Only 11.6 percent of the total 81.4 percent students entering community colleges for the first time achieve their goal of completing a bachelor's degree, reveals a report from the Century Foundation, a non-profit public research institution.

Overall, community colleges represent 45 percent of the collegiate population in the U.S.

Brian C. Mitchell, CEO of the Edvance Foundation, said that the results were more or less linked to the short-staffed advising offices at community colleges.

"You may know how to get to your local community college, but when you get there you have very good but overworked community college counselors," Brian C. Mitchell, CEO of the Edvance Foundation said.

In addition to the reduced staff at the offices, the community colleges experience unequal distribution of funds when compared to the prestigious public and private four-year universities.

In 2009, community colleges spent $12,957 per pupil, in comparison with $36,190 per student at public research universities and $66,744 at private research institutions. The funding for students at private and public institutions increased tremendously from 1999 to 2009, but at community colleges, it just grew by $1.

"Our higher education system, like the larger society, is growing more and more unequal," reveals the report. "We need radical innovations that redesign institutions and provide necessary funding tied to performance."

Most of the students enrolling at community colleges are first members in their family to pursue a higher education. They are eventually subjected to financial hardships as they are unaware of methods and avenues available for gathering monetary funds to pay for their colleges.

"If you're not used to the mechanisms of a four-year college or university financing structure, how do you navigate it?" Mitchell said.

Another recent report from the Treasury Department states that state budget cuts to community colleges have shifted the prospective students to for-profit schools. The acceptance rates have increased in those schools but have resulted in higher loan-default ratings and larger debt outcomes for students, mostly from among students from low-income and minority groups.

The report advises the government to level the playing field between community colleges and public universities; otherwise, community colleges will lose their importance in the higher education landscape.