Divided We Fail: Improving Completion and Closing Racial Gaps in California’s Community Colleges
California Must Increase Educational Attainment – Community Colleges are Key
The future of California depends heavily on increasing numbers of Californians with certificates, associate degrees, and bachelor’s degrees. Educational attainment in California has been declining with each younger generation – a statistic that bodes poorly for the state’s economic competitiveness. It is essential to increase educational attainment among the Latino population, as current levels are relatively low and the Latino share of the workingage population in California is projected to grow from 34% currently to 50% by 2040. With nearly one-fourth of the nation’s community college students enrolled in California, success of the Obama Administration’s college attainment agenda depends on California increasing completion rates and reducing performance gaps in its 112 community colleges.
Data-Driven Decisions are Gaining Momentum – California Can Join the Effort
State actions to increase college completion are growing, with 23 states (though not California) signed on to Complete College America, and other foundation-led initiatives involving still more states and college systems. These initiatives are helping states use data to understand how students, and which students, make, or fail to make, progress toward completion and to apply that knowledge by changing institutional practices. These efforts have identified policy change as a key element in the completion agenda. Policy that is well aligned with completion goals can enhance college efforts to increase student success, while poorly-aligned policies can thwart the best on-the-ground efforts. This report models how data can be used to identify ways to increase student success. It analyzes outcomes for over a quarter of a million degree-seeking students in the California Community Colleges (CCC), tracking those who entered in 2003-04 over six years. We analyze student progress through intermediate “milestones” as well as three completion outcomes: certificates, associate degrees, and transfer.
via Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy | Download the Full Report
