Community colleges, which now enroll about one-third of the country's 11 million undergraduates, crowd the very bottom of higher education's pecking order. Ranking below even the least prestigious of the four-year colleges and universities, these two-year schools struggle along without the assets that make for high intellectual status.
First of all, they are completely nonexclusive, admitting vir- tually anyone who walks through their doors. Their students usually have average academic preparation-or...