Top 3 Reasons why CA Community Colleges will begin focusing more on supporting under-served students
Vision for Success: Strengthening the California Community Colleges to Meet California’s Needs is the new strategic plan for the California Community Colleges by its newest Chancellor, Eloy Ortiz Oakley.
Vision for Success, is student centered approach focused on helping students reach their defined objective. Whatever that is. The plan is a comprehensive guide for all 114 community colleges in California to understand their strengths, look into their areas of growth, and merge current state-wide student success initiatives to support all students.
One of the reasons why this strategic plan is a big deal is because California served over 2 million students last year by their Community College System; the largest provider of workforce training in the state and nation. And this is no ordinary set of students; it was a diverse set of students. A glimpse at the latest scorecard, shows that 49.5% of California Community College students are under-served students (African American, Latinx, or Native American), close to 60% (57.6%) are under the age of 25, and 42.4% are first in their families to attend a higher education institution.
However, the real big deal of this plan is its focus on setting a level of accountability and an expectation for colleges to target the alarming equity gaps that persist in higher education. Although California has slowly been making community colleges focus more and more on equity gaps, they have yet to hold them accountable. Chancellor Oakley seems dead set on changing that.
But how does Vision for Success impact the students that need help the most — under-served students? Here are the top 3 ways Vision for Success has outlined for California Community Colleges to focus on under-served students:
- The plan places a value on accountability. Real accountability. The main goal of a community college is to help students succeed in reaching their goals. With that in mind, a large number of students declare transferring, acquiring an associates degree, and/or obtaining a certificate as their main goal. Vision for Success includes a focus on increasing by at least 20% the number of students who acquire associates degrees, credentials, certificates; and by 35% the number of students transferring annually to a UC or CSU. In addition a big problem, particularly for under-served students, has been the number of “excess units” that students incur while reaching an associate’s degree. One of the goals for Vision for Success is to decrease these units from approximately 87 to 79.
- The plan sets a deadline. By 2022, just 5 years from now, the California Community College system should have achieved the 6 goals outlined in Vision for Success.
- The plan has an impressive goal of eradicating the achievement gap completely in 10 years; 2027 is the big year. “Reducing achievement gaps by 40 percent within 5 years and fully closing those achievement gaps for good within 10 years.” (Vision for Success). In the latest state scorecard, only 64% of Latinos, 62% of African American, and 63% of Pacific Islanders students have attempted a college level Math or English class; compared to 70% cohort average.
The California Community College system has previously tried to institutionalize Equity within its campuses. A few years ago, it supplied a large amount of dollars for Community Colleges to make their Student Equity plans a center piece in their planning, and to use it as a first step to address educational disparities. However, Vision for Success takes this a step further, and not only sets holistic goals across the state; but includes an accompanying timeline to accomplish them.
Lets see how this vision addresses in substantive ways the lurking achievement gap that severs the future of so many students of color in higher education.
For now, it is a solid next step.
#studentequity
