The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) oversees the community college system, which consists of 112 community colleges in 72 districts. Around 2.75 million students are enrolled during the year in what is the largest system of higher education in the world. It is responsible for providing basic skills education, workforce training and preparation for transfer to four-year universities. Eighty percent of firefighters, law enforcement officers and emergency medical technicians in California are credentialed at community colleges. Seventy percent of nurses are educated there. Forty-eight percent of University of California students awarded bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics transferred from a community college. More than half of California veterans receiving GI benefits use them to attend community college. Twenty-four percent of all community college students nationwide are enrolled in California. Although fees are currently skyrocketing at community colleges, attendance costs an in-state student about one-sixth ($1,080) as much as attendance at California State University. University of California tuition and fees cost twice as much as CalState. As of 2009-10, 46.8% of the community college student body were 18-24 years old. More than 25% were over the age of 35 and more women than men (53.5% to 45.1%) were enrolled that year.

Fast Facts 2011 (Community College League of California) (pdf)

In 1907, the state Legislature authorized high schools to offer “postgraduate courses of study” in an effort to ease the higher education load of existing four-year colleges. While this is generally regarded as the beginning of community colleges in California, there is evidence that some high schools were already offering post diploma classes before the law was passed.

Bakersfield, Fullerton and Long Beach founded junior colleges in 1913, followed by five more cities in the next three years.

The Ballard Act in 1917 provided state financial support and early regulations for junior colleges. The act required that a school district have an assessed valuation of $3 million before it could establish a junior college. It provided for state funding at the same per-student funding rate as specified in the formula for funding public schools.

California quickly established the most extensive junior college system in the country. California had 31 junior colleges by 1928, which grew to 57 by 1945.

The GI Bill gave colleges a boost after World War II, providing free tuition and books to veterans. By 1960, there were 56 districts in California offering junior college courses. The same year, California adopted the controversial Master Plan for Higher Education. The plan created a tiered system that set higher requirements for attendance at four-year colleges and universities, which limited enrollment at University of California and California State University schools.

Junior colleges were left to accept all other applicants amid complaints that poor students were being shunted to two-year institutions.

The California Department of Education oversaw the two-year colleges until 1967 when, influenced by studies that showed a lack of leadership and direction, Governor Ronald Reagan and the Legislature established a community college system with a Chancellor’s Office and a Board of Governors. Junior colleges officially became community colleges

Attendance dropped at two-year schools during the 1970s and in 1978 California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop. 13. The proposition significantly reduced local property taxes, shifting funding and control of the colleges away from localities to the state.

History of the Junior College Movement in California (by Carl G. Winter) (pdf)

The California Community Colleges (4Faculty.org)

Community College Governance, Funding, and Accountability: A Century of Issues and Trends (Community College Journal of Research and Practice)

The governor appoints the 17-member Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges which, in turn, appoints the chancellor, the system’s chief executive officer.

The Board of Governors adopted a “consultation” process in 1988 in which a council selected community college institutional and organizational groups develop and recommend policies to the chancellor and Board of Governors. The council meets regularly throughout the year.

The Chancellor’s Office is broken into the following divisions:

The Executive Office consists of the chancellor, executive vice chancellor, senior vice chancellor and director of internal operations. The chancellor is the chief executive officer. Programs administered by the executive office include the annual budget and legislative processes, the “consultation” process with an advisory committee, the Board of Governors Agenda Process, oversight of the community college leadership academy, administrative support for the Board of Governors, and administration of internal operations of the agency.

The Academic Affairs division is responsible for providing state-level design and review of curriculum and instructional support activities. It assists in academic planning, review and approval of credit degrees and certificates, library and learning resources, technological strategic planning, basic skills/ESL intersegmental policies and program development and coordination, and credit/noncredit adult education.

College Finance and Facilities Planning oversees policies determining the formulation and distribution of local assistance and capital outlay funds for community college districts.

The Communications division handles basic communication needs like public relations, website management, marketing and publishing of reports to the governor and Legislature. It also oversees the “I Can Afford College” and Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness public awareness campaigns.

The Economic Development and Workforce Preparation division provides grants to community colleges, along with technical assistance and use of various special programs to facilitate work with employers and other partners to identify on a region-by-region basis the workforce education and training needs in the public and private sectors.

The Government Relations division represents the Chancellor’s Office in its dealings with the Legislature and executive branch of the state and federal government.

Internal Operations is responsible for supporting staff needs in the areas of human resources, equal opportunity, training, procurement and business services, budgets, benefits and payroll administration, accounting, mail and reproduction, grant and contract management, and policy development benefiting the health and welfare of the staff.

The Student Services and Special Programs division ensures that students have the resources to access college courses. It oversees programs related to California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs), campus safety, child development/early childhood education, Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (CARE), disabled students programs & services, Early Assessment Program, Extended Opportunity Programs & Services (EOPS), Foster and Kinship Care Education (FKCE), Foster Youth Success Initiative, health services, matriculation, mental health services, outreach, Puente Project, service learning, student equity, student financial assistance programs, Student Senate, textbook affordability, transfer and articulation, and veteran services.

The Technology, Research and Information Systems division consists of four operational areas: Management Information Systems, Network Support and Operations, Research, Analysis and Accountability and Telecommunications and Technology.

Divisions (Community Colleges website)

Board of Governors (Community Colleges website)

Consultation Council (Community Colleges website)

Approved Programs (Community Colleges website)  

Community colleges have essentially three sources of income: the state General Fund, local property taxes and student fees.

More than half of the colleges’ $6.55 billion comes from the General Fund and in FY 2011-12 that funding was cut more than 10%, or $400 million plus. To compensate for some of the loss, student fees were raised from $26 a unit to $36. If anticipated state revenues do not materialize later in the year, fees could be increased another $10 per unit. Each community college district keeps the student fees it collects.

Property taxes cover about 25% of costs and student fees, with the new boost, will be close to 10%. The rest comes from federal funds and special funds, including the lottery.

3-Year Budget (pdf)

How Do Student Fees Contribute to Community College Funding? (Legislative Analyst’s Office) (pdf)

Budget Details Emerge (Community College League of California)

$5.7 Billion Building Program

The nine campuses of the Los Angeles Community College District were in a sorry state in 2001 when its leaders embarked upon a campaign to pass a series of bond measures over seven years totaling $5.7 billion.

The money would be used to fix leaky roofs, ease classroom overcrowding and introduce needed new technology. It would build libraries, stadiums, science buildings and computer labs.

What it did was provide the Los Angeles Times with fodder for a six-part series on waste, shoddy construction, poor oversight and questionable business practices.

The Times stories found projects with cost overruns of tens of millions of dollars that produced upside down heating and cooling units, a landmark clock tower that listed to one side, an abandoned partially-built athletic center, defective plumbing and cracked concrete.

An ambitious plan to construct clean energy facilities that would supply the college district with solar, geothermal and wind power was an abject failure that cost $10 million rather than generate income from selling surplus electricity.

Solar power arrays were scrapped when it was discovered they sat on seismic faults. Prevailing winds were too mild to power turbines. A parking lot at Southwest College that was to be shaded with solar panels was abandoned halfway through construction when it was decided to put a performing arts center there instead. Amount wasted:

$2 million.

West Los Angeles College spent $39 million on a project to build four buildings, only to quit when officials discovered they lacked the money to finish. One of the structures abandoned was a $92 million athletic center.

A $1.8 million project to build new veterinary shelters at Pierce College tanked for numerous reasons, including the discovery that an enclosure for cows at the bottom of a hill exposed them to torrents of mud and manure in a heavy rain.

A theater complex at Valley College was renovated for $3.4 million, but before the work was completed officials decided to build a new complex and demolish the old one.

L.A. City College ponied up $1.8 million for plans build a fitness center but then decided to build it across campus on a more narrow lot. So it paid $1.9 million for new plans.

Money for all the college district work came from three separate bond measures. Oversight was to be provided by a citizens committee appointed by the college district trustees. But the panel failed to file legally required annual reports or provide the necessary oversight.

An audit of the bond construction program by the California State Controller found the college district could not provide proper records, improperly spent funds, ignored procurement rules, planned badly, and exercised poor oversight. “Shoddy fiscal management and sub-par oversight of a project of this magnitude will undermine the public's trust and threaten billions of public dollars,” Controller John Chiang said when the report was released in August 2011.

The committee chairman from 2006-2009, former local chamber of commerce chief executive James Lynch, said he never heard anything about construction mistakes or misspending and offered what could be considered a good reason for that.

“Quite honestly, it was run so well that it would be a model for any place,” he said.

Billions to Spend (by Gale Holland and Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times)

California Audit Criticizes L.A. Community College Building Program (by Gale Holland and Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Community College District Proposition A/AA and Measure J Bond Expenditures (California State Controller) (pdf)

Two-Tiered Student Costs

Santa Monica College announced in early 2012 that it wanted to go where no California community college had gone before: two-tiered pricing of costs for students. In some cases, the cost of a certain in-demand classes would increase four-fold.

The 34,000-student college, which is a highly-regarded feeder school for UCLA, regularly turns students away from core academic course because of overcrowding exacerbated by budget cuts. The plan, if approved, would establish a nonprofit foundation to offer the higher-priced classes once the regular state-funded classes are filled, although it was thought that only the higher-priced classes would be offered during winter session.

Supporters of the plan found innovative and promising; critics called it a betrayal of the community college mission of educating lower-income students, and possibly illegal. A representative of Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott voiced skepticism about its compliance with state education codes that don’t permit charging students’ differential fees for the kind of classes the college would be offering.

A bill to that would have allowed community colleges to offer courses at higher fees through an extension program didn’t make it out of the state Senate in 2011.

Santa Monica College has been hard hit by budget cuts over the years. More than 1,000 classes have been shed since 2008 and funding was reduced $11 million in 2011-12. Another $5 million in cuts is scheduled if a tax measure pushed by Governor Jerry Brown is not approved by voters in November 2012.

Santa Monica College to Offer Two-Tier Course Pricing (by Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times)

Santa Monica College's Two-Tier Trap (Los Angeles Times editorial)

Santa Monica College Tries Two-Tier Pricing for In-Demand Classes (by Christina Hoag, Associated Press)

Santa Monica College to Offer More Expensive Courses for Students Who Can Afford Them (by Kathleen Miles, Huffington Post)

Free Speech at Southwestern College

Ongoing clashes between students, faculty and administration at Southwestern College in the San Diego-area over a host of issues, including cuts in course offerings, led to a student protest in October 2009. Hundreds of students and faculty attended the rally in a college-designated “free speech zone” (a small patio area) but afterward about 50 protesters were stopped by campus police when they approached the office of college President Raj K. Chopra.

Four faculty members who attended the rally, including the president of the college’s faculty union, were subsequently placed on paid leave and barred from the campus.

Acting President Nicholas Alioto said three of the instructors were being investigated for possibly inciting students to move outside the free-speech area, disregard police orders and confront the authorities.

The teachers were back in the classroom with a month, but the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the American Civil Liberties Union objected to the college’s action and questioned the legitimacy of a designated “free-speech zone.” The school eventually dropped an investigation of the teachers.

A year later, President Chopra abruptly resigned his post just weeks before two new board members with strong faculty support who had campaigned against the administration were to be sworn in.

Professors Suspended After a Protest Might Also Face Criminal Charges (by Josh Keller, The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Southwestern College Protest Backs Instructors (by Janine Zuniga, San Diego Union Tribune)

Southwestern Slammed for Suspending Protesters (by Leonel Sanchez, San Diego Union Tribune)

Independent Report of Teacher Suspensions Released By College (by Ana Tintocalis, KPBS)

Southwestern College President's Tenure Tumultuous (by Pat Flynn, San Diego Union Tribune)

Raise the Fees

The state’s deficit following Proposition 13 in 1978 led to the imposition of per-unit enrollment fees on California residents at all community colleges, CSU and UC campuses. This per-unit enrollment fee is equivalent in all but name to the tuition out-of-state students and other states’ students pay. By calling it a “fee,” colleges were able to avoid conflicts with the state ban on tuition. In 2010, the California’s public higher education systems switched to the more accurate term, “tuition.”

In the past decade 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. However, 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, the highest level in the state's history. Since then, fees have dropped. On July 28, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 2X (the education trailer bill to the 2009-10 state budget), setting the community college enrollment fee back at $26 per unit, effective for the 2009 fall term.

Community colleges are raising their per-unit fee in the fall to $36 to partially backfill the reduction in state General Fund allocations. (Even at $36 per unit, the fees would still be the lowest in the nation and half the national average.) The independent state Legislative Analyst’s Office regards this as not only necessary, but beneficial and only a first step at providing a secure funding base for the schools.

“In future years, we recommend the Legislature ensure that CCC fee levels are pegged to the maximum amount covered by federal tax credits.”

The Analyst maintains that fee increases don’t affect needy students, who receive a fee waiver if they meet certain financial need requirements. Those that don’t qualify for the waivers may still be eligible for other federal assistance, such as the Lifetime Learning Credit, the American Opportunity tax credit, and tuition and fee deductions.

In effect, the Analyst argues, low fees means “the state is paying for costs that the federal government would otherwise pay and does pay in virtually all other states.”

California Community College Fees (Legislative Analyst’s Office) (pdf)

AB 2X (Cabrillo College website)

California Budget and Prop. 13 (Time Magazine)

Reorganize the Chancellor’s Office

A comprehensive review of the California Community College system by the Little Hoover Commission recommended that the chancellor’s office be moved out of the executive branch and given the same independence afforded the chancellor in the California State University system.

The February 2012 report said the chancellor should have the power to hire vice chancellors and other senior staff members, along with the authority to develop systemwide priorities and incentives.

Updating the California Community Colleges to Meed Evolving Demands (Little Hoover Commission)

Just How Important Are Community Colleges, Really?

Chancellor Jack Scott warned in March 2011 that the state’s budget crisis could result in 400,000 students being turned away from community colleges in the fall. Does it matter to anyone besides the students?

It Matters to Everyone in the State

California’s community colleges provide education and training to 2.75 million students annually. Half are young people just getting started in life, but a substantial portion are older people retooling after losing their jobs, looking to better their lives or just searching for enlightenment. The colleges also offer a gateway to four-year schools.

But perhaps just as significantly, community colleges are an engine of growth for the state.

“This is a tremendous tragedy, and a very deep blow to the economy of California," Chancellor Jack Scott said of the budget cuts, noting that community colleges are the state’s “No. 1 workforce training institution.”

Community colleges in the state supply thousands of trained workers for high-tech industries. They enroll more than 300,000 students annually in engineering and industrial technologies and more than 200,000 students in information technology.

San Diego Community College District Chancellor Constance Carroll called the budget cuts “catastrophic reductions” and pointed out that her college is about to finish lopping off 3,000 courses from the 16,000 it offered just two years ago.

“People trying to train for work will not have the opportunities they need,” she said.

John McDowell, president of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, concurs. “California will never emerge from the Great Recession without community colleges.”

California community college students see their wages jump 86% within three years of earning certification or a degree. Those are taxable earnings that help balance the state’s budget.

Los Rios Community College District Chancellor Brice W. Harris warned of a brain drain with long-term consequences for the state. “This is a statewide crisis, and increasingly we're going to see our bright young folks leaving the state to get an education,” Harris said.

In addition to the 400,000 students who would be denied the opportunity for an education, an estimated 10,000 teachers and thousands of staff members would be sent packing. This would exacerbate an already difficult educational climate in community colleges.

A Harris Interactive survey taken for the Pearson Foundation in the fall of 2010 found that one-third of California community college students reported a problem enrolling in a class they needed; that’s double the national average.

We Need the Cuts

Not everyone is concerned about the impact on the state. Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly disputed the idea that community colleges fuel the California economy by putting people to work.

“It's not even true,” said Donnelly, vice chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. “It's small businesses that do that.”

It’s far more important, Donnelly maintains, to balance the budget. And he says it would be counterproductive to do that by raising taxes to fund higher education. He proposes more deregulation of business and eliminating state targets for reducing carbon emissions.

“I didn't come up to Sacramento—to leave my family and my business and my life—just to put a Band-Aid over the budget,” he said.

Others suggest that community colleges, the traditional fast, low-cost way to receive an education, have been supplanted (or, at least, augmented) by online offerings.

Education company StraighterLine, which bills itself as “the shortest distance between you and your degree,” doesn’t quite claim to offer as good an education as a community college. In fact, they note that a deciding factor could be a student’s proximity to a college and its quality. “But there's no doubt about it—StraighterLine will cost you less.”

The Harris survey conducted for Pearson Foundation which found students having difficulty enrolling in required courses also reported that 60% of those students had already taken at least one class online and 36% wanted to take all their classes that way.

Community Colleges Could Turn Away 400,000 (by Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle)

California Community Colleges to Slash Enrollment, Classes (by Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times)

Community College Student Survey (Pearson Foundation) (pdf)

Funding Higher Education: An Investment in California’s Economy (Community Colleges website)

StraighterLine or Community College: Which Works Harder for You? (StaighterLine)

Sorry, Your Community College is Closing (Community College League of California)

Diane Woodruff, 2007-2009

Mark Drummond, 2004-2007

Thomas J. Nussbaum, 1996-2004

David Mertes, 1988-1996

John Randall, 1987-1988

Joshua Smith, 1985-1987 resigned from his post stating that the red tape within the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office made him “depressed.”

Gerald Hayward, 1980-1984