SUNY Chancellor to Serve on National Commission to Reshape the Future of Community Colleges

Albany – State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher is one of 36 individuals in the country today appointed to a new national commission tasked with reshaping the future of community colleges.

The commission was appointed by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and is comprised of individuals who represent a broad array of constituencies and expertise from education, business, policy, and communications. Over the next 10 months, the group will work to examine the opportunities and challenges confronting the nation's largest and fastest growing higher education sector.

Chancellor Zimpher said, “SUNY and its 30 community colleges that serve over a quarter of a million students are an essential higher education resource to New York. Collectively, they are critical to the economy of our state and the nation. The time is right for the convening of this commission, and I am honored to serve as a member.”

Community colleges currently enroll close to half of all U.S. undergraduates, according to AACC. The ratio is even greater at SUNY, where more than half (246,000) of the system’s 468,000 students are enrolled at 30 community colleges.

Community college enrollments have surged by double digits over the last two to three years, reflecting a deep and lingering U.S. recession and persistently high unemployment rate that has caused families to seek lower cost college alternatives and workers to throng to the classroom for new skills or careers.  

This new commission marks the third such effort to realign the community college mission to reflect national needs and changing times. The Truman Commission (1947) challenged higher education to provide universal access based on its belief that then-junior colleges could broaden and further democratize their mission by becoming community colleges. Four decades later, the AACC Futures Commission (1988) set forward a reform agenda designed to strengthen the comprehensive mission the Truman Commission originally proposed.

About the State University of New York

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating more than 467,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses with nearly 3 million alumni around the globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu.