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Article: America's best community colleges: why they're better than some of the "best" four-year universities.(OUR THIRD ANNUAL COLLEGE GUIDE)(Cover story)(Table)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- September 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the higher education family, community colleges are typically regarded as the poor cousins. Big college guides like U.S. News & World Report and the Princeton Review devote few, if any, of their glossy pages to community colleges, while reporters and pundits for elite publications have little to say about them as well.
Part of this is pure snobbery. Many of those who create and cover the mainstream college guides attended prestigious four-year schools--which helps to explain the annual preoccupation with whether Harvard or Princeton made the top of the list.
Part of it is also economics. The commercial guides don't have a market incentive to delve ...