as being an American, which was ostensibly done to support the burgeoning Republic of the United States.

For us, that meant we were subjugated to the adage of “kill the savage and save the man.” And, we were forced into an assimilative pattern that didn’t match our belief systems, our religious beliefs, or our traditional customs as Indigenous people. As we move forward into the 21st century, we’ve come to understand the purpose of education as its original architecture suggests, which is a tool of supporting and furthering white supremacy.

This was absolutely incongruent with who we were as American Indian people. So, into this crisis came our elders, and we looked at these departure points of our youth who were not necessarily failing in a public education system but through this recast vision [that was incongruent with their cultural upbringing]. They were making a spirit-saving choice to exit a system that was noxious and toxic to who they were as Indian people.

But, there was nothing there to receive them. And, in the various locations that I’ve had the opportunity to visit and travel to that fueled the work that I did in 2017, the elders came forward and said, first and foremost, we need to reassert and reinstitute our cultural practices and ideas of being Indigenous people into our youth.

They’re lost. They’ve been divorced from these very important teachings and lessons about how to live in community with one another. And, so it began as a supportive structure for wayward youth that were really twisting in the breeze without any real direction and certainly not having a responsive public education system to their needs. The education system was really trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

We saw a lot of after school work and weekend work of learning about various Indigenous practices in all these different communities that have been separated by thousands of miles: the importance of the drum, the song, song creation, song meanings, creation stories—ceremonial practices that were tied to the land and the water of the local areas.

This last point was hugely important for the urban Indigenous population, which is far larger and diverse than most people recognize as a result of federal policies in the 1950’s. What we found, and what the elders shared when they started to implement these works by bringing in the youth to teach them their culture, is that things began to stabilize. The youth had a different approach and an opinion about their place in the world, their place as American Indian people within this country, and their roles and responsibilities to support their community along the way.

One of the stories was in Portland. A gentleman by the name of Randy was a canoe maker. And, they would do canoe journeys and teach the youth how to build canoes in the off-hours. Randy was also an accountant who had good math skills. As he got to know the youth and develop the relational piece, he understood that a lot of them were struggling with math.

He incorporated the teachings of the canoe and his knowledge of math and began tutoring these students. And, we saw the commensurate rise in academic achievement through this pathway and that was really the genesis point.

What germinated out of that became after school supports and cultural practices, and customs to tutoring were then formally adopted by community-based organizations (CBO) that were operated and led by the community. And, these eventually morphed into formalized educational school settings.

[00:16:05] Kelly Young: Josh [Schachter], I would love for you to share about ecosystems and what is necessary to create a learning ecosystem.

[00:16:38] Josh Schachter: When you don’t have an ecosystem, essentially what it means is you’re in isolation from each other as many of us are experiencing right now with COVID and other things. When I was teaching photography to refugee and immigrant youth, the first semester I asked the students to photograph what it means to have a home, or to feel at home, or to come from a different home.

Over a semester, they wrote and they photographed, and almost every image they came back with was of isolation and disconnection from their community (48 out of 50 students photographed that). And, thinking that the prompt was, “what does it mean to have a home.” and that was the response—isolation and disconnection—was deeply disturbing to my colleague and I. 

What we decided was to really shift our focus, to look at the passions and the projects our students wanted to focus on and match them with the community members who also share that passion. For me, really thinking [about learning] as an ecosystem is looking at how we build relationships. Ecosystems are about living relationships and looking at how you see the potential in relationships that exist or the ones that aren’t equally accessible in an ecosystem. 

To speak to the role of the community, we invited our city council member to see the photos because she needed to understand her own constituents. And, she was so moved. She said, “Let’s have an exhibit of their work in my office.” And, we partnered to create an exhibit and then she said, “You know what, let’s make a book.”

So, we made a book of their photos, and then our Congressman got invited to the exhibit in Tucson and he said, “These are pretty powerful images that speak to what’s happening in our society, but Tucson isn’t the place. This needs to be seen. It needs to go to D.C.” Then, we partnered with Senator McCain’s Office and worked with other organizations that brought it to the United States Senate. Then, our students went out and testified in the U.S. House of Representatives about re-imagining refugee and immigration policy. 

That [all] started with a relatively simple question about what it means to have a home and what is the ecosystem that exists in that home that is either invisible or inaccessible. And then, how do you reveal and connect those in ways that are equitable to all teachers and students in that community? That’s what it enabled for our students and for me, as a learner, to learn. We also partnered with different policy professionals in D.C. because we didn’t know how to present a policy recommendation to Congress.

That was on a whole new level—the role the community [can play]. We needed to have the humility to know we didn’t have to know everything and that the community can be there to support us.

[00:21:20] Kelly Young: I remember my first day at DC Public Schools as a Chief for Family and Public Engagement. And, I wrote up on my board that the biggest crisis facing public education was fear, isolation, and disconnection.

What all three of you are talking about is that deep connection to culture, history, belonging, community, and family, which is often not what people imagine when we say learner-centered. But, it’s exactly at the heart of all of this. 

Given these rich experiences and that they were deeply embedded in the community, how can folks who aren’t in schools right now act on these lessons right now?

[00:23:01] Timothy Jones: For educators right now, it’s imperative that they take the time to understand the community that they’re students are in, which can be challenging because, depending on where their school is situated, you may have students who are representing various communities. 

As you think about schools starting now, the students have been out of school for five to six months. How has that community been surviving? Who are the gatekeepers? Where are the resources? And, as a teacher, you have to tap in to them. It cannot be this notion of students coming to you, whether in person or virtually, as them leaving the community that has really become their lifeline during this pandemic. You have to come in, as an educator, with that level of humility and that level of sincerity to really find a way to connect to the community.

[00:24:46] Joe Hobot: First and foremost, there needs to be a wholehearted culture shift within public education circles. It’s typical role has been to assert that dominion of the dominant culture over communities of color. And, we see that translating into reform efforts. 

They’re the ones, the providers, the administrators of public education, and always first into the breach to say, “We will lead these reform efforts.” Our number one response is, “No. You’re the ones who drove the bus into the ditch to begin with, and we don’t have any faith that you’re going to get us out of it.”

And second, “you haven’t examined your motives for why public education is functioning the way it is.” In that sense, public education needs to really understand that it needs to take a step back and play a support role, and allow the communities themselves to lead. In this framework, we talk about community governed approaches to education. 

Communities and communities of color—the BIPOC communities—have the answers. They have the solutions. They know exactly how they want their youth to be educated and lifted up to be critical thinking citizens. 

When I talked to the folks in my research and my work, the most disenfranchised people in this country are parents within communities of color that are being serviced by public education. Oftentimes, they don’t feel listened to. They don’t believe that their belief systems, practices, cultures, and traditions are reflected within public education. And oftentimes, they’re related to in a very patronizing way. 

This practice must stop. In public education, the first step is acknowledging the problem and then stepping back and seeing that they’re not the ones who are going to solve it.

On top of that, I think we need to be very deliberate and intentional about reform efforts going forward. Specifically, we need to embrace community governance decisions and listen to these communities and the constituencies and their solutions, and then optimize and operationalize them. And, we need to decouple administrators from the practitioners. 

Real innovation is driven by teachers within the classroom. They have no choice. They have to be continually reflecting the needs of the wide array of learners within their classroom.

Oftentimes, we see change and legitimate positive reform inhibited by the proprietors and the administrative side of public education. And, it’s not necessarily malevolent, it is structural racism. In other cases, it’s just a failure of imagination. They are products of the very same system that they’re now propagating, and they can’t quite understand or wrap their minds around why it doesn’t work for large swaths of the American populace.

I think those are the three main areas. Public education is not the area for driving reform. It needs to come from the communities and the community-based solutions and untethering teachers from the inhibitive practices of administrators.

[00:27:50] Josh Schachter: As someone who teaches storytelling, I think we have to learn to listen to ourselves.

This year we are talking to the educators we work with in Tucson and asking them, “How can we help you?” What do you need for support? The number one thing, not surprisingly, was well-being. It wasn’t about unity; it was about social-emotional support for the educator.

It is really about listening to our community, listening to our youth, listening to our educators and adapting and designing approaches to address what we’re facing based on what we’re hearing versus what folks think is best for the system. Or, building a magic bullet solution—[like thinking tech will solve it when it is] part of a solution, but it is not the solution. 

Listening is key. With the educators I’m working with now, we really encourage them to listen to their students and find out their passions and what they want to focus on, and then build out from there.

We’re basically designing a whole component around the well-being of our community. We are partnering with 10 different healers and healing practitioners who are not only excited, but they want to connect. They are also feeling isolated. We have yoga teachers, meditation teachers, massage teachers, and Pilates teachers that want to engage and support educators and youth.

It starts with listening and then building around that and creating how to design projects that will enable young people to have choice and voice in that process. It isn’t the educators saying, “This year, we’re going to focus on this,” but instead, “How do I honor the unique lived-experience of each young person and story, and then build around that?” Online, especially, it’s even harder to engage some young people, but if your engagement is relevant to their own lived-experience, the likelihood that they’re going to keep showing up virtually or in-person is much higher. 

The last piece is remembering that parents can be incredible assets in our community. While working with schools I asked, “Do you know what your parents do? What can they bring to the schools?” There is often no inventory of what the skills and lived-experiences of parents can bring into schools. They’re often just seen as the person that you have to deal with when your child is misbehaving. 

To me, they’re an incredible asset to support learning, education, and a learning ecosystem. They need to be included as part of the learning experience. The question is, how do we create structures that make it easier to do it? I have invited places and pathways for parents to engage. It’s really key.

[00:31:44] Kelly Young: That question was narrowly focused on what could people step into right now. And, what we know is that this is a much bigger conversation that we have no track record of delivering on as a country. If we were really to imagine the future as one of a community-based learning ecosystem—where the supports were enabling the connectivity of all the community assets and helping young people develop community, create, and contribute to community—what do we have to do? What are some of the things that would have to shift in order to make that future a reality? 

[00:32:44] Joe Hobot: From my experience in research, some of the most powerful examples of what can be done in terms of initiating a positive, community governed approach to education that lifts up youth within their cultural identities, as well as in the academic rigor of immediacy, is understanding that local control is a myth within public education. And, we shouldn’t fear that. 

What we found with these community-governed approaches, without worry of getting approval and without fear of sanction, these communities just dreamed up and enacted these learning modalities and created them in schools. And, in some of the more progressive areas, school districts then began to partner with these organizations either as contractors throughout their programs, or they became the authorizers as these schools became charter schools.

I think what they did is they understood and recognized that the community was expressing itself in a way that was positive. And, instead of trying to ramrod these community-based predilections and desires into a model that echoes public education, they gave freedom to the community. They got out of the way and took a more supportive role—providing technical assistance and the necessary resources to lift up and empower these community-governed approaches of education to work. That’s what is going to need to be occurring [to realize this community-based learning ecosystem].

As a former classroom instructor, I learned the power of differentiating lesson plans is absolutely critical to reach the wide array of learners within the classroom. It is only logical to extrapolate that model into the delivery models of our schools.

We need to really expand what public education can look like and empower these communities to create these community-governed approaches that can work in concert—in a symbiotic relationship—with the mainstream school system. But, that’s going to take a huge ego check for public education to allow these spaces to develop, allow these communities to create, and to execute in a way that they choose to do so.

We’ve seen it occurring in Minneapolis and Portland—the two top examples in my research—that took the mantle of advancing the work in this way as the public education systems supported these community enterprises. But, more work needs to be done.

[00:35:22] Timothy Jones: I think in some communities we really have to reimagine a new definition for education. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, as well as in a lot of urban settings, we’ve always seen education as the ticket out.

I spent 22 years working in D.C. for an organization called Martha’s Table and we primarily got started by being a resource for food. I’ll never forget when my president told me: “A child will not learn if they’re hungry.” 

It’s a balance of those immediate needs. When we’re talking about reimagining education and communities, what are the hierarchy of needs in a particular community, and what role should school play in addressing that?

If it’s in a community where hunger is not an issue and violence is not an issue, then that imaginative process will look different than if it’s in a community where that is present, where unemployment is high, where COVID has been ramping things up, and where health disparities are on the rise. 

When you don’t have all of these basic needs, what school has been defined as, traditionally, becomes unimportant. Because, it’s about survival. [As a result], you see the deterioration of the American Dream for so many. They’re in the hood and don’t see school as the way out because there’s unemployed college graduates who are trying to work at Subway and Foot Locker. The American Dream becomes a myth. And, when I’m dealing with a scarcity of resources, just the presence of school may bring up more trauma than the hope of triumph.

That reimagining really has to be about coming together and thinking about what I have to do to be a part of it and where I can find similarity. Sadly, If we look at our own relationships, the relationships that have probably lasted the longest in our lives have been the ones that have endured and connected through pain.

Now, with schools, where’s the stories? Where can we really see the intent is really about our liberation? I think that there’s so much work to do before we get to the ABC ‘s and the 123’s, and I don’t know if school was ever designed to do that type of work. 

The last thing I’ll say is that there has to be a reimagination and an intentionality to partner with these community-based organizations that have been in the community and on the frontlines during this pandemic. You have to stop looking at them as places that only take care of our kids after school—all of those lines are gone now. You really have to step off your pedestal, humble yourself, and hope that you get the opportunity to get right what you historically have never gotten right for them—it’s only been right for you.

[00:39:05] Kelly Young: I think that it’s so easy for us to think of how we bring these great practices into school, rather than how do we diminish the footprint of school and really begin to see the community as the playground for learning, where education is being provided by people in the community, as well as by public education.

Public education is part of a network—a living, breathing network. And, we’re not trying to replicate what you all have described that happens outside the school, inside the school. That’s not the goal. The goal is actually to enable that to be the work of education—to have that be what matters.

Josh, before I open it up to questions for the group, you have studied natural ecosystems. What’s unique about trying to create an ecosystem rather than improve schools?

[00:40:29] Josh Schachter: Clearly, as we’ve seen with COVID, it’s been quite challenging to adapt so quickly to what’s going on around us. And, [we must begin asking] what would it look like if we created a learning ecosystem that was able to adapt to changing conditions, regardless of whether it’s in this thing called school or out of school? Then, how do we support resilient communities? Because, I think resilience is a key component of a healthy ecosystem. And, I think we’re seeing, all over, challenges abound when those networks of support and resources are no longer accessible. People fall through the cracks.

So, how are we going to create systems that democratize connectedness to all kinds of different resources in your community. And, how do we reimagine how we invest resources—financial resources and philanthropic dollars—into the future; whether it’s called school or learning or something different [entirely]. It’s really about investing in an ecosystemic approach versus investing in the dots, which I’ve seen in my experience. How do we invest in the interstitial tissue of the lines between the dots that foster a collective commitment to something greater than each of the dots.

Each nonprofit has to sustain itself. Each school has to sustain itself. We’re all in this race to keep our doors open and that doesn’t really foster an ecosystemic mindset. I think all the structures and incentive systems need to support a commitment to the public good if we’re going to move beyond the current siloed, fragmented nature of the education system. And, that isn’t going to happen on its own. It has to be consciously reflected on and then involve a study of how nature works. 

That’s really what taught me to be a photographer. It was following Lemurs around for three weeks in Madagascar and learning to see patterns and disruption, and what happens when a system is disrupted. I think we can learn a lot from nature as we reimagine our learning and education system. 

[00:43:30] Kelly Young: What all of you are pointing to is that we don’t have healthy communities or healthy ecosystems that go well beyond education. This work is about putting human relationship at the center of it, revitalizing communities that have been oppressed and suppressed for generations, and about how we restore their ability to govern, contribute, and create meaning of learning. And, not have it imposed on them. 

[00:44:29] Joe Hobot: I’d like to build off what Timothy said about the importance of recognizing community-based organizations as an integral partner in this journey. As we talk about the holistic approach to whole child development and building communities that are able to thrive, it’s important to note that community-based organizations have been at the forefront of these activities, including in our own efforts. 

We are led and staffed by the community that we’re embedded in. And, there’s a relationship piece that’s already been demonstrated in and supported by the community-based organizations’ work. This is where we get into a new modicum of partnership, where public schools in some of the more progressive areas like Minneapolis or Portland have understood that this is not their place—that they need to partner and lift up the CBO’s to allow them to do the work. Because, they’re more effective at it and it’s humbling for the public education system to have to do that. 

It comes back to that question: Where does public education lead? Well, they lead by stepping back and following, and providing technical assistance for the CBO’s, which are really out there. That’s the good news: they’re deployed within the field and they’re out there doing good work and have been for decades. What an asset. Let’s start leveraging and utilizing these assets.

The other good news is they’re already doing this work without fear of sanction or waiting for approval. It’s really putting a spotlight and connecting these partnerships and public education, and realizing that these solutions are already embedded within the community as reflected in CBO’s.

Audience Q&A

Q. What is the role of public libraries in an ecosystem?

Timothy Jones: It depends on the actual assets and resources that are in the library. A library really has to be that cross-generational hub, whether virtually or in-person, where you have people in the community who are present. You have elders, young people, and teenagers that are there. It goes far beyond the books. The library is where you should be able to have community exhibitions and other community gatherings.

The library, in many ways, could be the nondenominational function that the church once was in the past, where people came together and where you got all of your information. 

Looking at hip-hop as the exemplar for building community and fostering knowledge could be powerful. As an example, there’s a high school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, High School for Recording Arts, which actually got started from a recording studio. 

There are other models in different cities that have started off as one idea before becoming a school. Oftentimes, it’s the community bringing the young people together and thinking, “let’s categorize or quantify our learning, and take it to that next level.”

Q. How would you suggest changing the perceptions of the YMCA’s role in the community?

Timothy Jones : I would suggest, as you partner with schools, request if YMCA staff can participate and present at staff professional development (PD) meetings, and explore if there are opportunities for information sharing around what students are interested in and how they best learn.

It’s about positioning yourself to be seen by schools as more than just the place to keep students safe and give them a meal before school starts. When you have the opportunity to present at a PD, you allow the teachers to begin to see how learning is fostered in the workshops and other things that you do, and then be able to bring it together.

In this time of distance learning, actually try to create opportunities where your staff can co-teach, and allow the school to begin to see your level of professionalism and the teaching skills that exist in YMCAs.

Joe Hobot: One of the things that I would advocate for, and that we’ve learned through our experience in Indigenous communities, is that you really are positioned well as a CBO embedded within your base communities to really harness that relationship piece and serve as an advocate for your community. 

Oftentimes in our work, we have public schools come to us and say, “here’s what we believe will work for Indian people in Minneapolis. And, we’re going to institute these reforms.” And, our response was, “How do you know?”

Most of our folks feel disenfranchised and ignored. Yet, our families receive the multitude of services through our organization. We see them every day, and decided to own being a conduit to the authentic voice of our community. We said, “Here’s what they’re telling us. Here’s what they’re saying.” Then, we amplify their voices in the circles that you travel as a CBO, particularly if you’re working with public education. In my experience, public education is pretty well divorced from BIPOC communities and any effort to try and understand what their desires are, and what they’d like to see happening.

The CBO’s have a role to be an advocate and amplify those voices. It’s a true asset that I think is underutilized. Speaking specifically to the YMCAs, do those activities that you excel at and then harness that information. If you’re doing community events through your CBO, develop a way to do a town hall or take a sample survey to understand how your services are performing. 

Ask: What do you need? What are your families in need of? Then, it becomes a conduit relaying that information to those systems that need the reform.

Q. How do you show parents that they’re assets in their community?

Josh Schachter: When we ask people to create a profile of what they want to offer to their community, they immediately think of what’s on their business card. 

It points to one of the biggest challenges to really moving forward, which is the story we tell ourselves about what our role is in the current system and what our role could be in a new system. And, until we create the space to really critically self-reflect and then reflect as a larger community, it’s going to be very challenging to move forward. 

When I ask someone to engage with the school and the community, as a parent, they say they want to engage with their kids’ school. Then, when I ask them to engage through the roles that they play in their professional life, they are willing to engage in another school.

How we choose or select our own identity influences what we’re willing to engage with and how we engage. We really need to be cognizant of how we’re asking people to engage and through which lenses they are seeing the world, both in the current system and what the system could look like in the future.

I think that’s particularly relevant with parents because they grew up in the same system. There’s no reason why they should suddenly be able to reimagine the system today. We have to do it as a collective effort and a collective narrative. I recognize that’s not a concrete idea, but I think we make assumptions that people are going to imagine something different from what they experienced.

It’s why I work with artists so much. They get us out of our boxes and open us up to permeate the disciplines and other ways of creative thinking that our experience in the education system can sometimes limit us from accessing.

Q. What would you tell people who are doing the work of leveraging community assets from a learner-centered perspective?

Timothy Jones: Don’t worry about the pace of the change at the onset. You never get to fully understand the impact when you first start out. As much as you can, document and allow recipients of services to tell their story. There’s so much going on that it can almost paralyze you and make you feel powerless. But, you’ll see more possibilities if you change that perspective to, “There’s so much going on, that, if I just try my best, I’m going to find a way to make an impact.”

Josh Schachter: In our culture and society, we talk about innovation a lot. Everyone wants to be an innovator and, as someone that was an educator, that’s now running a tech-focused nonprofit, I’ve come to realize that most innovation involves failure, humility, and iteration.

We have to embrace it. If we’re not willing to be learners in this process, listen to what we’ve learned, and adapt, then we’re not going to be able to get out of the current situation. We’re not going to get it right the first or second time, but maybe that’s the point. Isn’t that the point of learning? 

It’s the journey of learning that creates the desire to learn. I think we need to have the humility to remember that is going to be central to whatever we’re going to create, and resist the pressure of funders and others who want us to present the outcomes and the outputs before we even start the process. That type of thinking probably isn’t going to get us where we need to go because we may not know exactly where we’re headed. 

I think there are bright spots that we can learn from, and we need to highlight those bright spots and share the lessons learned across our networks.

Joe Hobot: I’m drawing from my experience as an Indigenous man within an Indigenous community, who’s had its youth be forced under subjugated protocols of a dominant culture until we reached an existential crisis with our language, our customs, and the corrosive effect education is having.

My advice, and what I’ve learned, is to be bold. The best examples of educational practices that have been working; they just dreamed it up and did it. After about two decades of protracted investigation and research into public education reform, and the academic achievements of the various communities of color within this country, we’ve come to understand that we’re in this “emperor has no clothes” moment.

It’s time to shed that fear that you’re going to need to have official approval of the systems in place and just do it. Dream it up and do it. Take care of your youth, educate them, and particularly in a culturally contextualized way that lifts them up and hardens them as valued individuals. Once we’ve embraced that agency for our communities, you’ll be able to see the achievement that we want for our youth, you’ll be able to see the development of our youth. CBO’s are leading the way, but basic community gatherings are also doing this work. Eventually, in more progressive areas, if it’s working (which it will) public education will eventually come around. 

Kelly Young

Kelly Young is the President of Education Reimagined. Previously, she served as the Interim Chief of the Office of Family and Public Engagement for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). From 1998-2007, Kelly served as the Executive Director of a national political organization. She is the mother of two young children and received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia.

Timothy Jones

Chief visionary officer.

Timothy is the Chief Visionary Officer of #HipHopEd and the curator and moderator for the weekly “Cyber Cypher” twitter chat presenting timely discussions on education, hip-hop and youth development that serve as professional development for educators, parents, practitioners, and youth. Timothy is a Hip-Hop Ambassador and curriculum resource contributor for #ScienceGenius, a hip-hop and science education initiative.

President and CEO

Dr. Joe Hobot is President and CEO of American Indian OIC. He is a descendant of the Hunkpapa Band of the Lakota Nation from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation – where his grandfather and mother are both enrolled members. He was born and raised in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Minnesota, a Master’s Degree from the University of St. Thomas, and a Doctorate of Education from Hamline University.

Director and Founder

Josh Schachter is the Director and Founder of CommunityShare. He is an educator, visual storyteller and social ecologist. His passion for real-world learning started in high school when he had the opportunity to undertake turtle research in South Carolina and Alabama with herpetologist, Jeff Lovich. This field experience led Josh to pursue a career in ecosystem management. He earned a master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he explored the role of youth-produced media in supporting personal and community transformation.

Keep Reading

Post    october 19, 2017, how educators might partner (and pitch) community businesses, post    january 22, 2019, this is what happens when a community feels accountable for the education of its young people.

New resources and news on The Big Idea!

We recently announced a new R&D acceleration initiative to connect and support local communities ready to bring public, equitable, learner-centered ecosystems to life.

How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

• An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

• Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
• Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
• Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

• How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
• How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
• How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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A Reflective Essay on Creating a Community-of-Learning in a Large Lecture-Theatre Based University Course

• Published: 23 June 2020
• Volume 55 , pages 363–377, ( 2020 )

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• Huibert P. de Vries 1 &
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“Community” It’s everywhere! In thousands of geographical locations throughout the land people gather in small, medium, and large groups (or dispersed associations) for some common purpose. (Lenning and Ebbers 1999 , p. 17)

The benefits of creating learning communities have been clearly established in educational literature. However, the research on ‘community-of-learning’ has largely focused on intermediate and high-school contexts and on the benefits of co-facilitation in the classroom. In this paper, we contribute to educational research by describing an approach for a large (1000 + students/year), lecture-theatre based, university management course. This approach largely excludes co-facilitation, but offers a unified and integrated approach by staff to all other aspects of running the course. By applying an ethnographic methodology, our contribution to the ‘community-of-learning’ literature is a set of strategies that enable a sense of belonging and collective ownership amongst all participants in the course. We describe the experienced benefits, as well as challenges, of such teaching, as we outline the methods we use to enhance students’ perception of belonging to a community-of-learning. We conclude by making recommendations as to the requirements of adopting a community-of-learning teaching approach to tertiary education.

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de Vries, H.P., Malinen, S. A Reflective Essay on Creating a Community-of-Learning in a Large Lecture-Theatre Based University Course. NZ J Educ Stud 55 , 363–377 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-020-00165-1

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How to Write the Supplemental College Essay on Your Community

Posted on: October 20, 2021

This blog is part of our series on how to write the college application supplemental essays. Check out our blogs on some of the other commonly asked questions, including those about “why us?,” diversity , creativity , and your activities .

What’s the Point of the Community Essay?

Many colleges will ask you to write about a community you belong to and to describe your place within it. This essay can give colleges insight into how you might engage with, enhance, and maybe even build communities on their campus.

Any Group Can Be a Community

The community essay prompt stumps a lot of students because when they hear the word, “community,” they only think of location-based communities such as their school or their hometown. Or sometimes, they only think of communities defined by identities such as religion or ethnicity. 

Of course, a community can be any group that comes together. We all belong to several communities, and these communities often overlap.

A lot of communities are defined by a shared interest like playing chess, swimming, or dancing. 

Your community could be fellow members of a club or the people you interact with at a job. I once worked with a student who wrote about working for a dog grooming business. In her case, the members of her community weren’t just her coworkers and human customers but also included the animals she came to know.

Some of the most meaningful communities form out of a desire to create change. One student I worked with wrote passionately about being part of an organization that speaks to teens about sexual health and gender equality.

Nowadays, many communities are virtual. I know a student who wrote about an advice and support chat group for students stressed about applying to college.

The pandemic has made some communities even more important for some students. I once worked with a student who wrote about taking his leadership responsibilities to his baseball community even more seriously because practices were some of the only in-person social interactions he and his teammates enjoyed for months. 

Why These Essays Worked

What made these essays work were the following:

1) The students wrote about communities that were meaningful to them, and this came through strongly in their essays.

2) They were active participants in their communities and mentioned specific things they did to support their communities.

3) They talked about the insight they gained from being a part of these communities. 

  Writing Your Community Essay

If you’re not sure which community to write about, before you begin the essay, take some time to list some of your communities. Then look at your list and try answering a few questions to help you make a choice.  

Ask yourself questions such as:

1) Why is this community important to me?

2) What is my role in this community? How do I support this community?

3) How has this community influenced me? 

4) What have I learned by being a part of this community?

Keep in mind the word limit. If it’s under 200 words, you might not have space to make every point, so you’ll have to be judicious when selecting which parts of your notes make it into the final draft. 

Remember, This Essay is About You!

As with all your supplemental essays, you should use the community essay as an opportunity to talk about something that isn’t reflected elsewhere in your application. Is there a value you want to convey? Are you a leader but never held an official leadership title like the club president or team captain? Maybe write about being a part of a community where you have had a leadership role. Does your application mostly reflect your serious side? Maybe write about being a part of the Waffle Club. Just remember, ultimately, this essay is an essay about you , not just the community you select. 

The community you decide to write about gives colleges some insight into you, but the reasons why you picked a community are even more insightful.

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How to Write the “Community” Essay

A step-by-step guide to this popular supplemental prompt.

When college admissions officers admit a new group of freshmen, they aren’t just filling up classrooms — they’re also crafting (you guessed it) a campus community. College students don’t just sit quietly in class, retreat to their rooms to crank out homework, go to sleep, rinse, and repeat. They socialize! They join clubs! They organize student protests! They hold cultural events! They become RAs and audition for a cappella groups and get on-campus jobs! Colleges want to cultivate a thriving, vibrant, uplifting campus community that enriches students’ learning — and for that reason, they’re understandably curious about what kind of community member they’ll be getting when they invite you to campus as part of their incoming class.

Enter the “community” essay — an increasingly popular supplemental essay prompt that asks students to talk about a community to which they belong and how they have contributed to or benefited from that community. Community essays often sound something like this:

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (250 words)

Pomona College: Reflecting on a community that you are part of, what values or perspectives from that community would you bring to Pomona?  (250 words)

University of Rochester: Spiders are essential to the ecosystem. How are you essential to your community or will you be essential in your university community? (350-650 words)

Swarthmore: Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community? (250 words)

Yale: Reflect on a time when you have worked to enhance a community to which you feel connected. Why have these efforts been meaningful to you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

Step 1: Pick a community to write about

Breathe. You belong to LOTS of communities. And if none immediately come to mind, it’s only because you need to bust open your idea of what constitutes a “community”!

Among other things, communities can be joined by…

• West Coasters
• NYC’s Koreatown
• Everyone in my cabin at summer camp
• ACLU volunteers
• Cast of a school musical
• Puzzle-lovers
• Powerlifters
• Army brats who live together on a military base
• Iranian-American
• Queer-identifying
• Children of pastors

Take 15 minutes to write down a list of ALL the communities you belong to that you can think of. While you’re writing, don’t worry about judging which ones will be useful for an essay. Just write down every community that comes to mind — even if some of them feel like a stretch.

When you’re done, survey your list of communities. Do one, two, or three communities jump out as options that could enable you to write about yourself and your community engagement? Carry your top choices of community into Step 2.

Step 2: Generate content.

For each of your top communities, answer any of the following questions that apply:

• Is there a memorable story I can tell about my engagement with this community?
• What concrete impacts have I had on this community?
• What problems have I solved (or attempted to solve) in this community?
• What have I learned from this community?
• How has this community supported me or enriched my life up to this point?
• How have I applied the lessons or values I gleaned from this community more broadly?

Different questions will be relevant for different community prompts. For example, if you’re working on answering Yale’s prompt, you’ll want to focus on a community on which you’ve had a concrete impact. But if you’re trying to crack Swarthmore’s community essay, you can prioritize communities that have impacted YOU. Keep in mind though — even for a prompt like Yale’s, which focuses on tangible impact, it’s important that your community essay doesn’t read like a rattled-off list of achievements in your community. Your goal here is to show that you are a generous, thoughtful, grateful, and active community member who uplifts the people around you — not to detail a list of the competitions that Math club has won under your leadership.

BONUS: Connect your past community life to your future on-campus community life.

Some community essay prompts ask you — or give you the option — to talk about how you plan on engaging with community on a particular college campus. If you’re tackling one of those prompts (like Pomona’s), then you guessed it: it’s research time!

Often, for these kinds of community prompts, it will serve you to first write about a community that you’ve engaged with in the past and then write about how you plan to continue engaging with that same kind of community at college. For example, if you wrote about throwing a Lunar New Year party with international students at your high school, you might write about how excited you are to join the International Students Alliance at your new college or contribute to the cross-cultural student magazine. Or, if you wrote about playing in your high school band, you might write about how you can’t wait to audition for your new college’s chamber orchestra or accompany the improv team for their improvised musicals. The point is to give your admissions officer an idea of what on-campus communities you might be interested in joining if you were to attend their particular school.

Check out our full College Essay Hub for tons of resources and guidance on writing your college essays. Need more personalized guidance on brainstorming or crafting your supplemental essays? Contact our college admissions team.

Caroline Hertz

Community Resources in Early Childhood Education and Communal Living Presentation

Introduction to community resources(cr).

• A sense of community boosts health.
• Community Resources (CR) improves living standards.
• Governments influence the availability of CR.
• CR enhance education.
• Cost is a barrier to the accessibility of CR.

Quality childcare and early education services play a significant role in determining the young children’s healthy development in Canada. Governments direct policies and programs that support early childhood education. In the 2016 Census, Canada experienced a 4.9% increase in population from 2011, making its total population 35.1 million (Fernald, 2017). Of the population, 15% of Canadian children reside in single-parent homes. Issues such as increased poverty levels, single parenthood, social exclusion, unequal opportunities for all residents, divorce, lower parental education, unexpected life changes such as death and lack of recreation directly affect a child’s learning curve (Fernald, 2017). Despite these challenges, initiatives have been put in place to help manage the barriers to development through community resources.

It is estimated that 40 percent of children in Canada reside in single-parent, binuclear and blended families. Divorce programs have similar goals: helping the children understand the reason for the divorce and the role they played, as well as assisting children in acquiring better coping mechanisms for dealing with the situation. Divorce causes separation anxiety in both the parent and the child (Cumming, 2017). Anxiety causes mental health problems if not correctly managed or causes learning difficulties in the child (Britto et al., 2017). Community divorce resources take three forms: educational therapy groups assisting children in coping with divorce, parental groups helping them with post-divorce adaptation, and individual therapy.

Community Family Services of Ontario

• Community Family Services
• multi service agency providing support for youths, families, seniors and immigrants;
• assist those suffering to reclaim their lives, gain a sense of self-worth, direction and purpose.

Newcomer support

According to Canada’s Immigration, the word newcomer describes people who have arrived in Canada within the last five years. Families migrate to Canada due to various reasons. It is essential to offer supportive services to these families as they face many challenges because of their immigration status. Most immigrants earn low incomes limiting their access to resources (Horner, 2019). It is important to gauge immigrants’ mental health directly affecting their children’s development.

ACSA Newcomers’ Centre

• Newcomers’ Centre
• settlement and orientation for newcomers;
• temporary accommodation and average stay of four months for non-residents particularly immigrants;
• emergency lodging, food, clothing, personal services and family reunification for refugees and immigrants;
• settlement support and orientation to community.
• Addresses immigrant and refugee issues, peer outreach and support.

The centre conveys many settlement projects and administrations for new migrants, moving people, and LGBTQ+ through information lectures, trust building, work uphold and making significant associations with assistance to adapt to Canada. ACSA offered numerous projects and administrations financed by corporate establishments and individual contributors which empowered us to serve more than 10,000 novices in their settlement and incorporation venture throughout some undefined time frame. It intends to secure the legitimate requirements of outsiders, exiles and racialized bunches in Scarborough.

The number of deaths is increasing each year according to the country’s statistics (Canada Statistics, n.d.)The quietness and forswearing that encompass demise and kicking the bucket in contemporary culture are drastically affecting people and families in Canadian culture. As this examination paper will report, segment changes put expanding focus on families as they battle to really focus on maturing and sick relatives. If not correctly managed, grief can be a cause for depression and mood disorders. Forms of help offered are grief counseling, peer support groups and family therapies (Browne et al., 2018). Effective management of the grieving process helps children be emotionally mature and develop effective coping mechanisms to help them deal with life’s frustrations (Gerlach, 2018).

Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities

• support to people dealing with grief after the death of loved ones through peer support bereavement groups;
• programs and services to meet the physical, emotional, spiritual, informational and practical support needs to individuals living with life-limiting illness, their families and caregivers;
• bereavement support as well as counselling for anyone who has experienced the death or serious disease of someone close.

Domestic violence

Community resources in Toronto for domestic violence include websites, social support groups and books. Some of the centers offering help for domestic violence include the Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities, Trauma Treatment Program, Victim Services Toronto, Aisling Discoveries Child and Family Centre and the Canadian Centre for Men and Families. Children who have survived domestic violence or experienced an event that may result in loss should undergo trauma assessment (Drowos et al., 2017). Chart 1.1 shows child and youth victims of domestic violence in Canada from 2009-2017.

Polycultural Immigrant & Community Services

• gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and gender inequality;
• Any kind of physical assault in families.
• temporary safe havens for men and women experiencing abuse or who have recently left abusive relationship;
• free and confidential counselling services to women dealing with abuse;
• psycho-educational counselling program covering a wide range of services;
• medical attention and emotional support to teenage and adult victims of sexual assault.

Polycultural gives a few projects tending to brutality and dependence. The projects expects to help our local area families to come over their viciousness or potentially compulsion issues.

Lack of community family recreation

Recreation or leisure is crucial for a child’s development. Toronto has active measures to increase recreation, such as the 2013-2017 Recreation Service Plan. The plan aims to reduce financial barriers to recreation and improve access to recreation for its residents. Recreation plans help promote social inclusion. The plan seeks to improve access to underprivileged residents, such as the disabled. As observed from figure 2 showing district populations in Canada with recreational programs, recreational facilities are present in all the districts (Shawar & Shiffman, 2017) . The survey conducted among families showed a lack of socially pertinent projects, including ethno-explicit programming, especially to draw in and hold novices. Respondents needed to see the utilization of a reformist learning model, more significant levels of guidance, and serious games programming (Design Services and Strategic Communications, n.d.). Numerous remarks were made about the longing for family and intergenerational programs where different age gatherings can partake together.

• Scarborough Village Recreation Centre
• positive and fun experiences to help strengthen their confidence and competence, build character and make positive connections with peers, adults and communities;
• a drop-in center, peer-support, outreach program and supportive housing;
• physical activities such as sports, games, and art to engage families in knowing each other better.

Other CRs that can help people who lack community family recreation:

• Shadow Lake Centre ; offers the disabled camping recreational facilities.
• Mivolunteer ; provides services such as tutoring, daycare and workshops to the greater Toronto area to bring people together and foster cohesiveness within the community.
• Momentum ; community economic development organizations that offers hope and opportunity to people living in poverty.

Britto, P. R., Lye, S. J., Proulx, K., Yousafzai, A. K., Matthews, S. G., Vaivada, T., Perez-Escamilla, R., Rao, N., Ip, P., & Fernald, L. C. (2017). Nurturing care: Promoting early childhood development. The Lancet , 389 (10064), 91–102.

Browne, D. T., Wade, M., Prime, H., & Jenkins, J. M. (2018). School readiness amongst urban Canadian families: Risk profiles and family mediation. Journal of Educational Psychology , 110 (1), 133.

Design Services and Strategic Communications. (0AD). Recreation Service Plan 2013 – 2017 . Web.

Drowos, J., Baker, S., Harrison, S. L., Minor, S., Chessman, A. W., & Baker, D. (2017). Faculty development for medical school community-based faculty: A Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance study exploring institutional requirements and challenges. Academic Medicine , 92 (8), 1175–1180.

Gerlach, A. (2018). Thinking and researching relationally: Enacting decolonizing methodologies with an indigenous early childhood program in Canada. International Journal of Qualitative Methods , 17 (1). Web.

Horner, M. ( 2019). The state of early child development in Canada | Early development instrument . Web.

Shawar, Y. R., & Shiffman, J. (2017). Generation of global political priority for early childhood development: The challenges of framing and governance. The Lancet , 389 (10064), 119–124.

Statistics Canada. Deaths, by month. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

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• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

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Recommendations for Providing Community Colleges with the Resources They Need

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In the United States, where social mobility has been considered a birthright, community colleges are essential to that promise. Located in hundreds of communities throughout the country, near where people live and work, two-year colleges are meant to be America’s quintessential institutions for the aspiring middle class. While elite four-year colleges boast of the proportion of students they reject, community colleges take pride, as one leader suggested, in taking the “top 100 percent of students.”

But America’s 1,000 community colleges, which educate 9 million students, are routinely under-resourced and often fall short of their promise. Only 38 percent of students entering community college complete a degree or certificate within six years. While 81 percent of students entering community college say they aspire to eventually transfer and receive a four-year degree, only 15 percent do so after six years.

Part of the responsibility lies with K–12 institutions, which do not adequately prepare students for college, and part of the fault lies with the two-year sector, which often fails to provide enough structure and guidance to undergraduates. And part of the fault must be laid at the feet of four-year colleges and universities, which make transferring from community colleges difficult to understand and challenging to achieve. But the lion’s share of the blame lies with policymakers who systematically shortchange community colleges financially, giving two-year institutions the fewest resources to educate those students who tend to have the greatest needs.

New data in this report show that, while just one in five students at the most competitive and highly competitive four-year colleges came from the bottom half of the socioeconomic distribution in 2013, the majority of community college students did. Researchers have long recognized that disadvantaged students need more resources to succeed than those who have enjoyed many advantages, and yet state budgets have starved community colleges of the funds they need to succeed.

In fiscal year 2013, private four-year research institutions spent five times as much per full time equivalent student annually ($72,000) as did community colleges ($14,000). Some of that difference is explained by the differing research functions of institutions, but when one excludes research expenses and focuses on education and related expenses, private research universities still spend three times as much as community colleges. Public research universities spend 60 percent more than community colleges.

Inadequate funding of community colleges is deeply troubling given that careful research has found “significant causal impacts” of spending on degree completion. Scholars looking at community colleges between 1990 and 2013 found that a 10 percent spending increase boosted awards and certificates by 15 percent. When students complete an associate’s degree, they will see their lifetime earnings increase on average by more than $300,000.

What can be done? In this report, we recommend that states immediately begin to increase community college funding in order to boost opportunities for students. We also call for the creation of a new federal–state partnership for community colleges in which states must agree to do their part in order to qualify for new federal investments in two-year institutions.

Our mid-term recommendation is that federal and state policymakers—and foundation officials—support a new body of research that will establish, for the first time, what it costs to provide a strong community college education. Such studies are commonplace in public K–12 education, where for forty years, researchers have sought to establish what level of funding is required to achieve adequate outcomes and how much additional funding should be targeted to achieve good results for disadvantaged students in particular. These studies also seek to provide guidance on where money should be invested to achieve the greatest bang for the buck.

Part of the reason researchers have not conducted comparable studies at the community college level is that there are special challenges to doing so not found at the K–12 level. For example, the first step in estimating costs is to identify with some precision the desired outcome. In K–12 schooling, researchers often calculate the cost of achieving a certain level of proficiency on standardized tests or higher education completion. But in higher education, such tests of learning outcomes are not widely available, and the ultimate goal students typically have is not only to graduate, but also to acquire skills that significantly and cost-effectively raise earnings and, wherever possible, allow a worker to earn a decent living. Likewise, community colleges offer a widely variety of programs—from nursing to welding—that are not offered at a typical high school. The costs of providing those different types of programs may vary more widely than the cost of providing a traditional high school education.

As a working group, we analyzed and debated these types of thorny questions, and in this report now offer a set of eight recommendations that, taken together, constitute a framework for how researchers can best estimate the cost of a community college education. (See Appendix for the list of working group members).  While acknowledging the complexities, we ultimately believe such a study can and should be undertaken.

Today, policymakers are making decisions about where, and how much, to invest in community colleges without information about what really is needed to achieve the outcomes they seek. Much better research could greatly improve those decisions, substantially boost the life chances of community college students, and jumpstart social mobility in America.

The Report of the Working Group

In the United States, parents have expected their children to grow up to be better off as a matter of course. Social mobility allows a society to tap into the talents of disadvantaged populations in a way that benefits everyone. Vertical mobility permits individuals of all backgrounds the opportunity for an enriching and financially stable life. And forward economic momentum greases the wheels of a smoothly functioning multiracial democracy.

Research finds, however, that social mobility in the United States is on the decline , and polls find that fewer and fewer Americans believe their children will see improved life prospects. 1 When social mobility breaks down, some Americans look for scapegoats, and society’s most vulnerable members—immigrants, African Americans, the poor, and religious minorities—suffer. When America loses its optimism, it becomes an uglier place. When fewer Americans have the chance to advance economically, human potential is wasted and society is poorer.

For generations, public education in America has been a driving force for social mobility, beginning with creation of elementary schools, then secondary schools. Now, at a time when the economy demands higher levels of skills among workers, community colleges have become especially critical institutions of social mobility. Whereas a high school diploma and a union card used to provide access to the middle class, today, researchers find , “80 percent of good jobs that support middle-class lifestyles” require some postsecondary education. 2 Two-year colleges, located in hundreds of communities throughout the country, near where people live and work, and open to the “top 100 percent of students,” are meant to be America’s quintessential institutions for the aspiring middle class and those seeking to avoid downward mobility. 3

The country’s 1,000 public two-year institutions serving 9 million undergraduates are routinely under-resourced, and overburdened.

Yet too many of America’s community colleges are underfunded and have failed to deliver on their promise. The country’s 1,000 public two-year institutions serving 9 million undergraduates are routinely under-resourced, and overburdened. 4 While individual community college leaders are doing extraordinary work, the sector as a whole is not producing the results the country needs. Only 38 percent of students entering community college complete a degree or certificate within six years. While 81 percent of students entering community college say they aspire to eventually transfer and receive a four-year degree, only 15 percent do so after six years. 5

Research outlined in this report suggests that one central impediment to success is a lack of resources. Society asks community colleges to educate those students who are most likely to face significant disadvantages, and to do so with relatively few dollars. This much we know.

But precisely how much funding do community colleges need to succeed? Astonishingly, researchers have conducted almost no empirical research on this question. At the K–12 level, scholars have engaged in dozens of studies to establish the level of funding required to provide an “adequate” level of education. These studies have spurred K–12 finance reforms that have generally led to improved outcomes for students. 6

The Century Foundation, with the support of the William T. Grant Foundation, created this Working Group on Community College Financial Resources to think about ways to apply K–12 costing-out methodologies to community colleges. The purpose of this report is to establish—for the first time—a framework for how a study could be conducted to estimate the true costs of a strong community college education. (For a list of working group members, see the Appendix.)

This report proceeds in three parts. The first lays out the stakes—why it is important to establish the true cost of a community college education and provide two-year institutions with the resources they need. The second part examines the four key steps that K–12 costing-out studies take; outlines four critical differences between pre-collegiate and community college education; and delineates eight concrete recommendations that provide a framework for how this research should be conducted in the future. The third part of the report articulates a plan for how policy leaders could use new empirical evidence provided by a community college costing-out study to inform policymaking.

The Stakes: Why It Is Important to Establish the True Cost of an Adequate Community College Education

The declining american dream.

Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of the next generation. 7 According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, 58 percent of Americans said today’s children will grow up to be financially worse off than their parents, compared with just 37 percent who predicted those children will be better off. 8

Americans are right to be concerned. According to research by Harvard University’s Raj Chetty, the proportion of American children making more than their parents (in inflation-adjusted dollars) has declined, from more than 90 percent of those who were born in 1940 to about 50 percent of those born in 1984. 9 (See Figure 1.)

Research also finds that relative mobility—the probability that a child born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution will at some point reach the top fifth—is much less likely in the United States than in many other nations. In fact, such social mobility is almost twice as likely to occur in Canada as the United States, according to Chetty’s research . 10 (See Figure 2.)

Community Colleges Can Help Remedy Low Levels of Mobility if Two-Year Institutions Are Properly Resourced

For seventy years, policymakers have viewed public community colleges as a critical driver of upward mobility in the United States. The 1947 Truman Commission on Higher Education envisioned community colleges as key institutions in reaching the goal of equal opportunity for all Americans. The commission renamed “junior colleges,” which had been around since 1901, as “community colleges” to emphasize their vast geographic reach and their special mission in supporting individual communities . 11 Perhaps because of their community focus—and their accessibility to a broad cross-section of students—community colleges command greater support in public opinion surveys than do four-year institutions . 12

Six years after entering community college, only 22.8 percent of students have completed a two-year degree or certificate (and no more), and another 14.7 percent have completed a four-year degree.

The public is right to believe that community colleges can contribute to upward mobility in the nation. At the same time, too many students at community colleges are not finding their way to a degree or certificate. According the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, six years after entering community college, only 22.8 percent of students have completed a two-year degree or certificate (and no more), and another 14.7 percent have completed a four-year degree. The vast majority—62.5 percent—have not received a degree of any type after six years (15.2 percent are still enrolled, but 47.3 percent are no longer enrolled). 13

Low levels of completion surely reflect in part the academic preparation levels found, on average, among community college students. 14 But careful research that controls for incoming academic preparation and demographic factors finds that students intending to pursue a four-year degree face substantially reduced chances of earning such a degree when they begin at a two-year rather than a four-year institution. Kent State economist C. Lockwood Reynolds, for example, estimated, after applying appropriate controls, that beginning at a two-year college reduces one’s ultimate chances of receiving a bachelor’s degree by 30 percentage points. 15 This differential may reflect the difficulties that can arise when students transfer from a community college to a four-year institution; but the reduced chances of attaining a bachelor’s degree may well be a product of the issue to which we now turn: the relatively low levels of funding found, on average, in the two-year sector.

Community College Resources Do Not Equal the Challenge

Researchers have identified three broad paths for improving outcomes for community college students: (1) providing better academic support to students at the K–12 level so that fewer students are in need of remedial classes; (2) improving efficiency at the community college level through adoption of best practices, such as guided pathways that add greater structure and guidance to the student experience; 16 and (3) providing adequate financial resources. We support all three approaches, but in this report, we focus particularly on the third path, which is too often ignored.

The absolute differences in spending levels between two-year and four-year institutions is remarkable, even accounting for the different functions of research universities and two-year institutions devoted primarily to instruction. According to a 2016 report from the American Institutes of Research (AIR), private research universities spend five times as much per student per year ($71,597) as community colleges do ($14,090), and public research universities almost three times as much ($39,783). 17 (See Figure 4.)

Of course, some of the spending differentials are related to the fact that research universities are tasked with conducting research as well as educating students, but AIR’s data show that when one excludes research expenses and focuses on educational instruction, spending inequalities remain. 18 For example, private research universities still spend more than three times as much as public community colleges on “education and related” spending, and public research universities spend 60 percent more ($17,252 at public research universities versus $10,804 at public community colleges). 19 (See Figure 5.)

To make matters worse, these inequalities in spending occur despite the fact that community colleges tend to educate students with greater educational needs than students at four-year institutions. According to new research from Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce, community college students are far more likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged than students in four-year colleges, especially the most selective four-year institutions. While just one in five students in the most and highly competitive four-year colleges came from the bottom half of the socioeconomic distribution of the population in 2013, for example, the majority of students in community colleges did. (See Figure 6.) As discussed further below, researchers have long recognized that to achieve comparable outcomes, students with greater needs require greater resources, not fewer.

Another way to consider the socioeconomic distribution is to examine the destinations of college-going students within each socioeconomic quartile. As Figure 7 indicates, the majority (58 percent) of students in the bottom socioeconomic quartile in 2013 enrolled at community colleges, compared with just 25 percent of students from the top socioeconomic quartile.

Funding Matters in Outcomes at Community Colleges

The lower levels of spending in community colleges—coupled with the greater needs, on average, in community college student bodies—is important because research suggests that greater resources are connected to better outcomes for students in higher education. 20 In the four-year college sector, for example, John Bound of the University of Michigan, Michael Lovenheim of Cornell, and Sarah Turner of the University of Virginia found in an important 2010 study that declining completion rates over time were due primarily to declines in resources per student. 21 The research on the importance of resources in four-year colleges dovetails with a wide body of research suggesting resources matter at the K–12 level. 22 In a February 2018 study of California’s K–12 funding increases, for example, Rucker Johnson of the University of California–Berkeley, and Sean Tanner of WestEd, looking at the effects of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), “found strongly significant impacts of LCFF-induced increases in district revenue on average high school graduation rates for all children.” In particular, they found that “a $1,000 increase in district per-pupil revenue from the state experienced in grades 10–12 leads to a 5.3 percentage-point increase in high school graduation rates, on average, among all children.” 23

Similar results have been found in the community college sector. Among the most important recent studies on this topic is one conducted by David Deming of Harvard University and Christopher Walters of University of California–Berkeley for the National Bureau of Economic Research in August 2017. The researchers examined the impact of postsecondary spending between 1990 and 2013 and found “positive and statistically significant causal impacts of spending on degree completion.” 24 The authors concluded that spending had even larger impacts in two-year institutions than four-year institutions. 25 Specifically, Deming and Walters found that a 10 percent increase in spending in a given year resulted in increased awards of certificates and degrees in the following two years of 14.5 and 14.6 percent, respectively. 26 The authors did not explore the precise reasons that spending had positive outcomes but suggested it was possible that increased course offerings, shorter waiting lists, better student guidance, and smaller class sizes produced the improved results. 27

In addition, there is evidence that certain investments are particularly likely to be worthwhile: 28

• Full-time faculty. Much—though not all—relevant research finds that having more full-time faculty on staff leads to improved outcomes for students. 29 Yet today, community colleges frequently rely on inexpensive adjuncts and other part-time instructors. Only 31 percent of faculty members at public community colleges are full-time , compared with 42 percent at public research universities and 50 percent at private research universities. (Graduate assistants are counted as part-time in this analysis.) 30 Investing in more full-time community college faculty could result in improved outcomes for students.
• Extra tutoring, small class size, intensive advising, and generous financial aid. There is strong evidence that investing in extra tutoring, small class sizes, intensive advising, and generous financial aid at community colleges can have big payoffs. At a typical community college, classes are crowded and student–adviser ratios can be as high as 1,500 to 1. 31 But at the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), students are provided with the tutoring, class size, advising, and effective financial aid more typical of wealthy four-year colleges. These supports, provided within a highly structured environment in which students must attend classes full time, have been found in a randomized trial conducted by the nonprofit research institute MDRC to nearly double the three-year graduation rates of students (to 40 percent, compared with a control group’s 22 percent). The program cost 60 percent more per student—about $16,300 more per pupil over three years—yet by boosting results, it actually reduced the amount spent for each college degree awarded by more than 10 percent. 32 More generally, research also finds that investments in smaller class sizes in community colleges, more counselors, and more full-time faculty can improve student outcomes. 33
• A variety of high-impact practices that require resources. The Center for Community College Student Engagement has found a positive relationship between thirteen “high-impact” practices and positive student outcomes: orientation; accelerated developmental education; first year experiences; student success courses; learning communities; academic goal setting and planning; experiential learning beyond the classroom; tutoring; supplemental instruction; proper assessment and placement; registration before classes start; alerts and interventions; and structured group learning experiences. 34 Numerous other studies find positive results from redesigned developmental education, academic support services, and other interventions. 35

The long-term benefits to society of increased community college completion are substantial. Setting aside the considerable benefits to individuals who can see their chances of flourishing increase by completing a community college degree, the returns to the general taxpayer are very large.

Take, for example, a taxpayer cost–benefit analysis of CUNY’s ASAP program. In a 2018 study in the Journal of Higher Education , Columbia University’s Henry M. Levin and Emma Garcia of the Economic Policy Institute and Georgetown University found that for each additional $1 invested in ASAP, the return to the taxpayer was $3 to $4. 36

Levin and Garcia estimate the lifetime earnings of an associate’s degree holder to be $964,500 on average, compared with $630,300 for a high school graduate, for a net gain of $324,100. 37 Based on those estimates, they calculate that an associate’s degree recipient will pay $165,400 more in taxes over her lifetime and will cost taxpayers $40,100 less in health expenditures, welfare and public assistance, and criminal justice costs. The total public benefit over a lifetime is $205,500. The institutional cost of ASAP per graduate for the fall 2007 cohort was $59,300, yielding about $3.50 to the taxpayer for every $1.00 invested. 38 (See Figure 8.) Although the analysis focused on ASAP’s ability to boost completion rates, the underlying measurements of the benefits of raising community college completion apply to any program that does so.

The Need for More Research on Funding Levels

Because there is strong evidence that current community college funding levels are too low to permit colleges and their students to achieve what policymakers desire and expect, and that certain investments are likely to increase outcomes, we recommend short-, medium- and long-term strategies for reform.

In the short term, state and federal policymakers should begin to increase funding for community colleges to improve opportunities for students. While the precise level of funding community colleges need to adequately meet their goals is yet to be determined, the evidentiary basis for the returns to certain increased public investment is strong, so legislators need not wait to act. (In Section 3 of this report, we outline specific recommendations for a new federal–state partnership to boost community college funding.)

In the medium term, federal and state legislators can begin to implement a strategy of supporting rigorous research to help guide the amount and types of investments to be made. Legislators are now in a difficult position, having to make decisions about higher education investments without sufficient research guidance. There is shockingly little research on a basic question: What level of funding could produce adequate community college education outcomes? The dearth of research is particularly remarkable given the extensive body of research that has been conducted in the K–12 arena on the same question.

For almost four decades, researchers have studied the question of how much funding is necessary to produce an adequate elementary and secondary education, including an appropriate funding premium to address the needs of low-income students. 39 A 2008 review of thirteen studies found that the cost of educating socioeconomically disadvantaged students ranged from 22.5 percent to 167.5 percent more than the cost of educating students with no extra needs. 40 In a 2015 analysis, the Education Trust said a 40 percent premium for educating these students should be considered “conservative,” given research finding that it costs twice as much to educate low-income students to the same standards as more-affluent students. 41

Today, at the state level, thirty-seven K–12 funding formulas recognize that students with greater needs deserve greater resources. 42 (See Figure 9.) Research on the level of resources needed for community colleges—and accompanying public policy responses—are by comparison in their infancy.

Finally, in the long run, we recommend that policymakers use the evidence of these research-based efforts to guide future funding decisions, in all likelihood increasing support for community colleges and their students.

Framework for Estimating Adequate Funding for American Community Colleges

We believe it is crucial that scholarship on costs at the community college level catch up with that for similar K–12 research. Federal and state policymakers and foundation officials should commission research to estimate the true costs of community college education. The task is complex, but after carefully considering and discussing the challenges, we have concluded that it is both possible and necessary for researchers to undertake such a study.

In this section, we delve into some of the issues researchers will face and make recommendations for a framework of how to proceed. We begin by outlining four common steps that researchers take when approximating the true costs of an adequate K–12 education. We next identify four key differences between the K–12 and community college sectors that will require scholars to adjust their methodology. We then review a few preliminary attempts to estimate costs in higher education. Finally, this section culminates in an eight-part framework for conducting studies that estimate the costs of a community college education.

Costing-Out Studies in Elementary and Secondary Education

Since at least the early 1980s, scholars and consultants have been engaged in efforts to estimate the costs of providing adequate educational programs and services toward achieving adequate educational outcomes for children. The pace of progress on estimating the costs of adequate K–12 education accelerated with the proliferation of state accountability systems and outcome measures from the 1990s forward, coupled with increased use of those outcome measures in the context of litigation challenging the adequacy of public school funding under state constitutions. Those legal challenges forced the issues of (a) defining state constitutional obligations, (b) identifying measures of student outcomes which might be used to indicate equity and adequacy, and (c) developing reliable and valid methods for determining the costs associated with meeting measurable outcome goals. Even with improved empirical evidence, and even in the presence of judicial orders, the process by which state school spending levels and distributions are determined remains political, complicated and imperfect.

In this section, we outline four major steps in conducting cost analyses, drawn from decades of experiences in elementary and secondary education.

Four Steps in Costing Out a K–12 Education

Step 1: Researchers in collaboration with policymakers and other key constituents identify the desired outcomes of the education system, a prerequisite for determining costs. Step 2: Researchers in collaboration with policymakers and other key constituents identify the relevant unit of analysis for estimating those costs, which might focus on aggregations of institutions (states or school districts), specific institutions or organizations (schools, service providers, and so on) or programs and/or services within those institutions. Step 3: Researchers determine the appropriate methods for best identifying the costs associated with the desired outcomes, given the units of analysis. Step 4: Researchers identify the key cost drivers (including student disadvantage) that influence the costs of achieving the desired outcomes, across settings, institutions, programs and services, and the students they serve.

Step 1. Identify Desired Outcomes

In order to estimate costs, the first step is to identify with some precision the desired outcome. As Bruce Baker and Jesse Levin explain in their background paper for this working group report, much of the recent interest in estimating the costs of meeting specific educational outcome standards in elementary and secondary education stems from the role of state courts in determining whether adequacy requirements of state constitutions have been met. 43 In recent decades, several states’ high courts have determined that their state constitution’s education article requires the legislature to provide sufficient funding to meet some minimum standard. In a handful of cases, state legislatures—either prior to, or in response to, legal challenges and court orders—have engaged outside consultants to estimate the costs of meeting those standards and provide guidance on state school finance systems. Specifically, the consultants are hired to provide guidance on how to make those systems compliant with constitutional requirements, as articulated in court orders. (Similar state constitutional obligations arguably extend to remedial courses in community colleges to the extent that material was supposed to be taught in K–12 schooling.) 44

As Baker and Levin explain, constitutional requirements are often stated in vague terms, and judicial rulings regarding constitutional requirements are at times only marginally more precise. Neither is sufficient for making the leap to establishing an empirical framework and setting up an analysis to determine costs of meeting those requirements. Typically, the responsibility for specifying measurable outcomes and standards falls on state legislatures and/or state boards of education and departments of education. State courts may prod legislators to make use of standards, which they have already legislated. Further, in the absence of judicial intervention, state policymakers may work with external consultants to operationalize state standards and set goals for cost analyses.

Elementary and secondary education standards and accountability systems tend to be based primarily on (a) standardized assessments of reading and math from grades three to eight, and sometimes grades ten and/or eleven, and (b) other measures, such as four-year high school graduation rates. Standardized assessments often have assigned “cut-scores” that declare whether each student’s performance is “proficient” (meeting basic standards) or not, and in some states, students must pass a common high school exam in order to receive a diploma. Increasingly, states have also adopted measures of test score growth, and in some cases test score growth conditional on student need (comparing students of similar backgrounds and needs). These systems of measures and indicators, though limited, often serve to provide convenient benchmarks for judicial analysis and for empirical estimation of “costs.”

Step 2. Identify the Relevant Units of Analysis

After identifying outcome goals, researchers must determine the appropriate unit of analysis. K–12 education systems largely strive to provide a common educational program, often with the dominant purpose of preparing students for their next level of education. As a result, cost analyses can focus on institutions as a whole—schools or districts—as their unit of analysis, with a singular set of goals, measured academic standards, and outcomes. Typically, at the K–12 level, researchers set aside distinctions having to do with high school vocational programs and other specialized schools (for example, magnet schools, standalone special education schools, and so on), even though those schools have more varied goals and corresponding programming.

In most cases in elementary and secondary education, cost analyses focus on state mandated outcomes and constitutional obligations, which are achieved, in turn, by local public school districts. However, the unit of analysis may vary depending on the costing-out method chosen (see Step 3, below). Most input-oriented cost analyses—those that tally up the resources needed for delivering specific programs and services—focus on schools within districts, and then add administrative overhead costs to determine district unit costs. Most outcome-oriented approaches, by contrast, focus on the district as the unit of analysis, where the district and its board of education are primarily responsible for financial management of local public schools, and where revenue arrives and expenditure allocations are determined. However, increasingly, even cost modeling approaches are including school-level analyses, in part to begin to attempt to reconcile findings between input and outcome-oriented methods through hybrid approaches. It is also feasible to take these approaches to the next lower level of exploring the costs of specific programs and services within institutions. Input-oriented approaches require as much to arrive at institution-level costs.

Step 3. Determine Appropriate Costing-Out Methods

In addition to identifying goals and the appropriate unit of analysis, researchers must identify the cost analysis method that best suits the policy objective; that is, that best enables estimation of the full costs of meeting the collectively agreed upon outcome goals. Selection of methods may depend in part on the measurability of (and available measures of) those outcome goals. As alluded to above, method types can neatly be categorized as outcome-oriented and input-oriented approaches.

• Outcome-oriented analyses start with data on both student outcomes and the specific programs and services used by institutions to generate the outcomes. The costs of attaining these outcomes across different site settings—defined by characteristics such as student needs and size of operation—are arrived at using statistical estimation techniques referred to as cost functions .
• Input-oriented analyses first identify the staffing, materials, supplies and equipment, physical space, and other elements (inputs) required to provide educational programs and services capable of producing the desired outcomes in a variety of settings (again, defined by characteristics such as student needs, size of operation, and so on). The inputs are then costed out and applied to calculate the costs of providing programming and services across different sites.

Outcome-oriented analysis can only be applied where outcome goals have been measured quantitatively over time, and where adequate data exist on expenditures, cost, and student need factors. However, even where these data are limited but still sufficient, cost modeling can be used in conjunction with input-oriented methods to develop a fuller picture of cost-efficient deployment of resources, programs, and services. In the best-case scenario, as discussed in the Baker and Levin background report, data are sufficiently rich enough to do extensive cost modeling and to combine and reconcile those findings with input-oriented estimates of institutional costs.

Combining the two approaches may be ideal, because it would provide the right information, where it is needed: outcome-oriented analyses provide information to legislators about the amount of money required to achieve a given set of goals, while input-oriented approaches give school leaders guidance on where to invest resources.

Step 4. Identify Cost Drivers (Including Student Disadvantage)

An important fourth component of the K–12 analysis involves identifying cost factors that may vary from school to school (depending on, for example, the size of the school or its geographic location) and depending on such factors as the proportion of students who are disadvantaged. As discussed by Baker and Levin in their background paper, which factors influence the costs of achieving desired outcomes are relatively well understood in K–12 education, but our knowledge of those factors continues to evolve. We know those factors to fall into two distinct groups—student need factors, and other exogenous cost factors. Further, some student need factors operate at the level of the individual student and have specific remedies in terms of programs and services, while other student need factors operate at the level of the collective student population. For example, a student with a specific disability or language barrier might need very specific supports, whereas an institution serving a generally higher poverty student population, from less educated households, might require more generalized resource intensive interventions (expanded early childhood programs, smaller class sizes, and so on). Finding the best measures to characterize need and to identify other exogenous cost pressures (competitive wage variation, economies of scale, population sparsity, and so on) is an important step for either input-oriented or outcome-oriented analysis.

Differences between the K–12 Sector and Community Colleges

The four steps employed in K–12 costing-out exercises can provide a foundation for beginning to think through how such research could be conducted at the community college level. But there are critical differences between the sectors that will affect the analysis. In seeking to apply K–12 methodologies to community colleges, four fundamental distinctions between postsecondary education and K–12 education are particularly important. Each of these four differences presents unique challenges for estimating the cost of providing an adequate community college education, as detailed below.

Difference 1. Higher Education Involves More Choice on the Part of Students

At the K–12 level, attendance is mandatory and students have less choice of programs to pursue. With higher education, students have choice of whether or not to pursue postsecondary education, at which institution to pursue such education, and greater choice about which programs to pursue should they decide to enroll in community college.

In higher education, we must also consider access to institutions as a potential outcome of providing more adequate programs and services.

Unlike K–12 education, higher education is not compulsory. An adequate K–12 education system must provide sufficient programs and services for all children to achieve desired outcomes. In higher education, we must also consider access to institutions as a potential outcome of providing more adequate programs and services. That is, who comes, who stays and who completes? An adequate postsecondary education system is one that provides greater access to more diverse student populations than presently exists, and provides all who enter with equal opportunity to persist and complete.

It is insufficient to measure success rates of only those students who presently access higher education. Higher education institutions that are less accessible, academically, financially or geographically, may end up serving more advantaged student populations to begin with, and thus may appear more successful by virtue of who they serve rather than the quality of programs and services they provide.

Difference 2. Higher Education Has Fewer Standardized Tests as Measures of Academic Success

While K–12 education defines outcomes largely by test scores and graduation, higher education does not have widespread testing, requiring researchers to identify different outcome goals.

Unlike K–12 education, community colleges do not have a standard way of assessing learning gains. Outcome measures and data systems in K–12 education proliferated throughout the 1990s and 2000s, enabling statistical analysis of those outcomes, factors affecting those outcomes, and the costs of meeting those outcomes across varied settings and children. Commonly collected and reported outcome measures include state standardized assessments, originally in reading and math (grades three to eight), and later encompassing science and social studies, and extending to high school exams. Most recently, many states have moved toward assessments of common standards, increasing the possibility of estimating costs across multiple states concurrently. States also collect school and district (institution level) data on graduation rates, attendance rates, and, in some cases, college attendance and persistence.

Because the goals of postsecondary education are varied, there do not exist similar common assessments of knowledge and skills. In fact, one purpose of the intermediate measures of knowledge and skills collected in the K–12 system is to be predictive of success in core courses at the postsecondary level. But success in more specialized postsecondary degree and certificate programs is perhaps better measured by outcomes that occur later in life, after postsecondary schooling has been completed—such as achieving relatively greater success in the labor market. In turn, to the extent we cannot measure directly or consistently those outcomes occurring after postsecondary schooling, we must seek intermediate measures within the postsecondary system that may be predictive of those outcomes. (We discuss proposed outcome measures at length below.)

Difference 3. Higher Education Has More Varied Programming and Program-Specific Costs within Institutions

Whereas K–12 has comparatively far more uniform programming and cost structures within schools, higher education has greater variation within colleges for different credentials and within different academic disciplines. These credentials and programs differ in costs and goals so researchers will have to sort through whether the appropriate unit of analysis should be the college department, the degree or certificate program, or some combination of these.

At the K–12 level, schools are often an obvious level of analysis, but community colleges typically offer a variety of programs that raise questions about the appropriate unit of analysis. Unlike K–12, where most students in a school have roughly common goals (such as developing reading and math skills), within community colleges, students have varying goals. Some seek degrees, others certificates. Some seek specialized skills in programs such as nursing, while others seek general education skills that may prepare them to transfer to a four-year institution. The student choices and varied pathways involved in postsecondary education systems increases the complexity of evaluating costs of achieving desired outcomes for these systems. But it also provides unique opportunities to better understand how students’ choices, coupled with institutional structures and supports, affect outcomes.

Difference 4. Higher Education Has Fewer Essential Needs Programs in Place That Provide Supports Known to Improve Student Outcomes, Especially for Marginalized Student Populations

For minors in the K–12 system, federal, state, and local policy provides for breakfast and lunch (free and reduced meals programs), health care (the Child Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP), and transportation (free bus service for students who cannot walk to school). Analogous higher education programs are sometimes built into financial aid programs but are often not well developed.

Unlike K–12 education, where supports for nutrition, health, textbooks, and transportation are considered essential programs, at the community college level, those supports, while vitally important, are frequently not provided to students.

In elementary and secondary education, we have come to realize that the provision of an equitable and adequate system for all eligible children requires the provision of more than merely academic programs. Children must be transported to those programs, including students who do not have family supports to provide transportation. Children must be well fed in order to be successful in school, and thus we provide subsidized lunches and breakfast for children from low-income families. In many cases, state and local systems provide additional supports, including physical and mental health screenings, after-school programs, and a variety of parent and community supports. Some of these “supplemental” or “wrap-around” services come about with increased knowledge and awareness that these supports contribute efficiently to student success on measured outcomes. At the K–12 level, taxpayers also provide textbook materials free of charge.

It is similarly the case that college-aged students (traditional or nontraditional) have inequitable access to transportation, and may also lack food and/or housing security. These are essential elements to student success. Adults too must get to school (and/or have sufficient technology to log in online), be well fed, and have housing security to ensure their persistence and completion of programs. In addition, they must be able to afford materials and supplies (textbooks). Sometimes supports for textbooks, meal plans, and housing are incorporated into financial aid programs, particularly at four-year residential colleges, but community college students often lack access to these types of assistance. As discussed further below, since these supports have not historically been broadly and uniformly provided within the public higher education system, identifying the cost of doing so at public expense is necessary.

Early Efforts to Apply Costing-Out Methods to Higher Education and Community Colleges

Perhaps because of the complexity of applying K–12 costing-out techniques to higher education, few such studies have been conducted to date. Instead, community college studies tend to focus on existing levels of expenditures rather than on their costs to achieve a given objective. As Baker and Levin’s background report emphasizes, expenditure studies are more straightforward because they do not require a measure of outcome goals as cost studies necessarily do. Expenditure studies merely characterize existing expenditures of institutions, given whatever outcomes they presently achieve. That said, expenditure data could be used in combination with outcome data, and data on school contexts and students, to infer the specific costs associated with achieving current outcome levels, and to extrapolate costs associated with achieving different outcome levels.

In this section, we begin with a discussion of existing expenditure studies, then review two early efforts to begin to assess costs.

Expenditure Studies

Researchers have conducted several expenditure studies on postsecondary institutions in general and community colleges in particular, using national data sources either directly from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) , or as compiled for the Delta Cost Project . 45 Most recently, Tammy Kolbe and Bruce Baker conducted two studies of the levels, distribution, and trends in community college expenditures by state.

The first study evaluates the level and progressiveness of total spending and instructional spending per pupil for community colleges by state. Specifically, Kolbe and Baker explore whether and to what extent community colleges in counties with lower-income populations spend the same (flat), less (regressive), or more (progressive) per pupil than community colleges in higher-income counties. The study establishes a baseline for understanding present spending levels across states, and for knowing which states have generally more progressive versus regressive spending.

Most existing community college systems do not systematically provide additional funding to community colleges in lower-income settings.

The second expenditure study benchmarks the level and progressiveness of spending in state community college systems against K–12 spending. 46 As with the first, the results vary widely across states and provide a baseline for understanding state policy and contextual differences. In addition, the findings allow for a comparison of the level of commitment to community colleges relative to elementary and secondary education systems, for which a broader collection of comparative studies exists. Like the first study, this study considers only existing spending, toward existing outcomes (that is, it does not attempt to calculate the costs of providing educational adequacy). Both analyses confirm that most existing community college systems do not systematically provide additional funding to community colleges in lower-income settings. Many are neutral at best, and still many others are significantly regressive.

The Real Cost Project (2003)

One notable example of “cost” analysis applied to a community college system is the Real Cost Project, conducted on behalf of the California Community College system in 2003 . 47 The Real Cost Project was similar to early elementary and secondary education cost studies, which, instead of focusing on measured student outcomes, focused on programs and services, including additional supports that were presumed (preferably based on research) to lead to desirable outcomes. The approach lays out prototypical institutions based on a collection of best practices. Those prototypical institutions may be developed through consensus-building activities with focus groups of informed professionals, and/or expert knowledge of research-based practices.

The Real Cost Project involved creating similar prototype institutions, as described here:

The prototype is not the median college, but it is also not a baseline institution which has only those characteristics shared by all colleges. That approach would tend to understate the important local context of rural and urban colleges, and obscure one of the purposes of the Real Cost Project—to capture the unique cost structure associated with the diverse student population of the California Community Colleges. So while the prototype does not describe any actual college perfectly, it is a reasonable representation of typical demographics, generally as reflected in statewide enrollment patterns. As a result, the prototype college looks like California in its relative composition of academic preparation, ethnicity . . . and gender, disability, income status and public assistance, and part-time/fulltime status. 48

In addition, the resources prescribed for the prototype were driven by a set of quality indicators, albeit not necessarily outcome measures:

These Quality Indicators represent an integrated approach to quality student learning and achievement. Group learning, team teaching, learning communities, intensive writing across the curriculum, and individualized interaction between faculty and students are possible at the prototype college because of the combination of smaller classes, a shift in faculty time allocation toward students, extensive professional development and training in pedagogical strategies, and a substantial change in the curriculum. Every student desiring to transfer to a baccalaureate university would have a meaningful transfer and educational plan—more than merely a ministerial signature on a form. These are essential attributes of a quality education for the broad diversity of students at the California Community Colleges. 49

Using a number of quality indicators (such as class size, high-quality faculty and staff, need for counseling and health services, equipment, and technology), the group derived a cost estimate of $9,200 per full-time equivalent student—considerably higher than the actual amount spent around the time (2003), which was less than $5,000. 50

Baker/Morphew Resource Cost Modeling (RCM, 2007)

In a 2007 analysis, Bruce Baker and Christopher Morphew developed the conceptual thinking around applying cost modeling to higher education by tackling an important complexity: that unlike K–12 education, where course taking is largely prescribed, college students have greater choice in course selection. Specifically, the authors examined how “resource cost modeling”—an input-oriented costing-out approach used at the K–12 level—could apply to higher education, given the varying course-taking pathways students pursue to earning their degrees. 51

Cost estimates must take into account student pathways to program completion by considering all of the costs associated with providing access to those specific pathways and associated resources.

The authors point out that if we are to look at outcome measures such as program or degree completion, one must consider not only the way in which institutions organize their resources, but also the varied ways in which students access those resources toward degree completion. For example, students completing a program in mathematics navigate their way through general education courses as well as math courses, drawing on resources across units within institutions, not merely the higher-level unit offering the degree or credential. Among those students pursuing degrees in math, there may be a handful of most common pathways (which represent resource consumption patterns) to completion. Students may also access varied additional supports—academic, residential, and so on—as they navigate their way toward program completion. A comprehensive and precise estimate of the costs associated with program completion must account for the ways in which students access resources along the way. That is, cost estimates must take into account student pathways to program completion by considering all of the costs associated with providing access to those specific pathways and associated resources. The study provided an important advance in how K–12 techniques could apply to the very different world of higher education.

Framework for Applying K–12 Methods to Community Colleges

The earlier efforts at costing out a college education provide a basis upon which researchers can build in order to try something that is unprecedented: a full-fledged study to estimate the costs of an adequate community college education. Our goal is to advance the thinking on this question by providing a framework for applying cost estimation methods from elementary and secondary education to community colleges, recognizing the distinctions between the two.

Below, we identify eight key decision points that researchers will face in applying well-established K–12 analysis principles to the community college sector. For each challenge, we make recommendations providing our best advice on how to proceed.

Eight Issues in Applying K–12 Methods to Community Colleges

Issue 1: In beginning to define goals, how should researchers address the non-mandatory nature of attendance in higher education? Because students are not required by law to attend community college, how do we define goals in a way that incorporates access?

In K–12 education, schooling is typically compulsory for students through age sixteen, so an outcome metric—such as high school completion—starts with a base of students that is universal. In the community college sector, by contrast, attendance is not mandatory, so a measure that looked at completion rates would not tell us whether a college is doing a good job of providing access to students (by recruiting them, offering courses that are in demand at convenient times, and so on). Indeed, a system that defined outcomes strictly in terms of proportion of beginning students who complete could provide a perverse incentive of encouraging community colleges to recruit only the most prepared students, screening out those with less preparation.

Recommendation 1: Any evaluation to determine the costs of providing an adequate system of community colleges must include, as one of many outcome measures, indicators of the population served, and ideally should capture the breadth and equity of access.  One might consider, for example, the needs for postsecondary education across economic, geographic, racial, and ethnic groups, and the system’s equity of access. And one might evaluate the extent to which the population served sufficiently represents disadvantaged student populations in the relevant service region.

To calculate the cost associated with a particular goal requires that researchers define the outcome measures and the levels denoting accomplishment of the goal. In this case, to determine the types and quantities of resources necessary to successfully recruit and serve a particular population of students requires that one first define the target population. To this end, a key step would be to perform a descriptive analysis of the composition of enrollment with respect to student characteristics (for example, low-income status, first-generation college enrollee, ethnic minority, and so on) across college campuses throughout the state.

Recruitment targets would then be set across the groups, which would be included as part of the goal definition. Note that results of the descriptive analysis would be used as a baseline. That is, the chosen targets may not be simply to achieve the average composition of enrolling students, but rather to significantly improve recruitment among student groups who are currently underrepresented.

Costs of the efforts involved in an expanded targeted recruitment effort, as well as the different and possibly additional supports necessary to adequately serve the new composition of enrolling students, could then be calculated through an input-oriented method, such as professional judgment.

Issue 2: In further defining goals, should researchers consider intermediate metrics, such as completion, or ultimate goals, such as labor market outcomes, or some combination of the two?

Among the thorniest issues researchers face in applying K–12 costing-out techniques is articulating a clear set of goals for adequate outcomes. K–12 cost analyses have the convenience of falling back on short-run academic outcomes as their goal, as those outcomes are predictive of success at the next stage of their education. Many community college programs are career-specific, and thus the desired outcomes are employment and income. Should researchers consider labor market outcomes as the appropriate measure, intermediate measures such as retention and completion and transfer, or some combination of the two?

In their background report for the working group, Anthony Carnevale, Jeff Strohl, and Artem Gulish of Georgetown University make the argument that economic adequacy is a necessary condition to achieve educational adequacy. In making this argument, they suggest that labor market outcomes are the most appropriate metric. Because delivering economic self-sufficiency is critical, they argue, a community college education should help students attain skills that will enable them to earn a living. In American society, where government provides few supports to those not in the labor market, human flourishing requires that individuals be economically self-sufficient. Merely providing resources to allow students to complete a community college certificate or degree is an insufficient measure of success, Carnevale and colleagues argue, because completion does not guarantee adequate labor market outcomes.

What level of labor market success is necessary to allow for human flourishing in contemporary American society? Carnevale and colleagues operationalize their approach by suggesting a two-part test for economic self-sufficiency : (1) “a program must leave its graduates earning more than $35,000 per year ten years after they have completed it”; and (2) “over that ten-year period, that program also must provide its graduates with a sufficient earnings premium, compared to the earnings of workers with only a high-school diploma, to cover the program’s total cost to the student.” 52 This second requirement typically translates into a minimum salary of $42,000. 53 The authors say adjustments to these requirements should be made to account for cost of living variations by region, and that race and gender discrimination in the workplace, and society’s need for people to enter the intellectual and caring professions, should be considered in using earnings outcome metrics.

Carnevale and colleagues argue this two-part standard provides the minimum economic self-sufficiency necessary for human flourishing because it allows for entry into the bottom rungs of the middle class. A $35,000 salary for a full-time worker generally translates into a $50,000 income for a household. They further note that because there are so many different costs associated with achieving completion outcomes in different programs, it is not possible, using a completion metric, to estimate a single cost for a community college education.

We think this approach has many strengths. Monitoring these data makes sense, and the use of the measures as minimal thresholds could be appropriate in some circumstances. But as Carnevale and colleagues themselves note, a number of complications arise with operationalizing a stand-alone labor market outcome goal.

For one thing, the ability to achieve these economic targets is not in the control of the community colleges alone. Linking employment and income to program quality is complicated by regional labor market variations, employment supply and demand, and temporal cycles. These outcomes depend on economic conditions, and labor markets that can fluctuate more rapidly than institutions can adapt.

It is questionable whether we would want our community colleges to try to adapt to every cyclical shift in employment demand.

Moreover, it is questionable whether we would want our community colleges to try to adapt to every cyclical shift in employment demand. Specifically, while earnings growth might be one measure upon which to judge community college performance, it would be undesirable to structure goals such that community colleges are put in the position of determining program offerings based only on their expected labor market returns. 54 This could result in a significant narrowing of program offerings and there is no guarantee that community colleges would do a good job at precisely forecasting returns to specific degrees or credentials.

In addition, the ten-year lag between the observed goal and the programmatic investment complicates the application of this standard.

Moreover, while the $35,000 threshold is appropriate for estimating the costs of an education that is adequate for generating what we broadly consider to be “good jobs,” we acknowledge that this threshold is not universally achievable. Indeed, it is based only on those who currently complete community college credentials, who constitute less than 40 percent of all those currently enrolled—and only two-thirds of that group now achieve this standard. (See issue 3 below, discussing appropriate rates of success for which policymakers should strive.) Moreover, if we successfully increase access and enrollment in community college for disadvantaged or low-achieving groups who do not now attend, attainment of the $35,000 goal could fall even lower.

To be clear, the working group approves of all investments in postsecondary education that are cost-efficient and materially improve the lives of all students, even if the subsequent earnings of these students fall short of helping of meeting the $35,000 standard. Policymakers should always consider the public’s “return on investment,” which examines the increase in earnings generated by education measured against the cost of the investment. 55 For instance, a short-term and low-cost certificate that raises some students’ earnings from $10,000 to $15,000 annually might well be cost-efficient and appropriate for those students, especially those who are not in a position to pursue or attain more substantial credentials.

Accordingly, we believe that the attainment of $35,000 in earnings should be considered the relevant standard of an “adequate” education for some substantial part of the community college population, while a somewhat different standard—consistent with cost-efficiency and significant earnings improvements for those with currently low earnings—is acceptable for those not able to attain associate degrees or the best-paying certificates anytime soon, as long as there are clear pathways to further education. Exactly what these alternative standards should be, and for how many students each standard is appropriate, could be determined by further research.

We are also concerned about the effect of predicating the goals of community colleges on a single result—labor market outcomes. Public opinion research suggests individuals have a wide variety of rationales for pursuing community college . 56 Individuals and the public derive utility from education for reasons other than pecuniary gain (for example, to satisfy one’s curiosity in or passion for a subject), and society invests in education in order to produce better citizens and parents, in addition to better workers. In this way, education is similar to other public goods, such as parks, that public dollars regularly support.

Furthermore, potential income varies by the program or degree sought, which in turn is a function of the interests and desires of individual students. It may well be that the expected income for a graduate of a computer technology training program exceeds that for the veterinary technician from the same institution. But the animal lover who truly desires to be a veterinary technician might find little life satisfaction in maintaining and troubleshooting a bank of computer servers in a corporate basement. If the community college will not offer veterinary programs, she may seek that program elsewhere, perhaps through a private online provider who will offer an inferior program. At the very least, the outcome measures must be sensitive to student choices, and must vary by program, degree, certificate, or academic trajectory. A floor of $35,000 to join the middle-class (or $42,000 to equal the total cost of a program) may not cover important trajectories that students desire.

At the very least, the outcome measures must be sensitive to student choices, and must vary by program, degree, certificate, or academic trajectory. A floor of $35,000 to join the middle-class (or $42,000 to equal the total cost of a program) may not cover important trajectories that students desire.

In part for these reasons, as Baker and Levin point out, most existing mechanisms of accountability for community colleges—such as performance-based funding—use proximal measures, such as completion, rather than distal measures, such as labor market outcomes. 57 Such intermediate measures, while imperfect, avoid the complications associated with a labor market outcome measure and are typically associated with improved earnings. At the same time, we agree with Carnevale and colleagues that proximal measures by themselves are not sufficient, because completion of a degree that does not support adequate earnings cannot be considered a benchmark of success. We therefore suggest a third path that brings together proximal and distal outcome measures.

Recommendation 2: Proximal measures such as successful completion of a program should serve as the primary goal. 58 However, this measure should include a validation check that these proximal measures translate into positive labor market outcomes for students leaving the particular programs and institutions.  In other words, we recommend bringing together the recommendations in the two previous reports by Carnevale, Gulish, and Strohl and by Baker and Levin. Given practical concerns, preliminary attempts to estimate the cost of adequate community college programs should focus on intermediate measurable outcomes, such as access, persistence, and completion toward degrees, certificates, or successful transfer (followed by completion). However, degree and certificate completion measures can be validated by their relation to longer-term economic outcomes.

That is to say, we suggest an approach that takes Baker and Levin’s preference for intermediate, proximate outcomes and the preference of Carnevale, Gulish, and Strohl for distal outcomes and meets in the middle. Researchers would provide an estimate for what it costs to achieve a reasonable level of completion in a particular program. That information is important given that completion, whatever the labor market outcomes, can have independent value. Separately—looking at labor market outcomes for graduates of this program across a variety of community colleges over time—researchers would provide an estimate of what it costs to make it likely that graduates in the program will also meet a labor market wage test. Policymakers would have information about costs associated with meeting the completion standard on the one hand, and the labor market standard on the other, and individual states could decide the relative weight to be accorded to each factor at any given point in time.

Issue 3: In defining goals even further, how should researchers assess the appropriate level of success to be costed out? Not everyone in a state is likely to complete a community college degree or certificate or higher, for example, so how should the appropriate degree of success sought be determined?

Whether using proximate goals (degree or certificate completion), distal goals (such as a $35,000 annual salary), or some combination, public policy goals do not expect perfection. It is unlikely that 100 percent of state residents will complete a degree or certificate, or that 100 percent of community college graduates will make more than $35,000 a year, so policymakers must set ambitious but realistic goals. Today, for example, 67 percent of community college graduates with an associate’s degree make $35,000 a year ten years after graduation, 59 so a public policy goal might be to raise that level above 67 percent, but aim for something less than 100 percent.

How should such goals be set? Researchers could model a particular success rate for associate’s degree holders, or provide cost estimates for a range of success rates—75 percent, 85 percent, and 95 percent, for example. Similar percentages would need to be calculated for those earning certificates with reasonable labor market returns. 60 In determining the range, researchers could examine existing success rates as a benchmark, and then look to projections for employer demand of skill levels in the future. Alternatively, policymakers could conduct surveys of stakeholders to determine acceptable success rates. As outlined below, we recommend a combination of approaches.

Recommendation 3: Researchers should cost out not a single success rate, but instead focus on a range of possible levels of success, guided by research on community needs and public engagement of stakeholders. 61 In determining what the acceptable range might be, we suggest the definitions of success be informed by solid analysis of existing access and success measures across campuses in a community college system. In addition, this question can be greatly informed through authentic public engagement where individuals with a stake in community college success rates are able to provide input as to what they perceive as an appropriate goal. Public engagement of this sort has been undertaken in K–12 cost studies. For example, in the adequacy studies for New Mexico and New York, researchers held public engagement forums throughout the state to promote input from parents, teachers, business leaders, taxpayers, and other citizens as to what constitutes an adequate education (that is, how the goals should be defined). For the New Mexico study, two surveys were administered to all legislators, superintendents, and principals in the state, and to the general public, respectively. 62 We recommend a similar approach with respect to determining success goals for community colleges.

Issue 4: How should researchers capture costs across different educational units: at the program level, institutional level, or some combination?

As discussed earlier, in K–12 costing-out studies, the unit of analysis is typically a school district or an individual school because there are common outcome goals and roughly common cost structures for programs. But community colleges are different. Outcomes (especially labor market outcomes) can vary dramatically by programs within community colleges, as can costs associated with different certificate and degree programs (for example, welding versus general education).

At the same time, students do not take courses only in their program of study. As Baker and Morphew suggested in their 2007 study, students pursuing any specific degree or program goal access a distribution of coursework across multiple units (departments) within an institution. Likewise, there are common costs (for example, administration) that run across individual programs, so it is difficult to isolate costs solely by particular programs.

We again recommend a hybrid approach. This method merges the program-level and institution-level analyses through an examination of student pathways.

Recommendation 4: Because costs vary dramatically by program, and students take some of their classes in different programs, researchers should use transcripts to identify typical pathways and associated costs. Then, after the program-level cost analysis is completed, researchers can also compute the costs at the institutional level by adding up the participants in various programs and apportioning institutional costs that cut across programs (for example, for student services, campus infrastructure, and so on).

Deeper exploration of student pathways will aid in identifying those resources accessed by certain students in certain contexts that result in their most efficiently completing program requirements. Exploration of resources associated with student pathways through institutions may be supplemented with exploration of the ways in which resources are organized and delivered within and across different types of institutions.

Persistence and completion toward students’ degree, certificate, or academic transfer goals must be analyzed from the perspective of the pathways (course selection, sequence) students take through community colleges. Further, one can use student transcript data to identify which pathways frequently taken by students lead to greater success rates and whether the match between pathway and successful outcomes differs by the backgrounds of students.

Issue 5: Should researchers employ an input-oriented or an output-oriented analysis, or a hybrid approach?

As discussed earlier, step three of the K–12 costing-out process looks at whether to use an approach that is outcome-oriented, income-oriented, or employs a combination of the two. Outcome-oriented analyses use “cost functions” to see what resources have been necessary at institutions to achieve a given result (such as access and completion). Input-oriented analyses, by contrast, begin by asking experts to identify key ingredients (staffing, materials, supplies and equipment, physical space, and other elements) required to achieve a particular result. These ingredients are then costed out.

Both approaches offer advantages. Outcome oriented studies provide validation that a given level of expenditure has resulted in certain outcomes, but provide little guidance on where institutions should allocate resources. Input-oriented studies, by contrast, rely on experts to inform where money should be spent but often lack the real-world validation that these expenditures will achieve a given result.

A third approach draws upon elements of the input and output methods.

Recommendation 5: Researchers should draw upon the best elements of the output-oriented and input-oriented approaches in an iterative process.  By combining the two approaches, researchers can determine what particular spending levels have been able to produce actual outcomes, but also providing guidance to colleges on what ingredients are most effective.

For outcome-based modeling, we suggest estimating at the program level, the relationship between measured outcomes, expenses associated with resources consumed (via student pathways), contextual cost factors, and student need factors. We also suggest estimating institutional cost models, with consideration of the distribution of students across program types. Outcome-based modeling will aid in setting per-pupil cost targets toward achieving specific persistence and completion rates by program, context and student types.

Outcome-based models can also provide guidance about which community college programs are relatively more efficient and thereby aid the input-oriented investigation into the combination of personnel and non-personnel resources that are used to produce the results. This input analysis, aided by experts, could generate insights for community college leaders into which investments are commonly found at colleges that are highly effective. Those findings, in turn, could be a jumping off point for more rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis of the type done on the City University of New York’s ASAP program. As these types of studies accumulate, they might be used to provide for community college leaders a calculator showing price per improvement.

Issue 6: What adjustments to the prototypical community college costs should be made for institutions with higher student needs? Should need measures include economic disadvantage, academic preparedness from high school, first-generation college status, nontraditional/adult learner status, race, and/or other factors?

As with K–12 schools, certain community colleges are likely to have additional costs associated with educating high-needs students who are, on average, less likely to complete. Costing-out analysis needs to adjust costs for programs and institutions based on the level of need. Typically, at the K–12 level, costs are adjusted based on factors such as student poverty, academic preparedness, and special education status. In higher education, performance-based funding models typically provide a premium in funding for success with students who are, on average, less likely to complete, such as those eligible for Pell Grants, those who are first-generation college students, and those who are nontraditional/adult learners. Given the well-documented role that racial and ethnic discrimination has played and continues to play in American society, states should also consider using underrepresented minority status as a need factor.

Given the well-documented role that racial and ethnic discrimination has played and continues to play in American society, states should also consider using underrepresented minority status as a need factor.

What is the best way to determine what need factors to employ? Our recommendation is to be guided by research.

Recommendation 6: In order to isolate which need factors are associated with a need for greater funding, researchers should conduct a statistical analysis to determine those factors that most heavily predict reduced outcomes, controlling for other factors.  Researchers should review the literature for economic and demographic factors as well as academic preparedness (from high school) and whether the student is a first-generation or nontraditional/adult college student, as well as any additional factors that might be identified which lead to decreased likelihood of persistence and completion.

Issue 7: How should researchers account for student needs such as food, housing, transportation, and child care?

A growing body of research suggests that college students—particularly community college students— face significant needs associated with food , housing, transportation, and childcare. 63 (Thirty percent of community college students have dependent children.) 64 Just as policymakers have long recognized that certain elementary and secondary pupils need publicly supported transportation to get to school, and free breakfast and lunch while on campus, policymakers need to acknowledge that community colleges, as an extension of elementary and secondary public education, need to grapple with providing critical supports to disadvantaged individuals. 65 Four-year residential colleges, likewise, recognize that in order for students to succeed, all need access to housing, food, and health care. Americans appreciate this reality. A 2018 Demos poll found that six in ten Americans agree that full-time public college students who work part-time should not have to go into debt to pay for “books, groceries, transportation, and rent.” 66

Since housing and food security is so critical to student success, calculating the cost of addressing those needs is a necessary element of the costing-out work. For some students, existing federal or state aid may be enough to address student needs. For some needs, costs may be covered through state appropriations to institutions or through grant aid, while others may be supplied through other services or means. Lumping all costs together, however, can provide a very misleading picture of community college costs in state-to-state comparisons. 67

Recommendation 7: Researchers should separate out the costs associated with direct educational services from equally important costs associated with students’ basic needs.  In this way, policymakers have a complete picture of what resources are necessary for student success and they can identify ways that services and resources can be provided and financed.

It is critical to find ways to estimate the costs necessary for student success, even when they may not be delivered directly by community colleges. Providing food and housing security and ensuring accessible transportation are prerequisites for students to be able to engage in a quality higher education experience.

Issue 8: What adjustments should researchers make to the cost of a prototypical community college education for other variations in cost related to region, scale, program, and the like?

It is not enough for researchers to identify the costs of delivering an adequate community college education at the typical institution. Costs will vary based on such factors as region (wages necessary to attract staff and faculty), size (economies of scale), program (for example, welding versus general education), and other cost drivers. We recommend following procedures first established in the K–12 setting.

Recommendation 8: Any cost analysis of community colleges must give thorough consideration to geographic and structural cost factors as well as student need factors (outlined above) that affect the costs of achieving desired outcome goals.  Cost and need factors are reasonably well understood in K–12 cost analysis and many of those factors carry over into community college analysis. For one, regional competitiveness of faculty and staff wages most certainly plays into the estimation of costs. So too does economies of scale, both at the institutional and program level. We recommend adopting these well-established adjustments in K–12 studies to community college sector research.

Translating Empirical Evidence into Policy

Creating the research to establish expenditures necessary to support an adequate community college education should provide a strong basis for reform. However, it is only a step preliminary to implementing the research findings in the real world.

Whenever introducing empirical evidence into policy deliberations, especially where large sums of tax dollars are involved, expectations must be realistic. Cost estimates may inform policy, but they will likely never determine it directly and precisely. As Baker and Levin discuss in their background report, cost estimates in K–12 education are often used to benchmark whether and to what extent state school finance systems are meeting adequacy requirements. Estimates of the cost of achieving desired outcomes can assist policymakers in steering state funding systems in the right direction. Without such evidence, that direction is unknown.

Empirical estimates themselves may be imprecise, based on limited sets of outcomes, or other imperfect or incomplete data. But the evidence should not be disregarded outright for these reasons, because reasonable estimates are most certainly better than none at all. Those estimates can be used to set overall levels of funding and to determine how much more funding is needed for some students, in some programs and institutions, to achieve comparable rates of access, persistence, and completion.

How will policymakers greet studies of the true cost of a community college education? We begin this section by acknowledging the political impediments to reform. We then cite some reasons for optimism and make suggestions for reform to break the logjam on community college funding reform.

Acknowledging the Impediments to Reform

It is important to acknowledge frankly that policymakers seeking to act upon new research on the funding levels needed to promote a strong community college education will face considerable obstacles. Today’s system, which underfunds community colleges, is increasingly reliant upon tuition dollars rather than state support, and continues to rely heavily on the wealth of localities—both of which can undercut adequate funding.

As Richard Kahlenberg, Robert Shireman, Kimberly Quick, and Tariq Habash note in a background report for the working group, the current funding of community colleges is based on a hybrid model that draws a piece from four-year colleges (with some reliance on tuition dollars) and another piece from K–12 education (with some reliance on local appropriations). In some ways, however, this in-between position results in the worst of both worlds. The reliance on local funds is regressive , since wealthier districts supply more funds to community colleges in rich areas; and the reliance on tuition dollars means the burden of funding education can be shifted from the state to the individual—which is precisely what legislators have done in recent years, as the student population has grown more diverse. 68

Originally, tuition was not a major source of community college funding. Many of the early community colleges—at the time usually referred to as “junior” colleges—began as extensions of K–12 education systems and followed the K–12 model that is 100 percent funded by state and local appropriations. But this relationship has shifted over time. Between the 1999–2000 and 2014–15 academic years, the proportion of state and local funding of two-year colleges declined from 64 percent to 52 percent, and funding through tuition revenue increased from 22 percent to 33 percent. 69

Today, scaling investments to meet adequate levels of funding for community colleges faces three critical political challenges associated with political power realities, state budget constraints, and declining support for higher education as registered in public opinion research.

First, current institutional funding disparities—both those between four-year universities and community colleges and those among community colleges themselves—result in part from inequitable access to political power. 70 State representatives—who are more likely to have attended or sent their children to four-year institutions—may also be more likely to respond to these schools rather than to community colleges. 71

Second, state policymakers determining community college funding face budget constraints. States slashed their higher education budgets during the Great Recession, but even today, slow revenue growth—which economists attribute to a number of factors, including state decisions to enact costly tax cuts—poses challenges to meeting adequacy funding goals.

More troubling still, there is evidence that recent state disinvestment in public higher education may be related to the growing demographic diversity of the student population. Although conservatives complain about liberal bias among higher education faculty, Ronald Brownstein of The Atlantic makes the case that the changing demographics of the student body seems a more likely explanation for conservative enthusiasm to cut higher education budgets. There has been a “clear determination . . . to shift the burden from the community collectively to families individually precisely as the student body is reaching historic levels of diversity.” 72 As the nation’s population becomes blacker and browner, this challenge may become even more acute.

Finally, there is some evidence that support of and confidence in institutions of higher education have fallen among Republicans and conservatives. A 2018 New America survey shows that Republican support for funding is waning (even as overall impressions of higher education remain positive). According to a 2017 survey by Pew Research Center, moreover, 58 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the way things are going in the country, while just 36 percent say their effect is positive. The Pew survey had found Republicans’ attitudes towards college were positive as recently as 2014, when a 54 percent majority of Republicans and Republican-leaners said that colleges were having a positive effect. 73

Reasons for Optimism and a Path Forward

Although the current funding system—and the political dynamics underlying it—is troubling, we also think there are three reasons to be hopeful for reform.

First, community colleges have not suffered the same decline in popularity that higher education has as a whole. A 2018 Demos poll found that 85 percent of Americans have a favorable view of community colleges, compared with 66 percent who have such a view of private four-year colleges. 74 (See Figure 10.) Adam Harris, writing in The Atlantic , noted, “Despite lukewarm feelings about higher education generally, 80 percent of Americans have a positive view of the institution near them—that often means community colleges.” 75 Part of the relative popularity of two-year institutions may also have to do with their visible connection to workforce and economic development. Former Republican Tennessee governor Bill Haslam explicitly linked his support for community colleges to his larger “Drive to 55” campaign to boost economic development in the state by increasing to 55 percent the proportion of residents with a postsecondary credential. 76

Second, new research evidence can sometimes make a difference in public policy circles. For example, after publication of the research cited above finding that the City University of New York’s ASAP program’s benefits to taxpayers outweigh the costs by more than three to one, policymakers and philanthropists came together to increase funding for ASAP from roughly 1,000 students in 2010 to 25,000 students in 2018–19. 77

New research estimating the costs of an adequate community college education may be particularly persuasive to legislators because efficiency is baked into the methodology. When researchers seek to identify institutions that are already achieving adequate outcomes, the methodology calls on them to identify the most efficient of these institutions in assessing a minimum level of investment required. This feature of the study could be appealing to legislators who want any new financial investment to be applied with high levels of efficiency.

Third, there is reason to believe that the creation of a new federal-state partnership around providing adequate community college funding—grounded in research—could help break the logjam. As Kahlenberg, Shireman, Quick, and Habash note, the federal government has a long history of supporting federal-state partnerships in higher education, going back to the 1862 Morrill Act establishing land grant colleges. 78 Federal-state partnerships are common in a variety of fields, such as unemployment insurance, health care, and K–12 education. 79

We believe a new federal-state partnership to fund community colleges could create important new opportunities. 80 To begin with, the federal government can be a critical source of new funding for community colleges that changes the state-level funding dynamic. As long as states are constrained to what is seen as a zero-sum game within the realm of education (with four-year colleges, community colleges and K–12 schools competing for their share of a small pie of state resources), the politics of boosting community college funding are challenging. A new influx of federal funds could create a very different political environment.

In addition, a matching funds program in which the federal government provides new dollars only if states agree to increase their own investments can provide a strong incentive for states to commit new resources necessary to support community colleges. In the K–12 arena, federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has provided a modest amount of revenue but has given federal policy makers considerable leverage in encouraging states to enact a variety of forward-looking policies.

We are encouraged also by the example of federal–state partnerships in the health care sphere. Medicaid is a voluntary program that all states eventually adopted because of the federal matching funds made available. Likewise, while some conservative governors opposed the expansion of Medicaid funding, most recently under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is notable that a number of moderate and conservative governors agreed to take federal money, even though doing so required a modest expansion of state investments. Among the “red” and “purple” states that have adopted Medicaid expansion are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, and West Virginia. All told, thirty-three states (including Washington, D.C.) have adopted Medicaid expansion programs even though until recently twenty-six states have had Republican control of the executive and legislative branches. 81

In some ways, a matching funding program for community colleges could be even more attractive to state legislators and governors than Medicaid funding. One key difference, of course, is that Medicaid is an entitlement program whose budgetary commitments are open-ended, while community college funding can be more easily circumscribed and involves a more predictable set of financial commitments. In addition, community college education is not means-tested in the way that Medicaid is, so states may experience relatively greater political pressure from middle-class constituencies to sign onto a federal–state partnership that supports two-year institutions than to those supporting Medicaid. Finally, states have additional political pressure to invest in higher education to keep talented students in state and avoid a “brain drain,” whereas the same pressure to retain low-income families using Medicaid within state borders does not exist. 82

We also think that a federal–state partnership could be attractive to federal policymakers. Many have grown frustrated that in years past the federal government has substantially increased funding for the Pell Grant program, only to see state public institutions increase tuition as state governments withdraw resources per full time equivalent student. Federal financial aid expenditures tripled from $50 billion to over $150 billion between 1995 and 2015 in constant 2015 dollars, while state appropriations per full-time equivalent student fell in inflation-adjusted dollars by 28 percent. 83 A matching funds program would assure federal policymakers that states would do their part as well.

Community colleges were first created based upon an idea that is both pragmatic and idealistic: that as the economy’s need for skills increased, the United States needed a new kind of institution that would help realize the goal of social mobility. Cruelly, however, these institutions that disproportionately educate low-income and minority students have been starved of the funding needed to succeed. Policymakers have instructed community colleges to do more with less, even though that cramped point of view stifles the role that community colleges can play in American society.

There is a better way. New evidence demonstrates that money spent wisely on community colleges can yield a payoff to taxpayers that is more than three times the cost. 84 But rigorous research is needed to guide new investments, and to better understand the levels required.

Research on community colleges needs to catch up to elementary and secondary education, where for forty years, scholars have conducted studies on what constitutes adequate funding. This proposed area of research is complex, as we found over several months of discussions on how to apply K–12 costing-out techniques to the community colleges sector. But we believe this report creates a solid framework upon which researchers can build. It is vital that scholars undertake an effort to estimate what some of society’s most vulnerable students need in order to realize their potential—and thereby to allow the United States to attain its potential as well. Social mobility is written into the DNA of America, but we are unlikely to make significant progress unless we provide America’s community colleges the resources they need.

Members of The Century Foundation Working Group on Community College Financial Resources

Thomas Bailey (Columbia University)

Bruce Baker (Rutgers University)

Brooks Bowden (North Carolina State University)

Anthony Carnevale (Georgetown University)

Debbie Cochrane (The Institute for College Access and Success)

Michelle Cooper (Institute for Higher Education Policy)

Russ Deaton (Tennessee Board of Regents)

Wil Del Pilar (Education Trust)

David Deming (Harvard University)

Sara Goldrick-Rab (Temple University)

Harry Holzer (Georgetown University)

Tammy Kolbe (University of Vermont)

Jesse Levin (American Institutes for Research)

Bridget Terry Long (Harvard University)

Tatiana Melguizo (University of Southern California)

Gail Mellow (LaGuardia Community College)

Andrew Nichols (Education Trust)

George Pernsteiner (State Higher Education Executive Officers)

Ken Redd (National Association of College and University Business Officers)

Jennifer Rice (University of Maryland)

Robert Toutkoushian (University of Georgia)

Richard D. Kahlenberg (The Century Foundation), Executive Director

• See, for example, Raj Chetty et al., “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940,” NBER Working Paper No. 22910, December 2016, rev. March 2017, https://www.nber.org/papers/w22910 ; Richard V. Reeves and Eleanor Krause, “Raj Chetty in 14 charts: Big findings on opportunity and mobility we should all know,” Brookings Institution, January 11, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ ; and Bruce Stokes, “Public divided on prospects for the next generation,” Pew Research Center, June 5, 2017, http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/05/2-public-divided-on-prospects-for-the-next-generation/ .
• Anthony P. Carnevale, Artem Gulish, and Jeff Strohl, “Educational Adequacy in the Twenty-First Century,” The Century Foundation, May 2, 2018, 2, https://tcf.org/content/report/educational-adequacy-twenty-first-century/ .
• Nick Anderson, “‘We serve the top 100 percent’: California community college chief responds to Trump,” Washington Post, February 16, 2018 (quoting Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the California community college system), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/02/16/we-serve-the-top-100-percent-california-community-college-chief-responds-to-trump/.
• There are 1,047 public community colleges in the United States. See U.S. Department of Education, “Community College Facts at a Glance,” https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cclo/ccfacts.html . Unduplicated year-round enrollment shows 9 million undergraduates in public two-year colleges in 2015–16. See “Community College FAQs,” Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html . For resource levels, see discussion below.
• “Community College FAQs,” Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html (81 percent of entering community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher); Laura Horn and Paul Skomsvold, “Community College Student Outcomes 1994–2009,” U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences and National Center for Education Statistics, November 2011, Table 1, 2003–04 cohort (81 percent aspire to a bachelor’s degree); National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, Signature Report: Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates—Fall 2011 Cohort, December 2017, Appendix C, Table 39 (after six years, 23 percent complete at two-year institutions alone and an additional 15 percent complete a four-year degree).
• See discussion below.
• See Eleanor Krause and Isabel V. Sawhill, “Seven reasons to worry about the American middle class,” Brookings Institution, June 5, 2018 (citing NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finding an increase in pessimism about intergenerational mobility between 2007 and 2014).
• Bruce Stokes, “Public divided on prospects for the next generation,” Pew Research Center, June 5, 2017, http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/05/2-public-divided-on-prospects-for-the-next-generation/.
• Raj Chetty et al., “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940,” NBER Working Paper No. 22910, December 2016, rev. March 2017, https://www.nber.org/papers/w22910.
• See first figure in Richard V. Reeves and Eleanor Krause, “Raj Chetty in 14 charts: Big findings on opportunity and mobility we should all know,” Brookings Institution, January 11, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ .
• Sandy Baum and Charles Kurose, “Community Colleges in Context: Exploring Financing of Two- and Four-Year Institutions,” in Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Colleges and Restoring the American Dream (New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2013), 74, https://tcf.org/content/book/bridging-the-higher-education-divide
• See discussion below, including Jonathan Voss, presentation at “Higher Ed 2020: College Affordability Ideas for the Next Congress and Beyond,” The Century Foundation, September 26, 2018, https://tcf.org/content/event/higher-ed-2020-college-affordability-ideas-next-congress-beyond
• National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, “Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates—Fall 2011 Cohort, December 2017,” Appendix C, Table 39. This research is consistent with the 2004/2009 Beginning Postsecondary Student Longitudinal Study (BPS), which found that only 34.5 percent of students who started in a two-year college earned a degree or certificate (from their starting institution or another school) within six years (8.5 percent earned certificates, 14.4 percent earned associate’s degrees, and 11.6 percent earned bachelor’s degrees). See Bridging the Higher Education Divide , 30. For a more sanguine assessment, see Kevin Carey, “Revised Data Shows Community Colleges Have Been Underappreciated,” New York Times , October 31, 2017.
• According to the Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, 68 percent of students beginning at public two-year colleges in 2003–04 took one or more remedial classes in the six years after their initial enrollment. See “Community College FAQs,” Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html.
• C. Lockwood Reynolds, “Where to Attend? Estimating the Effects of Beginning at a Two-Year College,” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October 25, 2006, cited in William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College and America’s Public Universities (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 134.
• See, for example, Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins, Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015). See also Harry J. Holzer and Sandy Baum, Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017). Others have documented ways to improve the efficiency of developmental education. See Judith Scott-Clayton, Peter M. Crosta and Clive Belfield, “Improving the Targeting of Treatment: Evidence From College Remediation,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, October 2012, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18457.pdf ; and Bridget Terry Long, “Addressing the Academic Barriers to Higher Education,” Brookings Institution 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/research/addressing-the-academic-barriers-to-higher-education/.
• Donna M. Desrochers and Steven Hurlburt, Trends in College Spending 2003–2013 (Washington D.C.: American Institutes for Research, 2016), 24–27.
• It is commonly assumed that the first two years of college are less costly than the third and fourth, but Sandy Baum and Charles Kurose find that inequalities in spending between community colleges and four-year institutions remain after one accounts for that difference. See Sandy Baum and Charles Kurose, “Community Colleges in Context: Exploring Financing of Two and Four-Year Institutions,” in Bridging the Higher Education Divide: Strengthening Community Colleges and Restoring the American Dream (New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2013), 97 and 102.
• Donna M. Desrochers and Steven Hurlburt, “Trends in College Spending 2003 to 2013,” Delta Cost Project and the American Institutes of Research, January 2016, 24–27.
• Portions of this discussion are drawn from Richard D. Kahlenberg, Robert Shireman, Kimberly Quick, and Tariq Habash, “Policy Strategies for Pursuing Adequate Funding of Community Colleges,” The Century Foundation, October 25, 2018, https://tcf.org/content/report/policy-strategies-pursuing-adequate-funding-community-colleges/.
• See John Bound, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Sarah Turner, “Why Have College Completion Rates Declined? An Analysis of Changing Student Preparation and Collegiate Resources,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2, no. 3 (2010): 129–57. See also David J. Deming, “Increasing College Completion with a Federal Higher Education Matching Grant,” The Hamilton Project, April 2017, 12.
• See Bruce D. Baker, “How Money Matters for Schools,” Learning Policy Institute, December 2017, 14. See also Bruce D. Baker, “Does Money Matter in Education?” Albert Shanker Institute, 2nd edition, 2016, i.
• Rucker C. Johnson and Sean Tanner, “Money and Freedom: The Impact of California’s School Finance Reform,” Learning Policy Institute, February 2018, 9.
• David J. Deming and Christopher R. Walters, “The Impact of Price Caps and Spending Cuts on U.S. Postsecondary Attainment,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 23736, August 2017, 3.
• Ibid., Table 4.
• Ibid., p. 21. See also David J. Deming, “Increasing College Completion,” 2. See also Kolbe and Baker, 4 (regarding Deming’s findings having particular power at the community college level).
• For an important summary of current research on the benefits of higher education spending, see Fernando Furquim, “What do universities get for their instructional dollars? What research tells us about the relationship between spending and student outcomes in higher education,” The Century Foundation (forthcoming) (suggesting that spending on instruction and student supports is particularly effective).
• Juan Carlos Calcagno, Thomas Bailey, Davis Jenkins, Gregory Kienzl, and Timothy Leinbach, “Community College Student Success: What Institutional Characteristics Make a Difference?” Economics of Education Review 27 (2008): 632–45, 644. See also Jane Wellman, “Financial Characteristics of broad access public institutions,” background paper prepared for the Stanford Conference on Mapping Broad Access Higher Education, December 1–2, 2011, 21–22 (citing three research studies).
• Donna M. Desrochers and Jane V. Wellman, “Trends in College Spending 1999–2009,” Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability,2011, 30, http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends2011_Final_090711.pdf.
• Richard D. Kahlenberg, “Community of Equals? Few elites give much thought to community colleges. But they educate 44 percent of our undergraduates—and they need help,” Democracy Journal , Spring 2014.
• Susan Dynarski, “How to Improve Graduation Rates at Community Colleges,” New York Times , March 11, 2015; and Katherine Mangan, “Program’s Extra Support for Community-College Students Is Paying Off,” Chronicle of Higher Education , February 26, 2015.
• Bridging the Higher Education Divide , 35–40. See also David J. Deming, “Increasing College Completion,” 6, suggesting “A number of recent high-quality studies find large impacts of student supports and mentoring on persistence and degree completion.”
• “A Matter of Degrees: Practices to Pathways,” Center for Community College Student Engagement, University of Texas at Austin, 2014, https://www.ccsse.org/docs/matter_of_degrees_3.pdf.
• See Carnevale, Gulish, and Strohl, “Educational Adequacy in the Twenty-First Century,” 24–25 (citing Judith Scott-Clayton, “The Shapeless River: Does a Lack of Structure Inhibit Students’ Progress at Community Colleges?” CCRC Working Paper no. 25, Community College Research Center, 2011; Angela Boatman, “Evaluating Institution Efforts to Streamline Student Remediation: The Causal Effects of Tennessee Developmental Course Redesign Initiative,” National Center for Postsecondary Research, 2012; Craig Hayward and Terrence Willett, “Curricular Redesign and Gatekeeper Completion: A Multi-College Evaluation of the California Acceleration Project” The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges, 2014; Joshua Angrist, Daniel Lang, and Philip Oreopoulos, “Incentives and services for college achievement: Evidence from a randomized trial,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1, no. 1 (2009): 136–63; Eric Bettinger and Rachel Baker, “The Effects of Student Coaching in College: An Evaluation of a Randomized Experiment in Student Mentoring,” NBER Working Paper 16881, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011; Alexander K. Mayer, Reshma Patel, Timothy Rudd, and Alyssa Ratledge, “Designing Scholarships to Improve College Success: Final Report on the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration,” MDRC, 2015; Davis Jenkins, “Get with the Program: Accelerating Community College Students’ Entry into and Completion of Programs of Study,” CCRC Working Paper no. 32, Community College Research Center, Columbia University, 2011).
• Henry M. Levin and Emma Garcia, “Accelerating Community College Graduation Rates: A Benefit-Cost Analysis,” Journal of Higher Education 89, no. 1 (2018): 1–27.
• Ibid., 10 (present value at age 23 years at 2.5 percent discount rate, 2008–10).
• Ibid., 11–15. See also Philip Trostel, “It’s Not Just the Money: The Benefits of College Education to Individuals and Society,” Lumina Issue Papers, October 14, 2015, 9 and 14, https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/its-not-just-the-money.pdf (finding that the present value of net additional lifetime earnings of a community college associate degree holder of $246,000 in 2012)
• Bridging the Higher Education Divide , 17.
• Natasha Ushomirsky and David Williams, “Funding Gaps 2015: Too Many States Still Spend Less on Education Students Who Need the Most,” The Education Trust, March 2015, 5.
• Deborah A. Verstegen, “How Do States Pay for Schools? An Update of a 50-State Survey of Finance Policies and Programs,” Association for Education Finance and Policy Annual Conference, San Antonio, Texas, March 15, 2014, 8.
• Bruce Baker and Jesse Levin, “Estimating the Real Cost of Community College,” The Century Foundation, October 23, 2017, https://tcf.org/content/report/estimating-real-cost-community-college
• Bridging the Higher Education Divide , 40–41.
• See websites for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System ( https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ ) and the Delta Cost Project ( https://www.deltacostproject.org/ ).
• Tammy Kolbe and Bruce D. Baker, “Fiscal Equity and America’s Community Colleges,” Journal of Higher Education , May 18, 2018.
• Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges, “The Real Cost Project: Preliminary Report,” September 2003, 9–10, http://californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/Portals/0/Reports/realcost.pdf.
• “Real Cost Project,” 15.
• “Real Cost Project,” 19.
• “Real Cost Project,” 1–2, 15–19.
• Christopher Morphew and Bruce Baker, “On the Utility of National Datasets and Resource Cost Models for Estimating Faculty Instructional Costs in Higher Education,” Journal of Education Finance 33, no. 1 (2007): 20-48.
• Anthony P. Carnevale, Artem Gulish, and Jeff Strohl, “Educational Adequacy in the Twenty-First Century,” The Century Foundation, May 2, 2018, 2, https://tcf.org/content/report/educational-adequacy-twenty-first-century/.
• These figures are in 2016 dollars.
• For support for the notion that earnings growth could be a measure of community college performance, see Holzer and Baum, Making College Work , 175–76
• Jacob Mincer, Schooling, Experience and Earning (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1974).
• See, for example, Christine Woff-Eisenberg, “Amplifying Student Voices: The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success Project,” Ithaka S+R and Institute of Museum Sciences and Library Services, 2018, 11–15, https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/media/SR_Report_Amplifying_Student_Voices_CCLASS%20_08132018.pdf.
• The completion standard applies to students seeking a degree or certificate. Of course, some students take courses at community college in order to attain a new skill without seeking to complete a certificate or degree.
• When examining completion, we look to goals for the entire population rather than rates for the population in college, for the reasons outlined under Issue 1.
• Carnevale, Gulish and Strohl, “Educational Adequacy,” 2.
• An expansion of access to community college among those with lower achievement might initially weaken, rather than raise, these success rates.
• These success levels should be examined both at the institutional and the community-need level. Caution should be taken in judging schools or program based on rates of completion of degrees or certificates, as opposed to the number of completers among the population that needs to be served in the geographic area. An institution may have a reasonable strategy of offering very low-cost access to a broad swath of the local population, giving many adults the opportunity to try out an area of study with an expectation that many may choose not to continue (resulting in a low graduation rate). As long as the courses are affordable, no harm has been done, and many may benefit from the courses they did take. On the other hand, if the broad access consistently fails to produce the degrees and certificates that are appropriate given community needs and the pursuit of equity, or if it leaves former students with debts they cannot repay, then the broad-access strategy should be rethought.
• See Jay Chambers, T. Parrish, J. Levin, J. Smith, J. Guthrie, R. Seder, and L. Taylor, The New York Adequacy Study: Determining the Cost of Providing All Children in New York an Adequate Education (Palo Alto, Calif.: American Institutes for Research, 2004); and Jay Chambers, J. Levin, D. Delancey, and K. Manship, An Independent Comprehensive Study of the New Mexico Public School Funding Formula: Volume 1—Final Report (Palo Alto, Calif.: American Institutes for Research, 2008).
• See, for example, Sara Goldrick-Rab, “It’s Hard to Study if You’re Hungry,” New York Times , January 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/opinion/hunger-college-food-insecurity.html. See also “Food Insecurity: Better Information Could Help Eligible College Students Access Federal Food Assistance Benefits,” General Accountability Office, January 9, 2019, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-95.
• Harry J. Holzer and Sandy Baum, Making College Work: Pathways for Success for Disadvantaged Students (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 146.
• See Richard D. Kahlenberg, Robert Shireman, Kimberly Quick and Tariq Habash, “Policy Strategies for Pursuing Adequate Funding of Community Colleges,” The Century Foundation, October 25, 2018 https://tcf.org/content/report/policy-strategies-pursuing-adequate-funding-community-colleges/ .
• Jonathan Voss, vice president, Lake Research, presentation at “Higher Ed 2020: College Affordability Ideas for the Next Congress and Beyond,” The Century Foundation, September 26, 2018, https://tcf.org/content/event/higher-ed-2020-college-affordability-ideas-next-congress-beyond
• In Vermont, for example, a budgeting process that places social supports in the education budget—a practice not typically used by other states—has led to unfair criticisms that Vermont spends more than other states on education without comparable results.
• Portions of this discussion are drawn from Richard D. Kahlenberg, Robert Shireman, Kimberly Quick and Tariq Habash, “Policy Strategies for Pursuing Adequate Funding of Community Colleges,” The Century Foundation, October 25, 2018 https://tcf.org/content/report/policy-strategies-pursuing-adequate-funding-community-colleges/.
• See Kahlenberg, Shireman, Quick and Habash, Figure 5.
• Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).
• National Conference of State Legislatures, Legislator Demographics Survey, “State Legislators 2015 Highest Degree Attained,” http://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/About_State_Legislatures/Education.pdf. Nationally, the survey found that at least 73 percent of state legislators held a bachelor’s or advanced degree, with only 4 percent possessing less than a bachelor’s, and 23 percent missing data. Pew, who helped conduct the survey, also points out that lawmakers with business backgrounds hold the biggest share of seats.
• Ronald Brownstein, reply to “Letters: Why Have States Cut University Funds?” May 15, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/letters/archive/2018/05/letters-american-higher-education-hits-a-dangerous-milestone/560081/.
• Hannah Fingerhut, “Republicans skeptical of colleges’ impact on U.S., but most see benefits for workforce participation,” Pew Research Center, July 20, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/ .
• Adam Harris, “The Higher Education Nearly All Americans Love,” Atlantic , May 21, 2018.
• See Drive to 55 Alliance website, http://driveto55.org/.
• City University of New York, “Significant Increases in Associate Degree Graduation Rates: CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), March 1, 2017, http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/asap/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/03/ASAP_Program_Overview_Web.pdf.
• John Michael Lee Jr., and Samaad Wes Keys, “Land-Grant But Unequal: State One-to-One Funding for 1890 Land-Grant Universities,” Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, September 2013, 1–2.
• Jennifer Mishory, “Path to Debt-Free College: A Blueprint for Building a Successful Federal-State Partnership,” The Century Foundation, September 26, 2018, 3. For similar programs, see e.g. David Tandberg, Sophia Laderman, and Andy Carlson, “A Federal-State Partnership for True College Affordability,” State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, June 2017; David J. Deming, “Increasing College Completion with a Federal Higher Education Match,” The Hamilton Project, April 2017, 2; and “Fact Sheet: White House Unveils America’s College Promise Proposal,” The White House, January 9, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveils-america-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio.
• For an earlier call for a federal–state partnership for community colleges, see “Investing in American Education: The American Graduation Initiative,” The White House, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2009/07/14/investing-education-american-graduation-initiative , and “Transforming America’s Community Colleges,” The Brooking Institution, May 7, 2009, https://www.brookings.edu/events/transforming-americas-community-colleges-a-federal-policy-proposal-to-expand-opportunity-and-promote-economic-prosperity/.
• “Status of State Action on the Medicaid Expansion Decision,” Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, April 27, 2018, https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/state-activity-around-expanding-medicaid-under-the-affordable-care-act/?activeTab=map&currentTimeframe=0&selectedDistributions=current-status-of-medicaid-expansion-decision&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D. See also Deming, “Increasing College Completion,” 6 (citing the matching program structure as having been “used successfully to boost state Medicaid spending”).
• For discussion of state pressure to avoid “brain drain,” see Colleen Campbell, Center for American Progress, remarks at “Higher Ed 2020: College Affordability Ideas for the Next Congress and Beyond,” The Century Foundation, September 26, 2018, https://tcf.org/content/event/higher-ed-2020-college-affordability-ideas-next-congress-beyond
• See Deming and Walters, “The Impact of Price Caps,” 2.

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✍️Essay on Natural Resources: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words 

• Updated on  
• Nov 2, 2023

Wondering about how the resources provided by our planet Earth are depleting? Well, that’s true. We have come to the stage where we should start working towards saving our planet. We humans have used our resources in a humongous quantity. Therefore, it’s time we start working towards saving our planet for our future generations. Today we will provide you with a few samples of essay on natural resources which will help you write on this topic easily. 

This Blog Includes:

What are natural resources, types of natural resources, essay on natural resources in 100 words, essay on natural resources in 150 words, essay on natural resources in 200 words.

Natural Resources are resources which are present in nature independent of human actions. 

These are the resources that are created naturally by the environment, without any help from humans. Soil, stone, sunlight, air, plants, animals, fossil fuels, etc. are all natural resources.

In simple language, natural resources are naturally occurring materials which are useful to humankind. They can also be useful in a variety of ways such as in technological, economic or social contexts. These resources include building, clothing materials, food, water, fertilisers and geothermal energy. Natural resources were traditionally within the purview of the natural sciences.

Also Read: Essay on Save Environment: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Speaking of the type of natural resources, there are mainly two types of natural resources. These include Renewable and Non-renewable resources. 

Renewable Resources: These are those resources which are endlessly available to humans for several uses. These resources are trees, wind, and water.

Non-Renewable Resources: These resources are available to humans in infinite quantities as they are not renewable and their supply may eventually run out. Minerals and fossil fuels are a few examples.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of the English Language for Students

Natural resources are parts of the natural world that are useful to humans. Renewable resources are those that can be swiftly replenished, these include soil, water, and air., Non-renewable resources are those that need time to recover, such as minerals, oil, natural gas, etc. 

One should note that the survival of all life on Earth depends on natural resources. However, the usage of natural resources in excess use can cause ecosystem disruption. Many nations are taking action these days to protect their natural resources. Natural resources shouldn’t be used for purposes outside our needs. In order to preserve non-renewable resources, we should utilise renewable resources more frequently than non-renewable ones.

The organic aspects of nature that contribute to our way of life are known as natural resources. For survival, we rely on natural resources. Natural resources include things like air, water, soil, minerals, crops, etc. Resources like minerals, oil, and other resources are found in non-living organisms and take eons to regenerate. 

The distribution of natural resources is not even. Resources like these are also the primary driver of international trade relations for many nations. However, with time, these natural resources have now been overused by the human mankind beyond their limits. 

However, the unrestricted exploitation of natural resources is a challenge for all nations these days. To control this, a lot of nations are emphasising garbage recycling and employing more renewable resources than non-renewable ones. 

Sustainable development is the use of natural resources for current requirements without wasting them while keeping an eye on the future. It refers to the wise use of natural resources without sacrificing what coming generations will need.

Also Read: Essay on Unity in Diversity in 100 to 200 Words

Natural resources are materials found in the environment that humans use to survive.  From the very start, humans have been dependent on these resources. While some of these resources can be restored more rapidly than others, some require more time. Resources like sunlight, water, air, and other renewable resources are readily available and have higher recovery rates than consumption rates.

On the other hand, the formation and processing of non-renewable resources, such as minerals, oil, and natural gas, take a long time. Even the usage rate of these non-renewable resources is higher as compared to the renewable resources. While some natural resources are used immediately, others must first undergo processing.

Even while renewable resources are available in huge quantities, they should also be used responsibly. Both renewable and non-renewable resources require time to be created and processed. Therefore, it is very important for humans to use these resources in a limited quantity and leave some for future generations.

With time, humans are using these resources excessively. With the ever-increasing population, humans have already created a huge impact on the environment. To begin, humans are continuously polluting the air, water and noise. Buildings are being constructed on more land. The land is becoming less valuable in this way. Humans are soon becoming the biggest reason behind depleting natural resources, such as land, water, and air. 

Therefore, we mustn’t undervalue these resources. The moment has come for us to recognise the importance of using these resources sustainably.

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Natural Resources are substances which are naturally obtained from nature. Here are the 5 natural resources: Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Sand, Gems, and Metals.

Renewable resources are natural resources that can be replenished or regenerated at a rate comparable to the rate at which they are consumed or harvested. For example: Solar energy, Wind energy, Biomass, Geothermal energy, etc.

Conserving and saving natural resources is essential for sustainable development and the preservation of the environment. Here are some easy tips to save natural resources: Implementing the 3Rs in daily life; Adopting energy-efficient practices such as using energy-saving appliances; Reducing water wastage by fixing leaks, using water-efficient appliances, and practising mindful water usage in daily activities, etc.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Understanding Essay Goat: A Comprehensive Overview

The demands of clinical practice leave little time for nurses to devote to honing their writing skills. This is where Essay Goat emerges as a valuable asset, providing nurses with the tools, resources, and support they need to succeed in their writing endeavors.

As a book writing helper, Essay Goat offers nurses a plethora of features and functionalities designed to streamline the writing process and enhance the quality of written communication. Its user-friendly interface and intuitive design make it accessible to nurses of all levels of experience and expertise. From grammar and spell-checking tools to formatting assistance and citation management capabilities, Essay Goat equips nurses with the tools they need to produce clear, concise, and professional documents. Moreover, Essay Goat's intelligent algorithms offer personalized feedback and suggestions, guiding nurses in refining their writing style and ensuring accuracy and clarity in their communication.

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In the fast-paced and ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, effective communication through writing is essential for ensuring patient safety, quality of care, and professional advancement. By leveraging the capabilities of Essay Goat, nurses can enhance their writing proficiency, streamline their workflow, and contribute to the advancement of nursing practice and research. As Book Writing Helper continues to evolve and innovate, it will play an increasingly vital role in supporting nurses in their writing endeavors and empowering them to excel in their professional roles.

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Essay Goat emerges as a valuable ally in nurse writing services, offering a plethora of features and functionalities designed to streamline the writing process and enhance the quality of written communication. As a book writing helper, Nurse Writing Services provides nurses with grammar and spell-checking tools, formatting assistance, and citation management capabilities, ensuring that their written documents adhere to professional standards and conventions. Moreover, Essay Goat's intelligent algorithms offer valuable feedback and suggestions for improving the clarity, coherence, and effectiveness of nurses' writing, enabling them to convey complex information with precision and accuracy.

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How to Write the Community Essay for UPenn

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara and Aja Altenhof in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Writing about diversity, consider unconventional identities and perspectives, navigating the word count.

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) requires applicants to submit supplemental essays in addition to the main Common App essay . For the second supplemental essay, UPenn asks students to respond to the following prompt:

How will you explore community at Penn? Consider Penn will shape your perspective and identity, and how your identity and perspective will help shape Penn. (150-200 words)

This article provides some tips to help you craft your response to this essay prompt, including strategies to avoid common topics, as well as tips to navigate the short word limit.

When approaching this prompt, many students first think to write about diversity, equity, and inclusion. While this topic can work in some cases, it is important to note that this prompt is not inherently about diversity. It is first and foremost a space to showcase the best parts of yourself outside of the classroom that will positively impact, and thrive within, the UPenn community.

Students who have a unique or interesting approach to answering this question typically tend to be the most successful when it comes to writing about diversity for this prompt. If you are interested in writing about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but your topic is not nuanced or particularly strong, you can consider other strategies and topics for this essay.

One strategic way to choose a topic for this prompt is by being unconventional in how you define your perspective or identity, especially when you consider your mindset and elements of your personality. 

As you consider your perspective, it can be helpful to explore how that perspective has been defined through your experiences. For example, depending on your background, you could consider what it is like to go through life as an athlete, as a journalist, or as a debater. 

Keep in mind that you will ultimately have to consider how that perspective impacts your engagement with the community around you, and the personality and values that you bring to the table.

In truth, this supplemental essay may be the trickiest of the three UPenn essays to write. This is because you have to address both parts of the prompt, how UPenn is going to shape your perspective or identity, and how your identity and perspective will shape UPenn, all within just 200 words. There are a few useful tactics that you can employ to help navigate this essay’s short word count.

One trick you can use to help you navigate this essay is by using a “call and response structure.” In this structure, you describe a trait that you have and then, within the same sentence, articulate a behavior or an outcome that this trait will cause on campus. You can also use this structure in the opposite way, to highlight an aspect of Penn’s campus experience and the way in which it will impact your own identity or perspective.

Furthermore, because this essay is on the shorter side, it can be difficult to tell a full story within it. That said, you certainly can hint at an anecdote or an experience that relates to the value, unique perspective, and opportunities and experiences that you will bring with you to UPenn.

For more information on writing UPenn’s supplemental essays, check out our post on How to Write the UPenn Supplemental Essays 2022-2023 .

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Essay on Education for School Students and Children

500+ words essay on education.

Education is an important tool which is very useful in everybody’s life. Education is what differentiates us from other living beings on earth. It makes man the smartest creature on earth. It empowers humans and gets them ready to face challenges of life efficiently. With that being said, education still remains a luxury and not a necessity in our country. Educational awareness needs to be spread through the country to make education accessible. But, this remains incomplete without first analyzing the importance of education. Only when the people realize what significance it holds, can they consider it a necessity for a good life. In this essay on Education, we will see the importance of education and how it is a doorway to success.

Importance of Education

Education is the most significant tool in eliminating poverty and unemployment . Moreover, it enhances the commercial scenario and benefits the country overall. So, the higher the level of education in a country, the better the chances of development are.

In addition, this education also benefits an individual in various ways. It helps a person take a better and informed decision with the use of their knowledge. This increases the success rate of a person in life.

Subsequently, education is also responsible for providing with an enhanced lifestyle. It gives you career opportunities that can increase your quality of life.

Similarly, education also helps in making a person independent. When one is educated enough, they won’t have to depend on anyone else for their livelihood. They will be self-sufficient to earn for themselves and lead a good life.

Above all, education also enhances the self-confidence of a person and makes them certain of things in life. When we talk from the countries viewpoint, even then education plays a significant role. Educated people vote for the better candidate of the country. This ensures the development and growth of a nation.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Doorway to Success

To say that education is your doorway to success would be an understatement. It serves as the key which will unlock numerous doors that will lead to success. This will, in turn, help you build a better life for yourself.

An educated person has a lot of job opportunities waiting for them on the other side of the door. They can choose from a variety of options and not be obligated to do something they dislike. Most importantly, education impacts our perception positively. It helps us choose the right path and look at things from various viewpoints rather than just one.

With education, you can enhance your productivity and complete a task better in comparison to an uneducated person. However, one must always ensure that education solely does not ensure success.

It is a doorway to success which requires hard work, dedication and more after which can you open it successfully. All of these things together will make you successful in life.

In conclusion, education makes you a better person and teaches you various skills. It enhances your intellect and the ability to make rational decisions. It enhances the individual growth of a person.

Education also improves the economic growth of a country . Above all, it aids in building a better society for the citizens of a country. It helps to destroy the darkness of ignorance and bring light to the world.

FAQs on Education

Q.1 Why is Education Important?

A.1 Education is important because it is responsible for the overall development of a person. It helps you acquire skills which are necessary for becoming successful in life.

Q.2 How does Education serve as a Doorway to Success?

A.2 Education is a doorway to success because it offers you job opportunities. Furthermore, it changes our perception of life and makes it better.

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