Current educational and fiscal trends have combined to create a complex management environment in which two-year colleges have had to forgo long-range planning and concentrate on the immediate problem of dealing with ongoing change. The dilemma caused by this change is evident in the intensive reexamination of what community colleges should be and in the increasing need to plan programs, allocate resources, and negotiate collective bargaining contracts without any indication of future funding levels. Because this ongoing change threatens academic excellence and the potential for professional advancement that faculty need to perform well, two-year colleges must initiate original responses to these problems, such as the creation of student-centered guidelines for change management and the utilization of participatory management techniques to involve the entire institution in adapting to changing situations. Colleges must also deal with special problems and concerns, including the influence of pressure groups on legislatures, the need to adopt new budgeting techniques in the face of reduced funding, the effect of increasing tuition on educational access, and the pros and cons of adopting marketing techniques for student recruitment. Other issues intertwined with these problems include the use of institutional research, and the impact of trustee involvement, accountability, and student attrition. (JP)