ABSTRACT
In the wake of the civil rights movement in America, many radical thinkers sought to critically analyze the rhetoric and policy of early junior college leaders to ascertain the true mission of this institution in light of America’s professed ideals of democracy and equality. Many political critics and social scientists were animated by the civil rights and countercultural movements of the 1960s. From the 1970s into the 21st century the debate over the purposes of the American community college became more diverse and more heated, largely because of the charges of New Left critics. Wrapped in the broader debate over the competing missions of the community college is the assumption that any amount of certified education increases an individual’s social mobility and economic welfare. The uncertainty clouding the American economy has again revealed the contradictions at the heart of the community college and its place in American society.
