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Our intern, Connie Castelan. Click here to read her story below.
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As we welcome the new year, I want to send you my best wishes and thank you for supporting our work.
The Campaign for College Opportunity has always done just as our name implies: we have advocated for students' rights to access higher education and the opportunity to achieve their college goals.
We believe that both rights - to begin and to complete - are fundamental to a system that is fair to students, increases the return on investment for taxpayers, and ensures that California will have the educated workforce it needs to keep our economy competitive.
Students are frustrated by a system that neither encourages nor ensures that they can complete their education in a reasonable time. There are many reasons for this, including budgets cuts and burgeoning enrollment. But there are more fundamental, structural causes largely based on how we fund community colleges and policies that lack attention and focus on student success. Until we correct this, The Campaign will continue to press for adequate funding and policy reform.
It has been a devastating year for California higher education with $2 billion in cuts to our public colleges and universities by the State at a time when our growing young adult population needs more opportunities, not less. While in 2011 we accomplished quite a bit, we know there is more to be done and that none of this would have been possible without you. A few of our successes include:
- Bringing widespread attention on the need to improve community college completion rates through the release and statewide coverage of a critical report on student outcomes by race.
- Monitoring and advising the implementation of historic community college transfer reform legislation to ensure that the vision of a statewide pathway to transfer becomes a reality.
- Establishing a new 28-member Advisory Board, maintaining a strong statewide network of over 12,000 coalition supporters across California, and directly engaging over 5,000 of our supporters in our activities.
In 2012 we will continue to focus on improving college completion in California in order to produce one million additional college graduates by 2025. We ask you to join us in:
- Demanding that our state leaders set forth specific statewide goals for producing the educated workforce we need by establishing benchmarks for college-going and completion;
- Ensuring strong implementation of community college transfer reform legislation by the California State University and the California Community Colleges and continuing to press the University of California to create a similar pathway;
- Significantly improving community college completion rates by supporting budget and policy reforms that reward increased student success; and,
- Sharing the critical need in high demand workforce sectors for educated workers, including health and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
In early 2012, we will be releasing a key statewide analysis on the return on investment for the State of California's spending in higher education, and the significant loss of revenues projected if we continue to turn away students from our colleges and fail to increase college completion.
Finally, in November Governor Brown appointed me to the California Student Aid Commission. As a former Cal Grant recipient, I know first-hand the debt I owe to those who invested in my future. I am honored and mindful of ensuring we keep a strong commitment to those students who come after us. Thank you and Happy New Year!
 Michele Siqueiros Executive Director |
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FOCUSING ON STUDENT SUCCESS
  At the end of December we sent Connie Castelan, our college intern, off to Seattle Pacific University with all the hopes and excitement of parents sending their own children off to college for the first time. We are extremely proud of Connie, partly because we know the challenges she had to overcome in order to transfer to Seattle. Connie first came to the realization of how difficult it was going to be to get the coursework she needed during her first term in a community college and over the subsequent 2.5 years she attended seven colleges in three different community college districts in the Los Angeles region-at times commuting up to 80 miles a day going from college to college. Connie plans to work toward a double major in English and political science, and ultimately pursue a career in law.
Connie's story is not unique--nor is it ideal. It is because of students like her, with incredible drive and passion, that The Campaign has endorsed the recommendations of the Task Force on Student Success for California Community Colleges and why we ask that you join us in doing so. We believe the community college system must to its part to ensure that significantly more students not only have access to courses, but also succeed in reaching their college dreams. Along with full implementation of historic transfer reform legislation through SB 1440, signed into law in 2010, these reforms will significantly increase community college completion rates. California's future depends on our ability to produce one million more college graduates by 2025, and community colleges, which serve 2.6 million students annually, are the lynch pin to an educated workforce. But to get there, we must significantly increase the number of students who successfully earn a certificate, degree, and transfer to a four-year university (currently only 3 in 10 community college students reach this marker after six years, and for blacks and Latinos the rates are even lower).
At a time with limited resources and devastating cuts to our colleges, the recommendations place an important emphasis on student success by starting students off on the right track, making progress to completion far easier, and sharing vital information on student success through a college score card. For a template letter endorsing the draft recommendations, click here. Our goal is to have all letters submitted by THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 6 in time for the Board of Governors (BOG) meeting on Monday, January 9. Please be sure to send us a copy as well so that we can distribute it to each member of the BOG. Please call our Sacramento office at 916-443-1681 with any questions.
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OUR LOS ANGELES OFFICE HAS MOVED!
Please update your records with our new information.
714 W. Olympic Boulevard, Suite 745
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: 213-744-9434
Fax: 877-207-3560
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THANK YOU!
And of course, none of this work would be possible without the financial support for The Campaign for College Opportunity from: The California Education Policy Fund, The California Wellness Foundation, Deloitte LLP, The Ford Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, Pacific Gas & Electric, The Rappaport Family Foundation, State Street Foundation, Southern California Edison, and The Vons Foundation.
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