This book provides a comprehensive overview of community college education in the United States, emphasizing trends affecting two-year colleges in the past decade. Chapter 1 identifies social forces contributing to the development and expansion of community colleges and the continuing changes in institutional purpose. Chapter 2 examines shifting patterns in student characteristics and goals, reasons for the predominance of part-time attendance, participation and achievement among minority students, attrition issues, and the most recent data on student transfer rates. Chapter 3 utilizes national data to illustrate differences between full- and part-time faculty and discusses issues related to tenure, salary, workload, faculty evaluation and preparation, moonlighting, and burnout. Chapter 4 reviews modifications in college management stemming from changes in institutional size, the advent of collective bargaining, reductions in available funds, and changes in governance and control. Chapter 5 describes funding patterns and their relationship to organizational shifts. Chapter 6 discusses the stability of the colleges' instructional forms and the use of instructional technology. Chapter 7 considers student personnel functions, including counseling, guidance, recruitment, retention, orientation, and extracurricular activities. Chapter 8 traces the rise of occupational education toward a central position in the curriculum. Chapter 9 focuses on remedial and developmental programs and addresses controversies surrounding student mainstreaming and restrictive programming. Chapter 10 examines adult and continuing education, lifelong learning, and community services. Chapters 11 and 12 examine curricular trends and controversies in the liberal arts and general education. Chapter 13 describes research efforts in and about community colleges, while chapter 14 addresses philosophical and practical questions regarding the transfer function and the colleges' role in enhancing progress toward higher degrees. Finally, chapter 15 offers projections for college demographics, organization, curriculum, instruction, and student services. Contains 45 pages of references. (MAB)