I’ve been looking at a lot of college websites while I’ve been working on a redesign for Cascadia Community College. Since a community college provides a lower level of education, you might think its website would be simpler. But no-o-o-o.
Community colleges have more audiences than 4-year colleges: not just college students but students who will go on to 4-year colleges and students who won’t; people who want PowerPoint classes and yoga classes; businesses that want employee training; ESL students; people who want a high school diploma; etc. Working on the Cascadia website, we found this beautiful site we all wanted to emulate, for Santa Clara University, but it just wouldn’t have worked for us. The homepage does a great job of blasting messages at one particular audience — see the main area with the message and gorgeous photo (on the live site, both change every few seconds):
Santa Clara University homepage
Live page at:
www.scu.edu 
The homepage provides all the categories of information that this audience needs — see the discreet little columns of links below the photo.
But you couldn’t use a layout like this to communicate with college students at the same time you were trying to reach business owners and people who want to learn ballroom dancing.
For an example of a homepage that targets multiple audiences, see Homepage design for Cascadia.edu.