Both American community colleges and Japanese short-term colleges are communal higher learning institutions, featuring in low tuitions, free enrollments, and flexible schedules, and thus enjoying a great popularity and significant position in the local social and economic constructions. However, American community colleges and Japanese short-term colleges do differ in scales, running models and student gender ratios. Thus, the writer of this paper believes that a systematic comparison of them in terms of their history, status-quo, similarities and differences will surely help improve Chinese educational reforms.