On December 8, InsideHigerEd chronicled the work of one of CSCC's members, Stephen Katsinas. Their new report outlines the tension between state funding cuts of the Obama Administration Completion Agenda.

This collaborative project is a partnership of the Education Policy Center, the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges, and the American Association of Community Colleges.  The surveys were initiated by EPC Director Katsinas while at the University of North Texas in 2003, and transferred to UA’s Education Policy Center.  An advisory panel of NCSDCC members and national experts reviews the survey instrument each year. Beginning in 2007, a special section has been included each year:  Facilities (2007), State Student Aid and Tuition (2008), and Federal Issues including workers displaced by the recession, the new Pell Grant, the Dream Act, and ARRA funding (2009).  In July 2009, two days after the announcement by President Obama of his American Graduation Initiative, the Domestic Policy Staff of the White House asked EPC for a copy of the 2007 report. 

This dynamic partnership has resulted in very high response rates of 49, 50, and 49 state responses in each of the last three years. The survey is regularly featured in the national higher education media, including The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEd.  In 2009, a media plan was initiated resulting in mainstream press coverage as well in newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and Salt Lake Tribune. This led to an invited presentation on a panel at the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media sponsored by Teachers’ College, Columbia University and the New York Times Foundation with American Council on Education President Molly Broad in Chicago in November 2009. In 2010, all 51 possible responses were obtained, and articles about the report appeared in Inside Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Education Week.

Key Personnel:  Stephen Katsinas, Director, EPC; Melissa Tarrant, EPC Fellow (Ed.D. student in Higher Education, UA Gadsden Center); Jane N. Friedel, California's State University.