"It's no coincidence that the most selective private universities also tend to be the richest. Or in the public realm, that the more elite an institution is, the more public money it gets," USA Today reports. "But that status quo increasingly is being challenged, buttressed by growing consensus that the nation's best and brightest alone can't keep the U.S. workforce afloat in an increasingly global economy. Today, the more urgent need is to ensure that more people complete at least some higher education, says a paper distributed this spring to presidential candidates. And "the fastest, most effective way" to achieve that is to focus on helping students who are most at risk of failing, says the paper by the non-profit State Higher Education Executive Officers. Such students are most likely to begin their college education at community colleges, which sit at the bottom of the pecking order for funding for higher education."