Google's College Search Ignores Community Colleges

Beginning last year, Google added information about colleges to its search function, meaning that a search for a college now automatically pulls up data, much of it from the federal government, on the institution's selectivity, tuition, graduation rates, student loan repayment rates and expected earnings.

However, the search function does not include community colleges and also gives short shrift to for-profit institutions, noted an article the American Enterprise Institute published this week. The piece by Jason Delisle, a resident fellow at AEI, and Cody Christensen, a research associate there, also said community colleges appear like any other business on Google search, rather than as institutions of higher education.

"Google’s search-display magic is reserved for students interested in just one part of our higher education sector -- the one that mostly caters to traditional, full-time students seeking academic credentials who are often from upper-income households," wrote Delisle and Christensen.