State Panel Seeks to Define a Role for Local Colleges

A state commission has been asking some fundamental questions about the community colleges in recent months, such as: what are they?

Are the 106 colleges, like the state universities, part of a higher education system whose courses, policies and funding should be largely the same up and down California?

Or should the colleges gear their programs to the wishes of local citizens, whether it is programs on travel, gourmet cooking and aerobics for an affluent retirement community or courses in basic English for an area with a high percentage of immigrants?

Should they have an open door to all regardless of ability or interests, or should they serve only students seeking a college degree or a job?

Repeated Clashes

On such basic questions, the state’s political leaders--Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and the Democrat-controlled Legislature--have disagreed sharply. After repeated clashes over the two-year colleges, the governor and the Legislature decided last year to ask an independent commission to recast the colleges in a form that both sides could accept.

Deukmejian, who in 1983 fought for and won the $50-per-semester fee at the community colleges, has regularly vetoed budget increases for them, saying that the colleges need higher standards and clearer priorities.

In the Legislature, Republicans have suggested that the colleges need to set “an academic floor” so that students who can barely read would not be enrolled in what are supposed to be college-level courses. But the Democrats have fought to uphold California’s traditional “open-door” policy in the community colleges that allows any student at any age and at any ability level to enroll in a huge variety of courses at minimal cost.

“This all began with Proposition 13 (in 1978) when all the funding shifted to Sacramento. Suddenly, the state was asking itself: My God, what are we paying for?,” said Lee Kerschner, new executive director of the Commission for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education.

The 15-member panel includes six members appointed by the Legislature, four appointed by Deukmejian and four representing the state universities and colleges.

“When the fee fight arose in 1983,” Kerschner continued, “all the other questions came up: what are the community colleges, what are their purposes and which students should they serve?.”

By February, Kerschner’s commission is to have answers to all those questions.

Facing a Tough Time

But if the two public hearings earlier this month are any indication, the panel will have a tough time coming up with a plan that satisfies both those who want clearer college standards and those who want an open-ended program for some of the state’s most disadvantaged students.

“We should not have an academic floor in the community colleges. That would be the worst decision California could make,” said Marguerite Archie-Hudson, a trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District and a former aide to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“Any citizen who is 18 ought to have a right to higher education, and we shouldn’t let the community colleges become elite institutions like the University of California,” she said at a commission hearing at West Los Angeles College.

She and others noted that by the year 2000, 52% of California’s students will be from minority groups, who in general have fared least well on the traditional academic measures such as grades and test scores. Moreover, refugees and recent immigrants have relied on the community colleges for basic education and job training, she said.

“Some of the business-oriented people on that commission may think it is more efficient to have a standard to define college-level preparation,” she said in an interview. “But that would leave out half of the students in this state. They should not be denied an education.”

But commission Chairman J. Gary Shansby, a Deukmejian appointee, said he favors some kind of standard that would limit entrance to the community colleges or some of its programs.

“I don’t think the state can continue to provide completely open access to colleges. I don’t think that’s affordable or reasonable,” said Shansby, who is the chairman and chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based Shaklee Corp.

‘Lost a Perspective’

“In my view, the community colleges have been too open. They’ve tried to offer too many things to too many people, so that they’ve lost a perspective on what they are,” he said in an interview.

Kerschner, the commission’s executive director, said that “the most difficult issue we face is how to find a balance between access and quality. But I think the commissioners are leaning strongly to defining them (community colleges) as collegiate institutions.”

Defining them as “collegiate institutions” would appear to suggest that the community colleges should not offer courses such as basic English or aerobics, although both Shansby and Kerschner say they have not formulated a specific plan for narrowing the focus of the community colleges.

Many legislators and community college officials say that they will strongly resist any move to force students with low academic abilities out of the community colleges, even though the state finances free adult-education classes in high schools.

“There are people in the community colleges who are struggling very hard to get a grip on how to add, subtract and read, but these people are adults and a lot of them just won’t go back to a high school campus,” said Ray Giles, director of education services for the California Community College Trustees Assn. “Not only that, everyone in a community college can tell you a story of someone who failed all the way through school, but suddenly blossomed at a community college.”

Agree on Prime Goals

The commission officials say that they are in agreement on two prime goals for the community colleges: providing college courses that will prepare a student to transfer to a four-year university, and vocational courses that would lead to a job.

However, even though state officials say that these are the top priorities for the two-year colleges, it is not clear that college officials agree.

According to state figures, many community colleges produce only a handful of transfer students. In 1983, a total of 1.2 million students enrolled in California community colleges, but only 5,300 of them transferred to one of the nine campuses of the University of California and only 30,200 moved on to one of the 19 California State University System campuses.

Though the state finances the two-year colleges, it does not govern them in the way that state universities are controlled.

Under California’s master plan for higher education enacted in 1960, the nine UC campuses are governed by a Board of Regents and a central administration based in Berkeley. Meanwhile, the 19 Cal State campuses are governed by a Board of Trustees and central administration based in Long Beach.

70 Local Boards

By contrast, the 106 community colleges are located in 70 districts, each with a locally elected board of trustees. The Board of Governors of the Community Colleges and newly named Chancellor Joshua Smith act as “coordinators” for the colleges, but do not set specific policies or rules for them.

“It’s crazy to have 70 different governing boards,” said Shansby, the commission chairman. “We need a better way to govern the community colleges. The system just isn’t as effective as UC or Cal State.”

Patrick Callan, director of the independent Commission on Postsecondary Education, agreed that the governing arrangement for community colleges needs to be changed.

“We have a weak state system and we have weak local governance,” he said. “No one knows who is in charge or who is accountable.”

But many college officials contend that the authority should remain with local officials.

State Too Diverse

“The priorities for the colleges ought to be set by the local citizenry through a locally elected board,” said David Viar, director of the state association of college trustees. “This state is much too large and too complex to have that done by a state board.”

All the community college interest groups will be watching closely as the commission wraps up a set of public hearings later this month and begins to decide on answers to the most difficult questions. Its report is scheduled to be written in January and delivered to the Legislature by Feb. 28.

“I don’t want to seek a compromise plan that will just try to please the greatest number of people,” Shansby said. “We’ve got some tough decisions ahead of us and we’ll make some people angry.”