SALENA ZITO: An answer to the cost of college and community collapse: Community colleges.

There’s more. A community college often makes itself an integral part of its community. “We [are] situated inside of a community,” Community College of Allegheny County President Quintin B. Bullock says, “and most of the time individuals who choose the community college as their point of access of higher education and workforce training, they are making a commitment to stay in the community.”

Ninety-four percent of that university’s students remain, live, and work following graduation, Bullock says. “That affirms the importance of the community college.”

While the majority of the students in the other universities in the city leave the region after graduation, a system of higher education that is affordable and locally retains the graduates, making the community younger, smarter, and stronger, has to be better part of the national conversation as a solution for a variety of societal problems.

True.