SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

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Abstract
The American community college has been considered a more democratic and meritocratic institution than its four‐year, BA counterpart. Accordingly, it has been touted as a leader in the battle for equal educational opportunity and social mobility for those of lower socio‐economic status. In the past decade, however, influential critics of the community college have argued that it is in reality a social expression of class‐based tracking that functions to preserve and reproduce the existing, unjust social order. Central to this indictment is the claim that the community college redirects the educational aspirations of large numbers of low‐status students away from four‐year degrees and toward two‐year terminal degrees and eventually lower‐status socioeconomic positions. The community college is neither democratic nor meritocratic. In this paper, we analyze such claims and re‐examine the situation of the community college in the American educational system. We are aided in this task through the analysis of higher education enrollment and outcome data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and by a theoretical analysis of the distributive behavior of the educational system. From these analyses, we conclude, to the contrary, that the community college is a fairly meritocratic institution, but one that was brought into existence to service the demand for postsecondary education by advantaged social groups. Far from vindicating the role of the community college, however, we argue in a final section on procedural justice that because the community college is meritocratic, it ill serves the realization of social justice. Nevertheless, we conclude by asking whether we can afford social justice at all costs.

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