Report: Grads' pay up 85 percent in three years
Sacramento Bee 3/20/07
Median pay for the successful community college students rose from $25,600 to $47,571 within three years of leaving campus in 2000-01, the most recent year studied.
"I can say overall that California's community colleges do a terrific job of accomplishing the mission that our communities expect," Chancellor Marshall "Mark" Drummond said.
The 753-page report, required by legislation passed in 2004, covers a wide range of topics, from enrollment ethnicity to student transfers to the number of vocational certificates issued.
The California Community College system prepared the document, with help from the state Department of Finance, the legislative analyst and a national panel of accountability experts, said Vice Chancellor Patrick Perry, who supervised the effort.
But the authors of the report, intended as the first annual evaluation of community colleges, did not study whether junior colleges are closing the achievement gap affecting low-income and minority groups in California high schools.
Assemblyman Paul Cook, a Yucca Valley Republican who formerly taught at Copper Mountain College and is generally complimentary of the community college system, said he considers performance data by ethnicity crucial.
"I'm really interested in whether certain minorities need remedial training that the state can provide," Cook said.
Key findings in the new report include:
• California's community college system is the largest higher educational system in the nation, serving 2.5 million students.
• More than 45 percent of graduates from the University of California and California State University systems transferred from a community college.
• More than 70 percent of all California's college students attend a community college, including more than one-third of the state's 18- and 19-year-olds.
• In 2005-06, community colleges transferred 52,642 students to CSU campuses, more than 13,000 students to UC, 15,466 to private colleges in California, and 12,848 to out-of-state campuses.
• Contributing to the state's work force, the system issued 63,000 associate degrees, vocational certificates or occupational certificates in 2005-06.
The report also gives limited campus-by-campus performance data.
At Sacramento City College, for example, 55.8 percent of students whose course work indicated a desire to transfer to a four-year college, earn an associate degree, or earn a certificate achieved that objective within a six-year period ending in 2005-06, the report states.
Sacramento City College's performance was lower than that of Sierra College, 59.7 percent, but higher than either Cosumnes River College, 52.8 percent, or American River College, 47 percent.
California's community college system predicts an enrollment boom in coming years, with 600,000 additional students expected by 2013. The new report does not project funding increases needed to accommodate the wave.
Sen. Jack Scott, an Altadena Democrat who chairs the Senate Education Committee and once served as president of Pasadena City College, said the report shows that taxpayers are getting plenty of "bang for the buck" from community colleges.
The new report comes as community college advocates are attempting to qualify an initiative to lower the system's $20-per-unit fee to $15 and give the 109-campus system more autonomy.
A random sampling of 901,308 signatures submitted left the initiative just shy of qualifying for the 2008 ballot, so each of the signatures now must be counted by April 24 to determine the measure's fate, according to the secretary of state's office.
Monday's community college report follows two more-critical reports about the system.
Last November, a report by the Public Policy Institute of California said older students, Latinos, African Americans and students without a high school diploma have substantially lower transfer and degree completion rates than other students.
"If community college continues to be the dominant form of higher education for these students, achievement rates for these students must improve," the report says.
Last month, a report by researchers at California State University, Sacramento, noted that a high percentage of community college students fail to meet their goal of completing an academic or vocational program.
"Access without completion gives California's college students a false sense of opportunity and could jeopardize the state's competitive edge in the global economy," the report states.