In the United States, the key challenge faced by community college students is the lack of support and assistance because these individuals are often first-generation students, they can be described as non-traditional students, and they often represent vulnerable categories of populations. As a result, the lack of support to help them adapt to the campus culture and new academic environments can negatively influence the academic performance of many community college students who have low academic preparation and need assistance. One of the typical strategies to address this issue is mentoring, but the problem is that not all community colleges in the country have funds to implement effective mentoring programs involving the faculty and students.
To solve the problem of the lack of mentoring in many community colleges of the United States, the national government should guarantee that all community colleges in the country are obligated by a decree to implement formal mentoring programs. Currently, faculty mentoring and student mentoring are proposed in not all community colleges, and they are not financed appropriately to attract mentors and make these programs work effectively. The next step is the provision of funding for formal mentoring programs in all community colleges in the country to finance the work of mentors from the staff and students.
To address the discussed issue, it is necessary to target both legislative and executive branches of the national and state governments. The reason is that the authorities need to develop a decree according to which all community colleges will be obligated to implement formal mentoring programs, and they will be funded by the state, sponsors, and college resources. Also, it is necessary to guarantee that the policy or decree is enacted concerning the executive branch.
They created a national interest group that supports the interests of community college students can influence government officials through institutional advertising, creating iron triangles and grassroots lobbying. The first step is to contact the authorities in those community colleges where there are no formal mentor programs and spread the information about the necessity of such programs through institutional advertising. This approach will allow for involving more interested parties and creating issue networks or iron triangles as the next step. It is important to attract the faculty members, influential persons who have graduated from community colleges, politicians, the members of MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, and the representatives of the government to the iron triangle to make them formulate the petition to the government to address the discussed issue in higher education. The next step will be contacting the government by the iron triangle members as part of the grassroots lobbying strategy.
Collective goods are defined as publicly available benefits that can be shared by all people, not only members of an interest group. In this case, the interest group will provide a collective good associated with improving the quality of support in community colleges for all community college students and members of their families who will be indirectly influenced by the initiative. The free-rider problem is associated with the fact that many people interested in resolving the issue do not participate in activities to overcome this concern. This problem will be addressed with the help of spreading the information about benefits of mentoring among community college faculties, students, and communities with the focus on the idea that this beneficial practice will be adopted in all institutions if it is discussed by supporters of the idea in higher educational circles, at conferences, and the state governmental level.
All these activities will be important to attract the attention of the public to the issue of mentoring in community colleges. Also, it is also necessary to combine efforts of the interest group with representatives of MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership and other similar organizations in the United States. In this case, it is possible to achieve positive outcomes.