The Baccalaureate in the California Community College: Current Challenges & Future Prospects
Executive Summary
Concerns over the United States’ global standing have spurred a national focus on improving postsecondary attainment. At the same time, many sectors of the economy find they have difficulty recruiting highly trained individuals to fill the good jobs that exist; jobs like nursing, respiratory care, dental hygiene, and various mid-level management positions. One response to these workforce needs has been to establish specific baccalaureate degree programs in community colleges across the nation. California has recently become the 22nd state to inaugurate the community college baccalaureate. It is currently preparing to launch the initiative in 15 colleges across the state by the 2017-18 academic year.
Gaining the political support to establish these programs in community colleges is typically a difficult juggling act, respecting the territory of four-year colleges and universities and offering programs only in disciplines and in geographical areas that do not compete with senior institutions. Not surprisingly, the political discourse has been around “meeting workforce needs,” to stimulate economic activity, and create more jobs. A win-win for all involved, except that this framing risks missing a critical opportunity to increase equity in access to the baccalaureate degree.
In California, as across the nation, African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos are much less likely to complete a BA degree than either white or Asian students. In 2015, more than 58% of Asians and almost 45% of non-Hispanic whites in California had at least a Bachelor’s Degree. For Latinos, this percentage was barely 13% and for African Americans, 27% (U.S. Census, 2015). Clearly, this creates an untenable situation for the economy of a state in which the majority of its high school graduates are African American and Latino. One prominent reason for this disparity is that California channels most of its postsecondary students of color, and low-income students, into two-year colleges where heretofore they are less likely to acquire a four-year degree. Given this fact, if the state had a goal of increasing the baccalaureate degree production among these groups of students it might make sense to target programs in places that these students have access to and in fields that are likely to attract them, and to consider recruitment procedures that would outreach to these groups. But that is not what California is doing, nor is it what other states we have examined are doing. This appears to be a great missed opportunity to make a dent in the inequitable rates of degree attainment among underrepresented students, and to spur the economy.
This report compares the California experience to date with that of other states that are demographically similar to California. It offers a set of recommendations that could help the state achieve both workforce readiness and greater equity of opportunity to complete a baccalaureate degree for underrepresented students.
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