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Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, who has studied and written about the U.S.'s community colleges, spoke with Scientific American about the prospects for a new era in the nation's higher education.

Why do you think the Biden-Harris administration has made community college central to its education plans?

If you look at the Biden platform for changing America, healing America, community colleges line up for a whole variety of reasons. They really are our quintessential institutions for social mobility. They take students from all backgrounds. If you run as Joe Biden did, on a platform of unifying the country, community colleges are an appropriate focus. They appeal to people of all political stripes, I think, because they do play this social mobility role, whereas the elite four-year colleges are seen as kind of gated communities. Community colleges are found in every congressional district, so they're unifying. And Jill Biden has taught in community colleges for years, often teaching remedial classes, so she knows firsthand what community colleges can do.

You've written that community college should be free for all, including those who can afford to pay for it. Why is that important?

As community colleges have increasingly become institutions for less advantaged students, they have become economically segregated and separate from institutions that serve more affluent students. We know that economic segregation in K-12 education is disastrous, and it is also troubling in higher education. You want institutions to educate students from all backgrounds together, in part, because when you have separate institutions for the poor, they tend to be underfunded. And those students are cut off from important networks that are critical to getting jobs. It's important who your classmates are. More than half of all jobs are filled through some sort of a connection. If community colleges are free to everyone, that can provide an incentive for upper-middle-class students to attend, which will enrich the experience for everyone, including low-income and working-class students.

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