Christopher Beam has a nice article about President Obama’s devotion to community colleges across the country. If he gets what he wants, America’s community college system will be a few billion bucks better off. It’s a noble endeavor, and alone it isn’t enough.

As Beam notes, community colleges face a serious lack of respect. At the private high school that I attended, the local community college was perceived as a last resort; the place where kids who couldn’t or wouldn’t apply to a four-year college would go, so that the high school could retain its statistic that 99% of graduates go on to college. Essentially, attending a community college was seen as somehow shameful and an admission of failure.

Looking back, it really seems too bad that is had to be that way. Now that many of my peers are graduating into unemployment with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt on their backs, the value of overlooked community colleges is clearer than ever.

President Obama’s commitment is a good first step, not just monetarily, but in helping to crush the stigma that community college is a place for people that can’t do any better. He might not have attended a community college himself, but if Obama successfully sells the idea of these institutions as respectable places to get an education, it could be a real game-changer in higher education.

-Rob