McCarthy Faults 2-Year Colleges : Transfer Rate to Universities Too Low, Official Says

Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy told a UC Irvine audience Wednesday that community colleges aren’t doing as well as they should in transferring students to four-year universities.

McCarthy, who is a member of the UC Board of Regents, said community colleges statewide transfer only about 6% of their students to the UC system and other four-year universities. He noted the transfer function is one of the key missions of community colleges, according to state law.

“Obviously, that is not working,” he said.

The lieutenant governor, however, praised the community colleges overall and said they were doing “magnificent” work in vocational training, helping women return to the work force and assimilating the state’s new foreign immigrants.

But the community college system suffers from lack of funding, McCarthy said. The root reason, he said, is that the two-year colleges have no statewide structure, or power base, such as the University of California or the California State University systems enjoy. “They still want that community college district independence, as a historical outgrowth of the local school districts. But that does not allow them to compete very well for funds or for policy in Sacramento.

“The (statewide) community college governing board is made up of fine people, but it doesn’t have any real inherent power. It does not have any real, administrative clout with the system. You’ve got 70 community college districts, with elected trustees, and obviously every elected official . . . doesn’t want to give up those positions.”

McCarthy said that if the community college system is to have more clout with the governor and the Legislature, “you’ve got to change the structure.”

The lieutenant governor was at UCI on one of his periodic visits as a UC regent. He spoke to a group of about 30 graduate students and campus leaders, freely inviting questions. His comments about the community college system came in response to one of the questions.

In mildly criticizing the number of transfers, McCarthy said the state’s 1961 master plan for higher education stated three goals for community colleges:

“One of them was preparing students to transfer to four-year campuses. Obviously that’s not working. There are a few community colleges that are preparing their students for transfer, but the rate of transfer to UC and CSU adds up to 5% or 6% of all the students who complete their work at community colleges . . . .”

McCarthy did not elaborate on reasons for the problem nor did he propose solutions.

“On the other hand,” he said, “community colleges are doing some magnificent things in helping people prepare for high-technology jobs, and, frankly, demonstrating more flexibility in ways than four-year systems are. And community colleges allow many people, like women who are trying to re-enter the economy . . . an opportunity. Community colleges have also given an opportunity to the refugees who have come here under presidential decree from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong and elsewhere, helping them to assimilate, in many instances, better than the four-year campuses.”

Other Comments

In other comments, McCarthy said that in his position as chairman of the state’s Economic Development Commission, he intends to push for more solutions to the rapid increase of toxic waste. He said that the state’s universities will need to “play major roles in the technology of solving this problem.”

In response to a question about his political plans, McCarthy said: “I’m most likely to run for reelection (as lieutenant governor) next year, and I’ll announce my plans in September. If (incumbent Democratic Sen.) Alan Cranston weren’t running for another term, I’d seriously have to consider that. But my most likely course is to run for reelection.”

McCarthy, a liberal Democrat from San Francisco, held the powerful post of speaker of the state Assembly before being ousted in a power struggle that eventually resulted in Willie Brown’s move to that post.

McCarthy is frequently mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate to oppose Republican Gov. George Deukmejian’s reelection bid next year. But McCarthy unequivocally said Wednesday that he doesn’t plan to run for the gubernatorial nomination.