Community college enrollments usually rise during tough economic times and the recent recession and slow recovery are no exception. According to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the number of students attending community colleges has grown dramatically in the last decade to about 12.4 million last fall. The AACC says that 1.4 million more students were enrolled in two-year colleges in the fall of 2010 than in the fall of 2007. No wonder many community college buildings are busting at the seams. Without large capital budgets at their disposal, few community colleges have the luxury of building their way out of their overcrowding problems, at least in the near term. But when they do get a chance to expand, make renovations or update building infrastructure, astute facilities managers often recommend that their schools embrace high performance "green" building concepts. The high performance schools approach can help administrators and facilities managers meet the pressures of growing enrollments and shrinking capital and operating budgets head on and focus on their most important mission--creating a better, more comfortable environment for students to learn and professors to teach.