California can serve as a national model to increase college completion, though college leaders noted that many of the recommendations are already being used in other states. California’s 112 two-year colleges serve more than 2.7 million of the nation’s nearly 12 million community college students. More than half of students who earn a baccalaureate at a public four-year university in California begin their studies at community colleges in the state.

 

Like many other states, California continues to face serious budget cuts, which are affecting community colleges and how they serve students. However, despite the tough economic times, the commission said it’s critical to better prepare students now so they are ready for jobs when the economy improves. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the state will need 1 million more baccalaureate holders by 2025 to meet workforce demands.

 

“While current budget constraints leading to reduced access, lost purchasing power and student service program cuts make the goal daunting, the Commission believes that it is necessary to establish a goal that meets the economic needs of the state and nation,” the report said.

 

During a press briefing on Wednesday, several commission members noted many of the recommendations are achievable through reallocating current resources.

 

“It’s not asking us to reinvent life as we know it,…but to repurpose our resources,” Deborah Harrington, vice president of academic affairs at Los Angeles Trade Tech College (California) and a commission member noted of the report.

 

The commission is partly using President Barack Obama’s goal of graduating an additional 5 million community college students by 2020, as well as the initiatives of other organizations, such as Lumina Foundation for Education, to set its own completion goals. California community colleges would have to help an additional 1.07 million students complete a degree or credential, since the state comprises about 20 percent of the nation’s full-time equivalent community college students.

 

That amounts to an annual increase of 29,316 students, or about 13 percent. On average, it means each of the state’s community colleges will need to boost annual completions from 1,200 to 3,500, according to the commission.

 

Breaking down the numbers is a strategy embraced by other institutions, notably Harper College (Illinois), which has set a goal of graduating an extra 10,604 students by 2020 as a cornerstone of its Building Community Through Student Success initiative. In Maryland, community colleges will hold a state summit next month to discuss college completion, which is likely to include a breakdown per institution.

 

 

The commission organized its recommendations into four general themes:

Among the more specific suggestions, the report calls on college leaders, faculty and stakeholders to visibly support the student success agenda.

 

“While faculty, staff, administrators and trustees have all historically reviewed institutional outcomes, such reviews have too often been done either in isolation or even in a manner critical of another campus constituency,” the report said. “Instead, the entire campus community must embrace the goal of increasing successful completions, agree on a framework with which to measure success, and regularly review data evaluating progress.”

 

Such a collaborative effort among college leaders, faculty and students is the goal behind "Democracy’s Colleges: Call to Action"—a document that outlines the organizations' goals for the initiative and what the groups need to reach them. It was signed in April by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), Association of Community College Trustees, League for Innovation in the Community College, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, Center for Community College Student Engagement and the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development. The organizations provided an update of their efforts last week during AACC’s fall joint meeting of its commissions and board of directors.

 

The California blueprint also calls to better use data to make decisions to achieve the recommended goals. That includes developing a student record system that allows officials to monitor the progress of students from K-12 to postsecondary education to the workplace and use that information to assess colleges and programs.

 

A growing number of states and several national associations and foundations have focused on using data to improve student outcomes. Through its Voluntary Framework of Accountability initiative, AACC is developing measures that community colleges can use to gauge success, benchmark against similar institutions and develop strategies for improvement.

 

 

Improving student support is a pillar in the California commission’s recommendations. Students should be required to participate in integrated student support, assessment and counseling. That is a strategy regularly used at other public higher education institutions, but only used in a handful of community colleges in the state.

 

The commission recognized the difficulty in scaling up successful student service models.

 

“This has been made more difficult in recent years through significant cuts to both general and targeted student services programs,” the panel’s report said.

 

The initiative’s website will serve as a depository of best practices that college leaders can review.  

 

The commission also stressed the importance of professional development for all ranks of college employees and advocates. It’s an area among colleges that has been devastated by funding cuts, said the report. It’s been nearly 10 years since the state has provided professional development funds at $5.2 million for faculty and staff development, it said. 

 

 

Educators also must do a better job of communicating that K-12 students must be better prepared for college-level work, whether at community college or universities, the commission said. A statewide initiative should convey that to K-12 and stress the importance of going directly to college after high school.

 

One way to do that is to tie state student aid to students’ grades, noted commissioner John Hendrickson, chancellor of the West Valley-Mission Community College District. One of the panel’s recommendations is that students would have to maintain a “C” grade in a certain number of classes in order to retain state assistance, he said.   

 

The commission also focused on late registrations as a barrier to completion. Most community colleges allow students to enroll through the first two to three weeks of a class. Such practices offer broad access and maximize efficiencies of instruction and class space, but it sends the wrong message to students about being prepared for college-level work.

 

“High school students need a realistic understanding of the rigors of the community college curriculum and the additional time required to complete postsecondary education if they arrive at a community college unprepared,” the report said.

 

The commission recommended early outreach to students in middle school and high school students and counselors, and also to convey the economic benefits of higher education. That’s a strategy that Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society of the community college, is using in its new national campaign to encourage students to champion for college completion. In addition to encouraging honors students to create support networks for at-risk students to help them avoid dropping out, Phi Theta Kappa chapters will tout the benefits of completing college, as well as the consequences of not doing so, as part of its civic-engagement effort to develop a “culture of completion.”

 

The benefits of completing college is something the California commission stressed during its press briefing, noting both personal increases in income and increases to the state economy and coffers. Adding an additional 1 million college completers would increase earning potential in the state by $4.4 billion, said Scott Lay, president and CEO of the league.  

 

In addition, the commission recommended trying to get more students to attend college full-time—full-time students complete college more successfully than part-time students—by focusing on student aid, noting that doing so makes them eligible for federal aid. That’s an approach successfully implemented in the Connecticut Community College System. After the state office revamped its entire financial aid services in 2000, community colleges in Connecticut have seen an increase of 43 percent in total enrollment and a 68 percent increase in full-time students. In addition, the number of student aid applications and the number of recipients have both increased roughly 160 percent since 2000-01, according to state officials.