Khaleigh Reed stood onstage recently at the University of Colorado Boulder introducing an author she admired: Ibram X. Kendi, the writer of “How to Be an Antiracist.” The event was the keynote of the university’s five-day Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, and the role was an honor for the senior, president of the Black Women’s Alliance. 

It was a moment she could not have imagined just a few years earlier, beginning community college in her hometown of Colorado Springs. At the time, applying to a four-year university felt out of reach with the limited scholarships available to her. But after a few years of deliberate academic and financial planning, Reed found herself not just introducing Kendi onstage but nearing completion of a bachelor’s degree and considering jobs and graduate programs beyond.

“The transition from community college to Boulder wasn’t always easy, but this is the way it worked for me,” said Reed, a senior. “Now I’m in a great place. I’m a very different person than I was then, and I saved a lot of money.”

Reed’s journey from a local community college to a bachelor’s degree represents one of many ways to achieve career credentials. The latest figures for higher education show a small uptick in enrollment and underscore the significance of community college — as well as students’ growing awareness of their diverse options. Overall enrollment figures from fall 2025 show a 1 percent increase, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Within that number are micro stories: The community college sector experienced a 3 percent increase, the lion’s share of growth, while public four-year colleges went up 1.4 percent. Private for-profit and nonprofit four-year colleges saw a decline of 2 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

The figures reflect more than the current crisis of affordability, said Martha Parham, senior vice president of public relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, though there’s that. They affirm the tactical, versatile ways community college helps students achieve their career goals — whether that involves gaining transfer credits affordably, training to join a manufacturing workforce, or testing one’s chops in the arts.

“The strategic use of community college is just a smart way when we think about the student loan crisis and excessive debt,” she said. “Community colleges are responsive to the needs of their local communities, they’re accredited, they’re affordable, and they’re accessible.” 

What appears to be fueling growing interest now is their role in the conversation about return on investment and students’ strategic appreciation of the ways they can customize offerings for their own goals.

There is a well-documented history of prominent Americans who’ve attended community colleges. Jackie Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he became the first athlete to letter in four sports. Steve Jobs took classes at De Anza College after leaving Reed College. Arnold Schwarzenegger studied business at Santa Monica College after immigrating to the United States, his accessible entry point into American entrepreneurship. Designer Eileen Fisher, chef Guy Fieri, and performers Queen Latifah, Halle Berry, and Tom Hanks all credit community college with giving them their starts.

About 40 to 45 percent of all undergraduate students in the United States are enrolled in community college, a figure that swelled to its current levels dramatically in the late 20th century and has been fairly constant since. What appears to be fueling growing interest now is their role in the conversation about return on investment and students’ strategic appreciation of the ways they can customize offerings for their own goals: for dual enrollment (high school students taking courses), associate’s degree and certification programs, and affordable credit attainment en route to a bachelor’s degree. 

High Schoolers in Higher Ed

Of the added 3 percent of students who enrolled in community colleges in fall 2025, almost one third of them were 17 or younger, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — meaning, they were still in high school. This “dual enrollment” status enables students to earn transferable college credits before they graduate. What was once a niche option for advanced students has become a more mainstream pathway, a way to reduce college costs and accelerate time to degree. And in some communities where high schools are under-resourced, community college can be the only way students can take the courses they need to pursue more challenging or specialized paths.

When Emily Harmon attended high school in a rural corner of northeast New York, her small school didn’t offer many science options. A single K-12 building served about 330 students, didn’t offer any Advanced Placement or honors classes, and had limited electives. She wanted to pursue engineering and, throughout her junior and senior years, took classes at two community colleges. After graduation, she attended Cornell with a full scholarship. 

In this way, dual enrollment blurs the boundary between secondary and postsecondary education, reframing college credits as something students can work toward directly while in high school — for a cost, Harmon noted, not much more than the price would have been to take the A.P. exam toward college credit.

“In the world of underfunded rural public education, it was decent setup,” she recalled. “I think it’s always a good thing to show that you took the most advanced classes possible in your situation, and in my case, that’s how I could do it. And if I went to a New York state college or a less stringent private university, I could’ve placed out of a lot with those credits.” Cornell did not accept the credits for her science classes taken in high school. But Harmon notes that one of her classmates who took the same science classes was able to enter the State University of New York at Albany with the credits of a mid-year sophomore. 

Certifications and the Pipeline to E.M.T.s, Apple, and BMW

Two-year degrees and short-term certificate programs — many designed to be completed in months — draw students to community college seeking fast, practical routes into the workforce. These programs are often built in close partnership with regional employers and tailored to labor needs.

This workforce focus is not incidental; it is foundational. Many of the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. economy now require education beyond high school, but not necessarily a four-year degree. Community colleges occupy that middle ground, translating employer demand into credentials that are short, targeted, and relatively affordable. They train the majority of the nation’s nurses and first responders, as well as workers in fields like advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, and logistics — roles that keep regional economies running but rarely feature in the public’s image of higher education.

To get a sense of what’s available, prospective students need only call their local community college, which in many cases, has programs aligned with other communities and states, as well.

“There are thousands of different programs across the country that speak to a local workforce with global computing skills, like an Arizona school with an environment to train cyber security experts mimicking real hacking scenarios,” said Parham of the A.A.C.C. “But we also have very local programs that service the local workforce with curricula that align directly with available regional jobs. South Carolina has a program for certified BMW mechanics. Tesla does in its backyard. I’ve seen slot machine repair technicians come out of programs in Nevada. Community colleges are responsive to local business needs.” 

The appeal of these programs extends beyond recent high school graduates. Community colleges enroll a disproportionate number of older students — parents, midcareer workers, and people returning to school after job disruptions — many of whom are balancing education with work and family responsibilities. For them, short-term credentials offer a quicker return on investment and a clearer link between education and employment than traditional degree programs.

Community College as On-ramp to a Bachelor’s Degree

When he was a high-performing high school junior in Massachusetts, Robert carved out a unique way to enrich both his academic path and his passions while saving money. After he graduated high school, he spent one year taking core courses at a local community college while performing gig work in a regional jazz ensemble. A year later, when he was accepted into the University of Massachusetts Amherst Commonwealth Honors College, he was able to focus exclusively on his joint degree in math and computer science. 

“Community College allowed him to knock out all prerequisite courses,” said his mother, who is a youth career coach. She praised the excellent adjuncts at her son’s community college, where teaching was grounded in real-world experience. “Financially, the cost for the year was 10 percent of a residential private or out-of-state public four-year college. And the wider age range of peers really helped younger students see how adults process a day of mixed learning and work, which was a great model for being organized and serious.”

This use of community college as a low-cost on-ramp to a bachelor’s degree is a popular one. Like Khaleigh Reed, students accrue basic credits at a local community college for a year or two, then plan to transfer to a four-year institution — maintaining a minimum G.P.A. to take advantage of transfer-guarantee and articulation agreements that allow students to move seamlessly into public four-year institutions. Programs such as California’s Associate Degree for Transfer and the New England Transfer Guarantee are designed to remove uncertainty from the process while dramatically reducing the cost of a bachelor’s degree. Currently, about 31 states have some form of transfer program to ensure and ease transition to the state’s public universities.

All of which sounds good on paper. But life has a way of being complex, particularly for students whose family, financial, and work circumstances made four-year college difficult in the first place. An estimated 80 percent of community college students begin with the intention to pursue a four-year degree, a transfer process often called the “2+2 pathway.” In actuality, about 30 percent do transfer to a four-year school within six years, and roughly half of those complete the bachelor’s degree, according to a joint report by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University; the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program; and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.  

“Priorities change. Life gets lifey. I had all the best intentions of finishing or trying something new, but fate throws you a few curve balls,” said Yvette, a single mother and social services administrator in Rhode Island. “Sometimes your workaround ends up being fine after all. What I do is rewarding.” 

Education is, after all, a course of discovery, and a lower-priced school lowers the stakes if the path ends up not being the right one. Knowing that outcomes can be mixed makes the price point especially important. What is the harm in of venturing to take a basic class in computing, or introduction to acting? 

Tom Hanks is a case in point. He took some classes at Chabot Community College, where he first began to study acting, then transferred to state college for a year before dropping out to pursue acting full-time. “That place made me what I am today,” he wrote in a New York Times opinion piece and love letter to the appetite-whetting possibilities of community college.

The experience, he wrote, was formative not because it pointed immediately to a career, but because it allowed him to experiment without the financial pressure to decide too quickly — an approach he later credited with shaping how he thinks about storytelling and creative work. 

“Classes I took at Chabot have rippled through my professional pond. I produced the HBO mini-series ‘John Adams’ with an outline format I learned from a pipe-smoking historian, James Coovelis, whose lectures were riveting,” he wrote. “High school graduates without the finances for a higher education can postpone taking on big loans and maybe luck into the class that will redefine their life’s work.”

Hanks, for one, is a big fan of free community college, some form of which is available in about 35 states. These programs, many called College Promise or Reconnect, often offer two years of free tuition for eligible in-state students who meet certain conditions, like G.P.A. requirements and income limits.

His hope, he wrote, is that free community college will lower obstacles to veterans, mothers, workers who have been out of the job market, and high school graduates without the finances for a higher education who might luck into the class that will inspire their life’s work.

“Many lives,” he wrote, “will be changed.”