Report faults community colleges

California community colleges are falling short in educating a changing student population that needs greater remedial education and better English skills to join the state workforce, according to a report released Thursday by a policy analysis group.

In particular, the community college system is not doing a good enough job of retaining students who set out to obtain a degree, concluded the report by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.

Only 10% of students who intend to get a two-year degree and only 26% of those hoping to transfer to a four-year university achieve their goals, the study found. The success rate of black and Latino students is even lower.

“This is sobering because a primary function of community college is to broaden access to higher education,” said Ria Sengupta, lead author of the study. “Unfortunately, the groups that are gaining the least from community college are the same ones that are historically underserved by other higher education systems.”

The community college system, with 110 colleges and 2.5 million students, has long prided itself on providing affordable, quality education to any adult Californian who wants to take a class or obtain a college degree.

But educators have begun to question whether those goals are sufficient in an era when California’s workforce is increasingly undereducated and has a growing number of Latinos and Asians who speak English as a second language.

Community Colleges Chancellor Marshall “Mark” Drummond welcomed the group’s report, which he said highlights problems the system is already attempting to address.

“We have a great front door,” he said. “The back door doesn’t work so well.”

Drummond said part of the problem is that students are not as well prepared for community college as they were a generation ago. When students enroll today, 90% need remedial math and 75% need remedial English and writing.

The community colleges, which accept any Californian over the age of 18, are largely unprepared to deal with the large influx of students who need remedial help before they can begin taking college courses.

“We are set up to deal with the students of the ‘80s,” Drummond said. “The students of 2006 are not like those students. The people who come to us are not that well prepared, and there is a wider diversity.”

Nancy Shulock, director of Cal State Sacramento’s Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy, said her group is conducting a similar study that shows “some very frightening projections” for the California workforce if the level of education does not improve.

“It’s really important that more of the students who enroll in a community college come out with a degree or transfer to a four-year institution,” she said.

The study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that half the students who enroll in community college for basic skills courses stay in the system for a year or less.

In addition, black, Latino and Native American students who enroll with the intention of transferring to a four-year school drop out at twice the rate of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

The poor outcome for community college students stems in part from poor preparation in elementary and high schools.

In addition, community colleges are not set up to assist students who need help in designing their program for a two-year degree or transferring to another institution. For every 1,200 students, there is only one counselor, Drummond noted.

“Most people never get to see a counselor because we have so few of them,” he said.

Drummond said the community college system adopted a series of measures earlier this year to try to help more students obtain a degree or transfer, but state officials will need to consider more far-reaching steps.

“At the end of the day, there is a major policy question for the state of California,” the chancellor said. “Currently, community colleges are not capable of remediating 70 or 80 or 90% of the people who come to us.”

richard.paddock@latimes.com