The Search for Alternative Sources of Funding: Community Colleges and Private Fund-Raising

Much has been said and written about the comprehensive mission of the community college. Critics have assailed the attempts of "democracy's college " to be all things to those populating its service area. The two-year college's principal retort has been that comprehensive services are essential, lest the needs of a diverse clientele remain unfulfilled. Few community colleges today appear eager to abandon the broad menu of programs from which their very identity has been derived. Yet, in an era of rapidly diminishing financial resources, this notion of comprehensiveness is at serious risk. Breneman and Nelson (1981) admonished that "perhaps the greatest risk of an unflinching commitment to the comprehen-sive mission is that sufficient financial support will not materialize, and the college will suffer across the board, becoming less competitive and less distinctive in all program areas." The Reagan administration clearly perceives students as the real beneficiaries of higher education and, accordingly, expects them to pay a higher share of the costs than required in the past. Reductions in most federal student support programs