THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATIONAL-OPPORTUNITY - STATES AND THE LEGISLATIVE ORGANIZATION OF COMMUNITY-COLLEGE SYSTEMS

Students' abilities to transfer from community colleges to baccalaurea te-granting colleges and universities is an area that has produced con siderable discourse during the twentieth century. Recent scholarship s uggests that opportunities to transfer depend on the organization and curricular direction of community colleges, an outcome predominately i nfluenced by educational administrators and elected state representati ves. This article employs a macrosociological theory of education to e xplain the legitimation of a contextual framework within which opportu nities to transfer become available to students who attend two-year co lleges. By examining legislative enactments in the 48 contiguous state s, this article finds that the structure of community college systems is not uniform across states. Only a small proportion of states have c arefully coordinated local community colleges into statewide systems a nd incorporated them into their higher-educational systems. Although t wo factors associated with the creation of state community college sys tems are identified in this article, they are not found to influence t he subsequent coordination of the system with higher education. Instea d, the type of governance authority established (public education or h igher education) is found to be an important factor in the coordinatio n of community colleges with other higher-educational institutions. Be cause legislative histories provide a framework with which to identify states' commitments to community college systems and their incorporat ion into higher education, the article concludes that studies of stude nt opportunities and outcomes must be examined in the context of the s tate educational systems.