Unrealized Promises: Unequal Access, Affordability, and Excellence at Community Colleges in Southern California
From the Foreword by Gary Orfield
In
California,
community
colleges
have
long
played
a
central
role
in
the
state’s
higher
education
system.
Dating
back
to
the
1960
Master
Plan,
all
California
students
have
supposedly
been
assured
of
access
to
higher
education.
Community
colleges
were
slated
to
carry
the
largest
portion
of
the
load,
responsible
for
educating
and
then
either
graduating
or
transferring
two‐thirds
of
the
state’s
aspirants
to
a
post‐secondary
degree.
Extraordinarily
severe
funding
cuts
(and
the
accompanying
rise
in
fees)
will,
of
course,
do
little
to
make
good
on
that
long‐standing
promise.
During
a
time
of
serious
demographic
transition,
the
state
can
ill
afford
to
backpedal
on
its
pledges
to
a
rising
generation
of
black
and
Latino
youth,
who
are
very
disproportionately
concentrated
in
the
community
college
system.
These
students
will
make
up
a
majority
of
California’s
work force
in
short
order.
Without
access
to
higher
education,
the
educational
trajectory
of
multitudes
of
students
will
be
tragically
stunted,
and
the
state’s
economic
engine
will
continue
to
sputter.
Beyond providing the basic funding and infrastructure to sustain enrollment in community colleges, California must work to ensure that the programs are working to transfer and/or graduate degree‐seeking students. A report last fall, from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy, gave notice that the community college system is falling far short of these commitments: fully 70% of California’s community college students are not successfully transferring to 4‐year institutions within six years. Both external and internal challenges, then, threaten to extinguish the possibilities of an absolutely essential element of California’s higher educational system.
In compliance with the UC Open Access Policy, this report has been made available on eScholarship:
