Two years ago, I wrote a couple of columns offering my opinion that the state-supported, public, two-year colleges should not be called community colleges, city colleges, or junior colleges. Those are all colleges and deserve that appellation. That’s not a new idea. I started my college career as a student at Foothill College, a two-year college in Los Altos Hills in 1959 and taught for 32 years at Bakersfield College before coming to Madera, where I taught at the Madera Center for four years before retirement.
When the Madera Center finally became an independent, accredited college and chose Madera Community College for its name, I was distressed. In fact, a book that I had published in 2002 notes that the authors are Charles F. Hohm, San Diego State University and James A. Glynn, Madera College, because I was assured that the Madera Center would be an independent college the year of publication. That was a bit embarrassing, but the book was already on bookstore shelves, and there wasn’t much to be done about it.
Why ‘community college?’
Until 1978, California’s two-year colleges were supported by community (usually that meant county) taxes. That changed when voters passed Proposition 13, which lowered property taxes. However, opponents of Prop. 13 challenged, and the case wound up in court. In looking at the “big picture,” the court found that the two-year colleges did not receive equal financial support from each county. So, it determined that county taxes be forwarded to the state, and the state would then redistribute the money so that the colleges would approach equity. Therefore, all state two-year college became state-supported public institutions of higher learning.
However, there was no equity between the financing to two-year colleges and four-year colleges. In fact, all of the state’s four-year colleges became state universities by 1982, meaning that there were no more state colleges. Consequently, many of the two-year “community colleges” changed their titles to more appropriate “college.” By the time that I wrote my last column about two-year colleges, 94 of the state’s 117 two-year institutions of higher learning were simply called colleges.
Why not Madera?
Misinformation
I think a lot of the confusion about our two-year colleges is due to misinformation. It’s been a half century since our two-year colleges were supported by community taxes and became part of the state’s tripartite system of higher education. Many previous rules and notions are outdated and have been for a long time.
During the decade of the 1980s, the state Academic Senate for two-year colleges worked on a bill to augment the decision-making for the colleges and to make financing of the institutions more equitable with the other two segments of higher education. For example, after Prop. 13, two-year colleges received their state money on the same basis as K-12 schools, namely ADA (Average Daily Attendance). However, the CSUs and the UCs received their allowances based on FTE (Full-Time Equivalency), a much better method that provided greater financing.
Assembly Bill 1725, carried by Assemblymember John Vasconcellos and prepared by the Academic Senate (on which I served) sought to assure that transfer-level courses would be taught by instructors who had at least a master’s degree and that financing would be based on FTE. Each year that the bill was submitted, it was vetoed by the Governor. But finally, in 1989, Gov. Deukmejian signed the bill into law.
A second bit of misinformation is that community colleges only teach remedial classes. At one time, probably close to a century ago, the two-year colleges were considered to be grades 13 and 14, and many of the colleges were located on high school campuses, which only reinforced that impression.
While it is true that some classes (a small minority) taught at two-year colleges are remedial to prepare students for college-level work, that is also true of CSUs and UCs. A recent story in the Los Angeles Times reported that the University of California is considering reinstating SAT tests for students who apply for admission because their knowledge of elementary mathematics is so poor. Remediation is a problem that plagues all accredited colleges across the board. And, perhaps it’s handled better at two-year colleges that have more experience with the problem because two-year college transfers to CSUs do better academically than students who begin at a CSU.
New vistas for 2-year colleges
In 2014, fifteen selected two-year colleges began offering four-year degrees in certain majors, like information management and dental hygiene. Now, according to Sarah Hernandez, writing for Hoodline, “California community colleges just got the green light to offer a lot more bachelor’s degrees, including some that overlap with CSU programs under limited circumstances.” A pair of bills, signed by Governor Newsom eases restrictions on bachelor degrees awarded by two-year colleges “while retaining the statewide prohibition on duplicating University of California programs.”
But, with regard to the CSUs, the door is partially open. Hernandez writes that “a community college could offer a degree that overlaps with a nearby CSU program if state labor officials find an unfilled local job shortage, or if that CSU program has been difficult for students to access…” And, a pilot program demonstrates that the system not only works but is phenomenally successful. Mira Costa College, a two-year college in Oceanside, offers a Bachelor of Science in Biomanufacturing. Its graduates have achieved a 90 percent employment rate in the field for which they prepared!
I hope that the President of Madera Community College and the new Chancellor of the State Center Community College District will work diligently to change the names of our community colleges to, quite simply, COLLEGE. All transfer-level courses are taught by highly qualified instructors and are transferable to any CSU or UC. Unfortunately, AB 2301, authored by Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, was vetoed by Gov. Newsom. It would have created a pilot program for as many as 10 two-year colleges to offer a Bachelor Science degree in Nursing. Perhaps our next governor will see the light.
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Jim Glynn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology. He may be contacted at j_glynn@att.net.