Janet E. Lieberman, who made college education more accessible to struggling high school students and recent immigrants, died March 19 in San Francisco. She was 97.

An educational innovator, she was the guiding spirit of LaGuardia Community College in Queens from its inception. She not only helped shape the mission of LaGuardia, a two-year college that now enrolls some 45,000 students from 150 countries, she also established collaborations with other educational institutions to attract high school students who had struggled academically, or had to hold down jobs while taking classes, or who could not afford a four-year college.

Dr. Lieberman won the 1989 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Higher Education, and the 2004 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Higher Education.