Calif. Colleges Failing to Produce Workforce-Ready Students

Published 23 February 09 02:09 PM | NextStudent

California is in danger of losing a large portion of its future workforce if the state education system continues to fail to adequately accommodate its college-age population, reports Gale Holland of the Los Angeles Times (“California Colleges Face ‘Serious Challenges,’ Report Says,” Feb. 12, 2009).

A new report issued by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at California State University in Sacramento shows that a large portion of the state’s high school graduates are ill-prepared for college and that too many schools fail to make sure their students complete certificate or degree programs.

And with the state facing such a severe budget crisis and California’s two-year school systems enforcing freshman enrollment caps and contemplating tuition hikes, the state could see more students who generally attend two-year schools get “squeezed out” by students who are generally better prepared for college and who, pre-recession, would have attended a traditional four-year school, Holland writes.

This influx of new students to two-year colleges — whose relative affordability makes them more appealing during a recession than an often costlier four-year school — could create “a competition for scarce seats” at the state’s 100 community colleges, “and the fear is the less prepared will lose out,” said Nancy Shulock, coauthor of “The Grades Are In – 2008” report.

“We’re facing some really serious challenges and it has to do with not getting our younger generation educated at the same rate as other generations,” Shulock said. “We don’t think the budget crisis can be an excuse not to act.”

Currently, California ranks 40th in the nation for its rate of high school graduates who go directly to college and just 29th in the nation for the percentage of state residents ages 25 to 34 who attain at least an associate of arts degree, according to the report, suggesting that schools aren’t offering enough support for students to complete their degrees.

In the report, Schulock recommends that the state should reward schools not based on the number of students they enroll, but rather on the number of students that graduate or complete their degree programs.

Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said the state’s current “master plan” for higher education has been flawed for 20 years. “Every time we take a turn into recession, we hemorrhage students,” he said.

Callan laments that California, which was once regarded as a national and global education leader, is now lagging behind because “we have not responded well to the huge demographic and economic changes that are changing the face of California.”