Who’s Our Competition?

By Matt Reed. It used to be relatively easy to identify a given community college’s competition. It might be another community college nearby that draws, at least in part, from the same feeder communities. (That varies by state; some states have tightly defined “service areas,” whether as counties or as “districts.” In others, such as Massachusetts, colleges just draw from whoever wants to attend.) If there were a for-profit or two in the area, add that. In a given program, there might be some rivalry with a nearby four-year school, although that tends to be fairly muted. And that would be about it. Read more...