Photo: Kelsey Wroten

Of the country's nearly 18 million undergraduates, more than 40 percent go to community college, and of those, only 62 percent can afford to go to college full time. By contrast, a mere 0.4 percent of students in the U.S. attend one of the Ivies. 

And yet, students who attend community colleges are often the most shortchanged. 

Photo: Michael Morgenstern

Improving higher-education outcomes requires tempering high aspirations with sometimes harsh realism. Students need more options and pathways to success, and more active guidance toward the best decisions considering their individual prospects and labor-market realities.