美国是高等职业教育比较发达的国家,社区学院是美国实施高等职业教育的主要场所。从历史考察来看,社区学院起源于19世纪末和20世纪初的初级学院,在20世纪50～80年代间迅速发展,至今,已有1442所之多,占美国高等院校39.7%,在校生556.5万人,占高校在校生总数的38.9%。 The United States is a country where higher vocational education is more developed. Community colleges are the main places where higher vocational education is implemented in the United States. From a historical perspective, the community colleges originated in the junior colleges of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and developed rapidly from the 1950s to the 1980s. So far, as many as 1,442, accounting for 39.7% of the U.S. institutions of higher learning, 5.565 million people, accounting for 38.9% of the total number of university students.