In conclusion, community colleges p

In conclusion, community colleges play a critical role in addressing the needs of people
with disabilities in the community. Since their beginning over 100 years ago, community
colleges have had an ―open door policy‖ and the mission of serving their local communities.
This is done through offering classes in a wide variety of academic and technical areas,specialized student and career services, affordable tuition, financial aid, and tutoring services to
support student success. Students with disabilities represent 12.4% of the overall student
population enrolled at community colleges (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006) and
this population is growing. Faculty need training to effectively teach these students and
administrators need training to manage the resources and make decisions essential to serving
them. Community college scholars and practitioners should seek new paradigms to better serve
the students with disabilities, particularly factoring in the resources available to the institution.
Research and assessment must be ongoing to ensure that community colleges are meeting their
commitments to special populations within the community. Moreover, the communities served,
as well as policy makers, need to support the community college‘s efforts to educate and train
students with disabilities, thus maximizing the students‘ potential for contributing to the
socioeconomic well being of the community, state, and country.