California isn’t on track to produce more college graduates and has no strategy to reach that goal, concludes a new report (pdf) from Sacramento State’s Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy. As the largest and most accessible higher education sector, community colleges can contribute the most to a degree-completion strategy, the report finds. Yet the state is underfunding its community colleges, notes California Watch.
The University of California and California State University systems spend more per student than comparable institutions in other states, while the California Community Colleges spend less, according to the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability.
Source: Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy
However, due to very low completion rates, the California Community Colleges spent 40 percent more per degree or certificate than the national average for community colleges. (The data doesn’t include transfers to four-year institutions.) The cost per completion was $65,474 per degree or certificate in 2009, compared to the national average of $46, 759.
Source: Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy
Community colleges enroll many remedial students, part-timers and and people who aren’t seeking a credential, the report notes.
The state’s Task Force on Student Success is studying funding options, but is unlikely to increase community college funding or move to performance-based funding, an earlier California Watch story reports. The focus is on boosting completion rates.
. . . under the draft recommendations, students who remain on academic probation for too long or rack up more than 100 units of study could lose both enrollment priority for classes and eligibility for state-funded fee waivers. All students could be required to declare a program of study earlier. New students would have to take a diagnostic assessment, and if they test below college level, they could have to participate in a student success course.
. . . The new policies would aim to reward students for following pathways that will most likely lead to completion of a certificate, degree, transfer or career goal.
Six years after enrolling in a California community college, 70 percent of degree-seeking students had not completed a certificate or degree and had not transferred to a university, according to a 2010 study (pdf).
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