Giving Compass' Take:

• Vision for Success, a document created by the California State University systems chancellor, reviews all of the areas in which California community colleges need improvement. 

• How can workforce development training programs help shoulder some of the weight of preparing students for the future workforce? 

• Read about the aspirations for California's online community colleges. 

The stakes for the California community colleges — and California — are exceptionally high.

The system serves 60 percent of all undergraduates in California — nearly three times the number enrolled in the University of California and California State University combined. One in 5 of the community college students in the U.S. attend one of the system’s 114 campuses, so what happens there has national implications as well.

That is why a document titled “Vision for Success,” marshaled by the system’s chancellor, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, and adopted by the system’s board of governors this week, warrants close reading.

In a remarkably frank review, the report pointed out a number of areas where the system falls short.

Only 48 percent of students leave the community colleges with a degree, certificate or transferred to a four-year college after six years, the report states. It says that “even this number is overstated,” as it doesn’t include students who earned less than 6 units or did not even attempt to take a math or English course within three years of entering the system.

Also problematical is that students often accumulate far more course units than they need to graduate, earn a certificate or to transfer to a four-year college. These “excess units” create inefficiencies and drive up costs both for the student and California taxpayers. Another consequence, the report states, is that they “crowd out or slow down the trajectories of other students who need these same courses for reaching their own educational goals.”

The report’s conclusion?

“Despite some modest gains in student outcomes, the community college system is not performing at the level needed to reliably provide students with opportunities for mobility and to meet California’s future workforce needs.”

Read the full article about community colleges by Louis Freedberg at EdSource