Proprietary, for-profit, and university institutions all compete for the same pool of potential students, and as more schools emerge in the education market, the pool of American students continues to shrink. It's time for community colleges to look outside of national boundaries when considering recruitment strategies. It's not such a terrible task, considering that an American degree is in demand all over the world. It makes good economic sense for international students to cut their travel and living abroad expenses in half, yet by studying at an American school in their own country, they still are able to experience our education system. The international community values the community college model for many reasons, including the economic benefit of being able to place a student directly into the workforce in sometimes less than two years.
Global education does a lot for shedding egocentric and ethnocentric attitudes.
Indeed, the United States is hardly the only place on Earth. What happens outside of our national boundaries does indeed affect the price of an automobile, per-capita income, national security, and perhaps even one's personal freedom. Global education can help community college students make this connection. Global education is more than just supporting an exchange program, or offering an ESL class every fall semester. It's about community colleges thinking of the world as their service area.