Maryland community colleges work together to respond to the state’s education and economic needs.

President Barack Obama’s American Graduation Initiative, the pledge of $12 billion for America’s community colleges over a 10-year span, delighted Maryland offi cials because the state’s community-college enrollment is growing at more than 4 percent a year while public and personal budgets are shrinking.

“We now have a moment in the sun where people understand what we do and our value to the economy,” says Dr. Brian K. Johnson, president of the 59,000-student Montgomery County Community College.

With 16 community colleges serving the state’s 23 counties and Baltimore, community colleges are a high priority in Maryland.

“They (the governor and state lawmakers) realize community colleges are really critical all across the state to help people help themselves in these rough times,” says Clay Whitlow, executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges, the organization of the state’s community college presidents. “Nearly every lawmaker can claim a connection to a local community college.”

Maryland’s public higher education system allows schools and their students to clear operational hurdles fast and outpace many states in serving the nearly 500,000 people who take courses at one of the state’s community colleges each year.

Most counties have a public community college, no private colleges and only one public school system. These factors help community colleges establish what Whitlow calls “seamless relationships,” with their local county school system on a range of fronts from taking college courses for credit in high school to more clearly articulating local, low-cost, post-high school options.

In addition, all of the state’s four-year public universities, except two, are part of the University System of Maryland. With one policy covering most of the state’s four-year colleges, the university system and the 16 community colleges have developed one of the nation’s best transfer relationships.