California Community Colleges

The California Community Colleges is a postsecondary education system in the U.S. state of California. The system includes the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges and 73 community college districts. The districts currently operate 116 accredited colleges. The California Community Colleges is the largest system of higher education in the United States, and third largest system of higher education in the world, serving more than 1.8 million students. Despite its plural name, the system is consistently referred to in California law as a singular entity.

History

thumb|[[Fresno City College, founded in 1910, is the oldest campus of the California Community Colleges system.]]

The junior college movement

During the early 20th century, the movement to establish junior colleges in California was led by Professor Alexis F. Lange, dean of the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University. Both men shared an ulterior motive for supporting the creation of junior colleges. (Lange and Jordan's desired endpoint never occurred in California—where universities continue to provide lower-division undergraduate education alongside community colleges—but Quebec's Parent Commission was inspired by the California example to take the idea to its logical conclusion, resulting in the creation of CEGEPs.)

In 1907, Lange worked with state senator Anthony Caminetti to bring about the enactment of the Upward Extension Act, the first state law in the United States to formally authorize the creation of junior colleges. As articulated by Caminetti, the original rationales for junior colleges were financial, geographical, and practical.

California soon became the leader of the American junior college movement: "In no other state was the vision of the junior college so vigorously pursued as in California." The United States went from zero junior colleges at the start of the 20th century to nineteen junior colleges by 1915, of which eight were based in California: Azusa, Bakersfield, Fresno, Fullerton, Rocklin, San Diego, Santa Ana, and Santa Barbara. The Ballard Act substituted the term "junior college courses" for what had been previously referred to as "post-high school" or "postgraduate courses", and it authorized school districts to offer such courses in "mechanical and industrial arts, household economy, agriculture, civic education, and commerce".

Junior college districts

In 1921, the state legislature enacted the District Junior College Law, which created a junior college fund for California's share of revenue from the federal Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 and used the revenue to support the formation of junior college districts which would be entirely separate from school districts. The District Junior College Law was the first law in the United States to authorize the creation of junior college districts, and it was also the first law to pioneer the creation of "public institutions of higher education that were controlled by a local electorate rather than by an academic elite".

However, the District Junior College Law as enacted had two major flaws. First, it failed to supersede the Ballard Act. The foundation's report found that junior colleges were wasting their resources on trying to prepare students for transfer to four-year universities, when only a small percentage actually transferred. Within California, Pasadena City College was the leader of this movement, with vocational enrollment growing from 4% in 1926 to 67% in 1938. The first published mention of the term is thought to be a 1936 article by Byron S. Hollingshead, then the president of Scranton-Keystone Junior College in La Plume, Pennsylvania. The Master Plan also reaffirmed the principle that junior colleges were to be governed by local boards, under the general supervision of the California State Board of Education.

In 1961, the Legislature finally fixed the long-running confusion about whether junior colleges should be operated by K–12 school districts or junior college districts. Assembly Bill 2804 created a process by which all the junior colleges created by school districts under the Ballard Act of 1917 or the earlier Upward Extension Act of 1907 would form junior college districts under the District Junior College Law of 1921 (to become entirely independent of school districts). Two studies in 1967 found that the California Department of Education (under the State Board of Education's supervision) was too "weak" to provide proper supervision of the junior colleges.

thumb|right|[[Glendale Community College (California)|Glendale Community College, founded in 1927.]]

Continued evolution

The Master Plan for Higher Education also banned tuition, as it was based on the ideal that public higher education should be free to students (just like K–12 primary and secondary education). As officially enacted, it states that public higher education "shall be tuition free to all residents." Thus, California residents legally do not pay tuition.

The state has suffered severe budget deficits ever since the enacting of Proposition 13 in 1978, which led to the imposition of per-unit enrollment fees for California residents (equivalent in all but name to tuition) at all community colleges and all CSU and UC campuses to get around the legal ban on tuition. Non-resident and international students, however, do pay tuition, which at community colleges is usually an additional $100 per unit (or credit) on top of the standard enrollment fee. Since no other American state bans tuition in public higher education, this issue is unique to California. In summer 2010, the state's public higher education systems began investigating the possibility of dropping the semantic confusion and switching to the more accurate term, tuition.

thumb|[[Long Beach City College, founded in 1927.]]

Tuition and fees have fluctuated with the state's budget. For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, enrollment fees ranged between $11 and $13 per credit. With the state's budget deficits in the early-to-mid 2000s, fees rose to $18 per unit in 2003, and, by 2004, reached $26 per unit. Fees dropped to $20 per unit, down $6 from January 2007. It was the lowest enrollment fee of any college or university in the United States. On July 28, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB2X (the education trailer bill to the 2009-10 state budget), setting the community college enrollment fee back at $26 per unit, effective for the fall 2009 term. In July 2011, per-unit fees at California's community colleges stood at $36 per unit. In summer 2012, fees were raised to $46 per unit.

Moreno Valley College and Norco College became the 111th and 112th colleges of the CCC system in 2010. Clovis Community College opened as the 113th college in 2015, and Compton College was re-established as the 114th college in 2017. In fall 2019, Calbright College was opened as an entirely online, but initially unaccredited, community college. The most recent in-person addition to the system is Madera Community College, which was recognized by the Board of Governors as the 116th accredited community college, on July 20, 2020.

The system can add up to 30 bachelor's degree programs a year at any of the colleges under a 2021 state law.

Governance

thumb|right|Office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges in [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento.]]

The system is governed by the Board of Governors which, within the bounds of state law, sets systemwide policy. The 17 Board members, who represent the public, faculty, students, and classified employees, are appointed by the governor of California as directed by Section 71000 of the California Education Code. The Board is also directed by the Education Code to allow local authority and control of the community college districts to the "maximum degree permissible" and AB 1725 in 1974 added a formal consultation process which has resulted in the formation of a Consultation Council to assure the Board of Governors and Chancellor's Office remain responsive in this respect.

The board usually meets seven times per year. The majority of the meetings are held at the Chancellor's Office located in Sacramento, but a minority of the meetings (one or two each year) are held in Southern California.

The system is administered by the Chancellor's Office in Sacramento, which is responsible for allocating state funding and provides leadership and technical assistance to the colleges. The Chancellor brings policy recommendations to the Board of Governors, and possesses the authority to implement the policies of the Board through his leadership of the Chancellor's Office. The Chancellor plays a key role in the consultation process.

The CCC is a founding and charter member of CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the nonprofit organization which provides extremely high-performance Internet-based networking to California's K–12 research and education community.

Student government

California Education Code § 76060 allows the governing board of a community college district to authorize the students of a college to organize a student body association. The student body association may conduct any activities, including fundraising activities, that is approved by the appropriate college officials. The BOG standards state that the governing board of a community college district shall adopt policies and procedures that provide students the opportunity to participate effectively in district and college governance, including:

The governing body of the association may order that an election be held for the purpose of establishing a student representation fee of $1 per semester, and a student may, for religious, political, financial, or moral reasons, refuse to pay the student representation fee in writing at the time the student pays other fees. Regulations in the California Code of Regulations (CCR) require district governing boards to include information pertaining to the representation fee in the materials given to each student at registration, including its purpose, amount, and their right to refuse to pay the fee for religious, political, moral or financial reasons.

The students of this largest system of education in the world are represented through a statewide students' union known as the Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC). The SSCCC has a General Assembly composed of 116 Delegates selected by the associated students organization at each school. Meetings of the General Assembly are held once in the Spring in each academic year to vote on "resolutions" of what the organization shall advocate for in the upcoming school year and to elect the new president and 5 vice-presidents. The SSCCC has 10 regional subdivisions and each subdivision or "Region" annually elects two Directors to serve on the SSCCC Board of Directors composed of 10 Regional Affairs Directors, 10 Legislative Affairs Directors, and six Board Officers. Meetings of the Board of Directors are held about 12 times during each academic year. The Board of Directors may nominate students for appointment to seats on the Board of Governors and it may appoint two representatives to the Chancellor's Consultation Council.

Campuses

Students

The 1.8 million students of the California Community Colleges serve as the basis for the economic revitalization of California's workforce. Through its vocational endeavors, the CCC system has played a pivotal role in preparing nurses, firefighters, police, welders, auto mechanics, airplane mechanics, and construction workers to help mold the society of California. Career technical education (CTE), also known as vocational training, connects students to these career opportunities by providing industry-based skills.

In 2017, California sought to eliminate the lingering stigma around CTE. The state's goal was to train and place one million workers in middle-skill jobs, meaning jobs requiring some education beyond a high school diploma which may include a college credential, but not a four-year degree. A core barrier to the growth of CTE careers is the outdated view about the jobs being dirty and low paying. Annual events such as Manufacturing Day address these misperceptions of careers in the field by providing manufacturers an opportunity to bring middle and high school students into their facilities to display the skills required in certain fields. According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of the current workforce will need to be reskilled by 2022.

Enrollment

File:CCC Historical Enrollment.jpg|Historical enrollment

File:CCC Gender.jpg|Gender composition

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|+ Racial and/or ethnic background (2023)

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Faculty and staff

The California Community Colleges had a total employee headcount of 89,497 in fall 2006. While tenured and tenure tracked faculty were relatively well-compensated, they comprise a very small fraction of overall faculty compared to California's other two tertiary education systems. While 86% of CSU faculty members were tenured or tenure-tracked, only 30% of CCCS faculty were tenured or tenure-tracked. Temporary faculty, those who are not tenure tracked, earned an average of $62.86 per hour for those teaching for-credit courses, $47.46 for non-credit instruction, $54.93 for instructional support and $63.86 for "overload" instruction.

Staff and faculty compensation varied greatly by district. The overall average salary for tenured and tenure tracked faculty was $78,498 as of Fall 2006, with 48.7% earning more than $80,001. Salaries ranged from $64,883 in Siskiyous to $90,704 in Santa Barbara. The average for educational administrators was $116,855, while classified administrators earned an average of $87,886, classified professional earned $62,161 and classified support staff earned an average of $43,773.

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!Data Its new name, as a division of El Camino College, was "El Camino College Compton Center." Under El Camino College the "Center" was fully accredited. Compton College was re-established as a separate college in 2017. In January 2017, CCSF was reaffirmed of its accreditation for the full seven-year term by the ACCJC.

References

External links

California Community Colleges - Chancellor's Office
Academic Senate of California Community Colleges
Student Senate of California Community Colleges
Community College League of California
Foundation for California Community Colleges