Abstract
Excerpt: For the last five decades, public community colleges have faced unique financial challenges that rarely have received the attention of higher education leaders, politicians, and researchers. At the federal level from the inception of federal direct student aid policies in 1965 and 1972, community college students have been disproportionately financially disadvantaged as college citizens. For decades after federal direct student aid policies were passed, part-time students who have been predominantly enrolled in community colleges were limited to participating in most of these programs in favor of more full-time student populations that were enrolled in four-year public and private colleges and universities. The perception in Washington D.C. at the time direct student aid was created was that part-time students did not need as much student aid assistance as did full-time college and university students because they were living at home and not accruing comparable foregone earnings losses that fulltime students accumulated,1 and that the widespread availability of federal student aid meant states no longer had to maintain low tuition policies.2 Also, most community colleges were free or low tuition institutions and the direct student aid policies were designed to disproportionately aid higher tuition and fee institutions especially with federal direct student loan programs, Secondary Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG) and state direct student aid programs, which in most cases have been very price sensitive to higher tuition and fees.