A Study On The Evolution Of The Educational Functions Of American Community Colleges

American Community College is a new type of short-term higher education system. It has made great contribution for American society to realize the popularization of higher education and construct the life-long educational system. The achievements of American Community College can not be separated from its strong educational functions, the three main educational functions are Transfer Education, Vocational Education and Community Education. The evolution of each educational function is a process of self-improvement, and the evolution is consistent with the social development, the American Community Colleges have cultivated various kinds of talents for the social and economic development. Community Colleges developed late and very slowly in China, and there exist many problems to be solved. It is very important to study the evolution of educational functions of America Community Colleges and analyze the external and internal factors that promote the evolution. Thus, the writer chose the "A Study on the Evolution of Educational Functions of American Community Colleges" as the topic of her master’s thesis.The paper mainly deals with the problem of the functions of American Community Colleges. The argument is that the functions of American Community Colleges have become varied and mature after experiencing a lot of changes, and the American Community Colleges have become an integral part in American higher education, they play a significant role in educating and training people.First, the writer gives an introduction about the American Community Colleges in the following aspects:related concepts, including "community", "junior college" and "community college"; related theories, including "the Popularization of Higher Education", "Pragmatism" and "Life-long Education"; the origin of American Community Colleges; the characteristics of American Community Colleges; the concepts of the three main educational functions, which are Transfer Education, Vocational Education and Community Education; and the characteristics of the functions and existing problems of the American Community Colleges. This part makes preparations for analyzing the evolution of educational functions.Second, the writer deals with the evolution of the three main educational function, analyzes the causes of each function by stages, each function has its preliminary stage, rapid development stage and new development stage. And at the end of this part, the writer summarizes the external and internal factors that promote the evolution of the three main educational functions. The external factors include the support from American government, the nongovernment influence and cultural factors. The internal factors include the school management, source of funding and the faculty. These external and internal factors that promote the evolution of the three main educational functions of American Community Colleges have important significance for reforming the educational function of Chinese Community Colleges.At last, the writer tries to draw lessons from the successful experiences of the evolution of the educational functions of American Community Colleges, in order to improve the educational functions of Chinese Community Colleges. The writer analyzes the present situation and the existing problems of Chinese Community Colleges, and analyzes the necessity to highly develop the Community College system in China in view of the popularization of higher education and lifelong education theory, and at last the writer put forward some suggestions for the development of Chinese Community Colleges through the successful experiences of American Community Colleges.