This digest offers general information about American community colleges and lists a variety of sources of additional information about these institutions. The digest provides the defining characteristics of community colleges and information on their curricula; statistics on enrollments and student characteristics; information on faculty characteristics; information on revenue sources; the names and addresses of nine organizations concerned with community college education; a list of periodicals focusing on community colleges; information on available Internet resources, including selected listservs, gophers, and Usenet news groups; and a bibliography of 16 major publications on community colleges. The digest notes that: (1) there are 1,364 public community colleges and 437 private two-year institutions in the United States; (2) 42% of all first-time, full-time freshmen enroll in community colleges; (3) in fall 1993, credit course enrollment totaled 2 million full-time and 3.5 million part-time students nationally; (4) the average student age is 32 years, though the modal age is 19; (5) 57.8% of all community college students are women; (6) 69.8% of community college students are Caucasian, 11.1% are African-American, 10.5% are Hispanic, 4.6% are Asian, 1.1% are Native American, and approximately 1% are non-resident aliens; (7) approximately 46.4% of all minorities enrolled in higher education are attending two-year colleges; (8) community colleges employ 76,413 faculty, with 69% employed on a part-time basis and 63.9% holding a master's degree; (9) the average salary for faculty was $42,101 in 1992; (10) state appropriations accounted for 43% of the operating revenues in fall 1992, while tuition accounted for 22%; and (11) average charges for tuition in 1996 were $1,245 at public community colleges and $11,502 at private two-year colleges. (ECF)