increasing access

Ahead of Saturday’s rollout of the new SAT, two exam-prep tutors weigh in with their concerns.

About a quarter of the students who attend community college in the U.S. come from immigrant backgrounds. They face the same challenges as their non-immigrant classmates but they also experience a different set of struggles, related to language, culture, and helping their families navigate life in a new land.

As part of our weeklong series on community colleges, "College Material," host of WGBH's Greater Boston Jim Braude weighs in on whether community colleges should be free. 

For many of the hundreds of thousands of students attending community college in the United States, focusing solely on school is not an option. According to the results of a WGBH News polls, 70 percent of students enrolled in community college are also working - many of them full-time. In response, community colleges are trying to provide the right support for working students who struggle to stay afloat.

Ahead of his State of the Union address, President Obama was in Knoxville, Tennessee, Friday where he proposed making community college tuition-free for millions of students who keep their grades up.

Obama first announced his plan Thursday evening aboard Air Force One in a video posted exclusively to the social networks Facebook and Vine.