By, Dr. Linda Serra Hagedorn and Dr. Reynaldo Baca, University of Southern California Rossier School of Education

mportant Clarifying Notes:
     On November 24, 2000 the Los Angeles Times ran a story indicating that the California Community Colleges were failing in their mission to transfer students to four-year universities.  The article was especially scathing to the Los Angeles Community College District.  As two college professors from the University of Southern California who study the community college, we felt compelled to offer editorial comments.  Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Times did not choose to print our comments.  Our editorial follows:

Editorial Submitted to the Los Angeles Times

     We must respond and clarify the L. A. Time's coverage of the transfer rates of the California Community Colleges.  A reading of the article leaves the impression of institutional failure.  An important missing piece, however, is that the mission of the community college does not ONLY include transfer.  Many of the students (and on some campuses, the large majority) are not enrolled to ultimately transfer to a four-year university but, rather, to gain important training that leads to employment.  Other students are taking classes for recreation or personal enhancement, and others are there to learn English as their second language.  This is not an exhaustive list, but just a beginning of chipping at the iceberg of "why people enroll in a community college."

     Secondly, one must acknowledge that not all students who DO transfer will do so immediately following their community college experience.  Unlike a community college, four-year institutions can be expensive.  Not only are tuition and fees higher, but the opportunity costs are incomparable.  For example, whereas the scheduling of courses at the community college is replete with a slate of offerings during the evenings and on weekends, allowing working adults and/or parents to combine employment with education, the universities follow a more traditional model.  Thus, a student may be very successful in balancing work and school and paying the bills while a transfer to the university requires an upset so dramatic as to be impossible under the present situation.  Students may need to work for years to save enough money so that the continuation of college is possible.  Thus, to measure transfer within a very short time frame is unfair and misleading.

     Thirdly, and we would argue most importantly, one must consider WHO attends the community college.  As former community college students and presently professors of education at the University of Southern California whose research area is the community college,  we are am intimately aware of the differences between those students who choose to attend a local two-year college and those who have the opportunity to attend a university.  Community colleges do not discriminate.  Unlike their university counterparts, there are no minimum SAT scores, no requirements for calculus or advanced literature, no minimum high school grade point average, and no requirement for proficiency in the English language.  Although there are many community college students with academic accomplishments that would easily allow them to enter a research university, the majority of students do not.  Thus, the community college enrolls a heterogeneous slate of students, many requiring remedial level instruction.

     Of course it would be desirable to increase the transfer rates of California Community Colleges (especially those in the Los Angeles area).  However, to chastise the community college for admitting students with non-traditional profiles and then to blame them when these students do not fit a traditional transfer profile is unmerited.  The community colleges are full of anxious seekers of a better life--students in search of many goals including those that do NOT include transfer.  We encourage all to applaud these institutions that take a chance on students that a four-year university would not even consider admitting.  If it were not for these compassionate institutions, many of us would not be where we are today.  This is the other side.