Variations in Local Funding Sources for Community Colleges and Their Relationship to Institutional Characteristics

Community colleges are designed to serve their local communities by responding to the workforce demands of their local economies. Despite its ability to decrease the funding gap between two- and four-year institutions, many states provide no local funding to their community colleges. Among states that provide local funding to community colleges, we know very little about the specific sources of local funding that may be associated with educational inequities as suggested by K–12 literature. We developed a novel dataset regarding local funding sources for all community colleges across five years and used it to describe the sources of local funding to community colleges and their relationship to the colleges' institutional characteristics. Results showed that community colleges were predominantly funded by local property taxes but were also funded by other local sources, including consumption and income taxes. We also found geographic variations in where different local funding sources were collected. Our study provides a more nuanced understanding of local funding to community colleges and may aid policy makers in developing funding strategies to support community colleges and the students they serve.