February 28, 2011 12:25PM # Some ‘Unsung Heroes’ These Colleges Are By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE Heating and cooling equipment installed upside down. A ramp for the disabled too steep for wheelchairs. A leaning tower of time. A $3.4 million renovation for a theater slated for demolition. Payouts to everyone from airborne videographers to feng shui experts. Welcome to community college! These and a litany of other failures and abuses are chronicled in a [new *Los Angeles Times* article](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-build1-20110227,0,6407507,full.story) on the disaster that has been the Los Angeles Community College District’s decade-long, $5.7 billion building orgy. It’s a tale made especially sickening by California college officials’ repeated wailing that state budget cuts are forcing them to [dig “deep into bone.”](http://chronicle.com/article/Californias-Public-Colleges/125910/) It’s also galling in the face of Washington politicians’ [continued berating](http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/02/24/qt/another_senate_panel_plans_hearing_on_for_profit_colleges) of for-profit schools and blind-eye-turning toward excess throughout higher ed. And topping it all off, President Obama recently proclaimed community colleges the “unsung heroes” of American education. [They’ve certainly earned](https://www.cato.org/enough-community-college-pda/) the “unsung” part. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).