Community colleges are a critical part of our nation’s educational system and serve a wide variety of students with a wide variety of goals. They offer an affordable first step to higher education for students who wish to stay close to home, or who may not yet have the necessary grades for a four-year school, and they provide marketable job skills to recent graduates or older professionals. Of course, every college has some students who are struggling, for whom achieving their goals remains out of reach. This dialogue presents three approaches that the college and community could take in order to help students achieve their goals and be more successful in college.

• Making sure students are able to do college-level work
• Helping students deal with the pressures in their lives
• Ensuring a rigorous and engaging academic experience