Carrie B Kisker

As a community college scholar, consultant, and advocate, I—like many others—have watched in distress as higher education has come under attack from forces both within and without the academy. It is tempting to believe that these attacks began in January 2025, but in reality, many of them have been on a slow burn for decades, setting the stage for unprecedented levels of disruption on our campuses over the last several months and years. And sadly, although not surprisingly, this disruption has had the greatest effects on our most vulnerable populations and the institutions that serve them.

The Foundational Ideas Behind American Higher Education

For several years now I have been speaking and writing about the need to protect and preserve what I see as the five foundational pillars undergirding all of American higher education, each of which has come under attack, or is, in some cases, being allowed to erode from within:

1. Institutional Autonomy – In essence, a protection against autocracy; in practice, a right to self-governance through peer review
2. Academic Freedom – Directly responsible for America’s dominance in the research enterprise and necessary for both free inquiry and the promotion of critical thought
3. Free Expression – Not just allowing the free expression of ideas, but actively creating the conditions in which an exchange of opposing ideas can result in learning, self-discovery, and/or connection and common ground
4. Access and Equitable Support – Programs and policies that enable student success in and mobility among institutions
5. Commitment to the Public Good – Enacted through community service and partnerships, workforce engagement, and efforts to develop students as citizens and productive members of society

Anyone paying even the remotest attention to higher education these days could list a dozen or more ways in which these five pillars are being threatened by federal and state policies, executive orders, legislative mandates, and a general environment in which fear of reprisal has created a chilling effect that extends from classrooms to faculty offices to administrative C-suites.

Even in the court of public opinion, where community colleges were once seen as higher ed’s best kept secret,¹ a generalized distrust of all institutions and a hyper-focus on the private labor-market returns associated with various college degrees, which precludes consideration of higher education’s public purposes and benefits, have led to a resurgent belief among many that college is no longer “the best way to get ahead in the US.”²

It is clear that nothing less than the future of American higher education is at stake, and yet the path forward for those who believe in our institutions, and in the students who overcome tremendous odds to attend classes every day, can feel opaque.

Three Paths Forward

I offer three categories of action to protect and preserve our system of higher education, to fight for the community college mission, and to continue providing equitable support for all students. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, and all three can be accomplished by faculty, administrators, trustees, students, and others.

The Path of Connection. When your institutions are under attack, silence both looks and feels like submission. But standing alone against ideas that would harm the students and communities you serve can be dangerous. Thus, community colleges need to double down on the formation of connections and alliances across campuses, across institutions, and across sectors. Indeed, forming coalitions may be the best defense against intrusions into institutional autonomy, the most productive way of protecting students, and the most fruitful way to illustrate the transformative power of a community college education.

The Path of Resistance. We tend to think of resistance as a defensive play, a reaction to a new idea or attack. However, in our current climate, a proactive form of resistance may be the best, and safest, way to counter ideas that are detrimental to the community college mission. Indeed, every single one of us can go on offense by telling the community college story and by amplifying the voices and experiences of students whose lives have been transformed and whose communities have been uplifted. Making the case for the community college and the work it does to enable social mobility and economic prosperity adds a layer of protective padding to the system, making it less likely that each attack will result in the toppling of a foundational pillar.

The Path of Innovation. When we are under attack, our instinct is to circle the wagons and protect whatever currently exists. But intellectually, we also know that some of the most innovative changes are born of crisis. So, if we can train ourselves to appreciate the opportunities afforded by disruption—to protect the fundamental values we hold dear yet at the same time innovate how we enact those values—we can neutralize external attempts to dictate what needs to change and how, and instead become innovators who constantly seek new ways of equitably serving students and enacting the community college mission.

These three paths forward are not easy, nor are they free of pitfalls or hidden twists and turns. Yet, it is essential that we walk them together, as colleagues and as educators who believe in the principles on which our system rests and the life-changing impact of our institutions.

ⁱ Humphreys, D. (2023, March 15). Advancing Civic Learning in a Fraught Political Environment [Conference presentation]. Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Leadership Forum, Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
ⁱⁱ Jaschik, S. (2022, Oct. 25). Democrats, Republicans and Higher Education. Inside Higher Ed.