The first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges will take place October 5, officials from the vice president’s office announced on Wednesday.
The vice president’s wife, Jill Biden, a longtime educator and community-college instructor, will lead the event.
President Obama had announced that Ms. Biden would lead the summit back in March, when he signed legislation overhauling the federal student-loan programs. The signing ceremony was held at Northern Virginia Community College, where Ms. Biden teaches, and the president used the occasion to reaffirm his administration’s commitment to those institutions, calling them “one of the great undervalued assets in our education system.”
The summit will bring together community colleges; business, philanthropy, and federal and state policy leaders; and students to discuss the role that two-year colleges play in developing America’s work force and achieving the president’s goal of leading the world by having the highest proportion of college graduates by 2020.
Community colleges are the largest segment of America’s higher-education system, enrolling more than eight million students each year.
As part of the summit dialogue, Americans across the country are encouraged to submit their thoughts and questions for discussion. The White House has set up a number of ways for the public to participate in the summit, which can be found online at http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/CommunityCollege. The White House especially wants to hear how students’ lives have been transformed after attending a community college.
