(Note: Public higher education
as delivered by community colleges is nation-wide. Those institutions develop economic opportunities
for the individual, and benefits for the community, wherever they operate. The following column, though based on
experiences at one such institution, is offered in support of all U.S. community
colleges.)
“The economy is unforgiving of
those workers who do not have a post-secondary credential.” With that brief but powerful statement Eloy
Oakley, Superintendent-President of Long Beach City College (LBCC) in Long
Beach, California, set the tone for our recent sit-down discussion about the mission
of community college public higher education, and the environment in which it finds itself.
Our conversation focused on LBCC,
one of 113 community colleges in California with total enrollment of over 2
million students. Millions more are
enrolled in similar colleges throughout the nation. The influence that these institutions have on
opportunity creation and development for most – perhaps all – of America’s
population is enormous.
We spoke primarily about LBCC –
its history, successes, current and future challenges, its growth initiatives,
and its needs for support. Much of this
applies to American community colleges in general.
The mission of Long Beach City
College is all about “opportunity,” according to Oakley. That was his immediate answer as the question
was posed to him, and it is the theme of his story about the accomplishments of
today’s public higher education systems in America, as well as the challenges
and changes that they face.
It is a compelling story, full of
optimism and promise for the future, but also one that has critical near-term
and long-term needs that might not be met.
These needs are not frivolous, transitory or difficult to justify – they
exist because to a large degree the legal, governing and regulatory structures
that created these institutions were created long ago and have had little, if
any, change over time.
While the governing framework has
remained static, the needs of the communities and students served by these
institutions have changed dramatically, in unanticipated ways. In addition, public funding has suffered in
the last several years, as state government has cut spending – largely in
response to the recession brought on by the financial crisis of 2008. As the largest part of those budgets, public
education (including community colleges) has borne the brunt of the
cutbacks. Budget cuts mean fewer
available course offerings: from the
2008/09 academic year to the 2013/14 year, total course sections provided in
the California community colleges declined
from 425,625 to 352,516, or by 17%.
Fewer course offerings cause some potential students to be turned away;
for those who are students, it means more months or years are needed to finish
the chosen educational program.
The current budget year has seen
increased funding for California’s community colleges. However, according to a
July 21, 2015 budget memo to the Board of Governors of California Community
Colleges, "Even with this good budget news, it is important to remember
that the colleges have not yet fully recovered from the economic downturn. We have not yet been funded to completely
restore student access, and college operational budgets are still approximately
$750 million behind where we were before the recession, accounting for inflation."
Native to Southern California,
Eloy Oakley is the product of a combination of life-style heritage and personal
choices that serve him well in leading Long Beach City College in these years
of the early 21st Century. He
is self-described as the product of a blue-collar, working-class, Hispanic
family and community environment. His
father was a long-time employee of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard; as a youth,
Oakley might have been more interested in football than in academics. He graduated from a local Catholic high
school with no certain direction for the next steps in his life.
First in his family to attend
college, but that did not happen until after a four-year volunteer stint in the
U.S. Army, plus another year of odd-job employment. Golden West College, a community college in
the nearby city of Huntington Beach, was the setting for his initial experience
with post-secondary, higher education.
This turned out to be a fateful decision, as a series of educational and
social experiences set him on a path of educational attainment and professional
positions that prepared him for his selection to be leader of Long Beach City
College.
He owes his career, he said, to
community college.
Clearly, as LBCC president, he
feels that he is part of something bigger than himself – to make the advantages
of post-secondary education available to all in the community who need it and
want it. It is all for “opportunity” he
says. Post-secondary credentialing and
higher education expand the scope of opportunity for the worker in today’s and
tomorrow’s economy.
Consider some background on how
the nation is doing on this effort. The
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has a membership
of 34 developed and mostly-rich countries.
A recent OECD analysis, as reported by The Economist (January 23rd 2016), indicates that the
United States could benefit from doing a better job in post-secondary (or
“tertiary”) education.
According to the OECD, in 2013
about 45% of the American population aged 25 to 34 had some tertiary
education. While a notable improvement
from 1970, when the corresponding figure was only about 30%, other nations
posted greater improvements during the same years: Japan went from 15% to just short of 60%;
Britain improved from just under 20% to almost 50%; France and Spain both came
in close to (but just under) America’s 2013 mark, but they had much higher
hills to climb, starting with 1970 figures of around 10%.
Why is this important? Because it is all about the opportunities of
employability.
As a rule, employment undertaken by
a person while aged from the mid-twenties to the early thirties sets the stage
for the nature of that person’s workforce participation – and, therefore,
earnings – for the remainder of that person’s working life. We know this – more education means greater earning
power. It does not have to be only education
that leads to degree attainment; other types of education and attainment can work
well, too.
Here is what this means for the
future: Around half of the country’s
demographically-young workforce – a cohort that will be our annual earnings
backbone for decades to come – could have been better-prepared to earn
more. The same thing applies to each new
generation as it matures into this age group until there are positive changes in the availability of post-secondary education.
The implications for future earnings-based taxation to support public
programs – education, health, public safety, national defense, Social Security,
and so on – are obvious and disappointing.
We could have done better. We must do better going forward. Institutions of public higher education,
especially community colleges, are well-positioned to improve the record by
better-preparing our future workforces to have the opportunity for greatest
possible earnings. Community colleges
are numerous, dispersed and structured to be affordable.
What stands in our way?
In California, public higher
education is governed by the Master Plan for Higher Education. This Plan was released in 1960 at the behest
of Governor Pat Brown (father of the state’s current Governor Jerry
Brown). An incredibly successful and
durable framework, it unfortunately was not designed to be able to adjust to
the significant changes that have occurred in California since that time,
according to President Oakley. To put it
another way, the needs of the students who enroll, and will enroll, in
California’s institutions of public higher education have changed dramatically
during the past half century. The same
is true about the needs of the communities served by those institutions.
According to Oakley, LBCC enrolls
about 32,000 students, roughly 80% of whom are identified as minorities. By comparison, in the decade following the
drafting of the Master Plan, the student population was about 10% minority. The demographic change happened gradually,
but inexorably. Oakley explained that
only in the last decade or so has LBCC been able to successfully focus on
adjusting itself to significantly-changed student needs, such as providing for full-time
and part-time work schedules, differences in English language proficiency, and
others.
Public education means public
funding, always a sensitive subject.
This is true especially now as the emphasis for evaluating the
priorities for spreading the available tax revenues tends to place a lower
sense of value on expenditures that seem as if they will produce a pay-off, or
a type of “return on investment,” that is some years in the future.
He continued by making a good
case for “rethinking how community colleges are funded” and how they should be
held accountable. (With 113 California
community colleges, this is no small task.)
86% of LBCC’s general fund, he said, comes from the state. That amounts to less than $6,000 per
student. He compared that to the state’s
funding for the University of California, which amounts to about $13,000 per
student. His point being that public
funding is the least for those students whose preparation for higher education
is generally most in want of assistance, and greatest for those whose
preparation for higher education is least in need of assistance. So, the funding algorithm is topsy-turvy.
Good point.
Accountability is a major issue
for President Oakley. He would like to
see public regulation shifted from the state government level to a local level,
similar to the local accountability that has been put in place for K through 12
education. He volunteered that LBCC must
do better in some key student measurements, such as shortening the time a
student spends in completing an Associate’s Degree or in transferring to a
Bachelor’s Degree-granting institution.
Currently, slightly less than half of the students with those intents
accomplish such a goal in six years or less; Oakley would like to see that bar
moved to four years.
On the subject of accountability
– the California Community Colleges organization maintains an on-line “Student Success Scorecard.” A comprehensive variety of student
achievement information for all of California’s community colleges is
summarized, by college, and made available for all to see.
Oakley gave the impression that
he views the availability of the Student Success Scorecard as one of the good
first steps in improving accountability regulations, methodologies and
measurements. A quick look at it reveals
that it is broken down college-by-college, thus providing transparent
accountability.
Furthermore, he said, the
California education code is so big and cumbersome that it makes it “difficult
to do anything different without changing the law.”
That sounded like he would try
out some new and innovative things in public higher education if his power to
do so were not constrained or prevented by the code. With
a Master Plan that has been static, while for decades the environment served by
that Plan has been in constant change, the opportunities for innovation must be
enormous.
Long Beach City College is a
success. In national rankings, it is
among the top 25 colleges in granting Associates degrees to Hispanic and
Asia-Pacific students. Thanks largely to
some recent voter-approved bond funds, the physical plant is up-to-date and
supportive of the educational goals.
With progress on the time-to-transfer and time-to-degree measurements,
Oakley believes that it can be “as good as any top-notch college in the
nation.”
President Oakley freely gave
great credit to several support programs that have made significant
contributions to Long Beach City College in particular, and by extensions to
public community college higher education at large.
America’s College Promise – an
initiative for two years of tuition-free community college for “responsible
students,” launched by the Obama Administration in January 2015 – “affirms what
we have been doing in the community,” Oakley said. He was making a link to the Long BeachCollege Promise, a similar program started in 2008. It is funded by private donations, and is a
partnership among LBCC, the Long Beach Unified School District, California
State University Long Beach, and the City of Long Beach and is described as a
model for fulfillment of the College Promise concept nation-wide.
He is a huge fan of community
support for Long Beach City College.
This is accomplished in a variety of ways; among them, the Long BeachCity College Foundation (which counts this writer among its members) is a
constant fund-raiser for the College – it is the primary fund-raiser for the
Long Beach College Promise -- and provides important linkages to the residents
and businesses of the area served by LBCC.
The Foundation provides grants, scholarships, support to the College
Promise and to numerous other programs at LBCC.
Long Beach City College is not
unique in having a support structure.
Any community college can have something similar, and probably most
already do. Fund-raising activities for
higher education tend to benefit mostly the colleges and universities whose
names are not qualified with the words “community” or “city.” Community colleges, with a mission of pure
education, are just as worthy as their more prestigious cousins.
It is all about economic
opportunity for people as individuals, and also for the community and the
entire country.
1 comment:
Good interview and very informative, too. Thanks Garry.
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