Established in the 1920s, the Education Policy Center (EPC) is the oldest center or institute at The University of Alabama. Our work centers on four interrelated areas: (a) access and finance of public higher education, (b) college completion, (c) Pell Grants, and (d) rural community colleges. As place-based institutions with service delivery areas typically assigned by state law/statute or regulations (Friedel, Killacky, Katsinas, & Miller, 2014), given the emphasis on place-based solutions following the 2009 and 2010 White House Memoranda on Place-Based Policies, why haven't the United States Departments of Education and Agriculture funded research on rural community colleges? As long as the discredited "urbanicity" definition continues to be used in Washington, America's 553 rural community colleges will likely operate well below the radar screen, and an important national asset will be underutilized. Since the last major foundation-funded rural community college program ended in 2002 when the Ford Foundation closed its Rural Community College Initiative (Kennamer & Katsinas, 2010), the lack of federal initiatives to illuminate the good works of these institutions is needed even more. If rural community college enrollments are just over a third of total enrollments, every federally appointed commission and study group should include a third of its representatives from rural community colleges.