In 2017, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office released the Vision for Success: Strengthening the California Community Colleges to Meet California’s Needs, a multi-year plan to improve student success and close equity and achievement gaps for good. This strategic plan became the system’s guiding force and called for transformational change at every level of the system. Six performance goals were established for the California Community Colleges to ensure its ability to continue to be a social and economical vehicle of upward mobility for more than 2.1 million students:

1. Improve completion rates

2. Increase transfer to the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems

3. Decrease the number of excess units a student takes to get an associate’s degree

4. Increase job placement for career technical education students

5. Eliminate equity gaps among traditionally underrepresented students

6. Eliminate regional equity gaps

In its third year, the Vision for Success and the system’s steadfast commitment to improving outcomes for all students became arguably more critical than ever, requiring system leaders to take even more bold, unrelenting action. The Foundation continued to embrace a culture of innovation and, through strategic, measured risk-taking, helped to operationalize and scale solutions more effectively. New initiatives such as the Student Centered Design Lab and Incubation Hub provided extra capacity to rethink structures, source ideas, vet opportunities, and launch new programs and initiatives that helped address students’ evolving needs and accelerate achievement of the Vision.

Colleges also made significant progress toward meeting priority goals, including increasing the number of students who earn college credentials by 20 percent and gains in rates of attainment across the board, due to systemwide adoption of the Guided Pathways framework and remedial course reform, AB 705. However, persistent equity gaps continue to exist, with data showing Asian and White students’ attainment rates increase at a rate higher than those of Latinx and African-American students. 

These gaps were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent statewide “stay at home” orders that occurred early in the spring 2020 semester, which not only caused a sudden shift from in-person instruction to nearly fully online instruction, but also led to significant capacity reductions. Within weeks, the largest system of higher education in the nation was required to shift from offering only 18% of its instruction online to close to 100%. Thousands of students were left without jobs to support themselves and their families, had to quickly adjust to homeschooling their own children on top of their studies, and faced intense fear about their immediate health and safety and, longer term, about their futures. 

In partnership with the Chancellor’s Office, the Foundation pivoted and launched a comprehensive response effort, creating solutions at scale to address urgent student needs and ensure the continuation of learning. This included: 

• Raising resources to address immediate needs and long-term effects of COVID-19: engaging donors, philanthropic entities, and corporate partners to help mitigate the pandemic’s impact by raising funds for emergency aid and student basic needs (including food and housing), access to technology devices and internet connectivity, remote teaching and learning, responsive workforce training innovations for a rapidly changing economy, and more. 

• Establishing the First Response Healthcare Student Relief Fund: partnering with local college foundations to distribute nearly $1 million to healthcare students facing adverse financial impacts as a result of COVID-19.

• Aligning organizational priorities and program initiatives to system response efforts: leveraging our in-house talent, capacity, networks, and infrastructure to help Californians navigate the shifting landscape through unique program delivery, outreach to disadvantaged communities, and more. 

At this time when COVID-19 was further exposing the equity challenges experienced by our students, the nation reached a critical juncture: a long overdue global movement in response to systemic racial injustices that continue to oppress marginalized communities. While the California Community Colleges has long championed diversity, equity, and inclusion, Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley issued a “Call to Action” to accelerate this work and influence real, lasting change at every level, from access to culture to curriculum and beyond. In partnership with the Chancellor’s Office and the system’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Taskforce, the Foundation will be working to support implementation of this Call to Action.

Creating a better, bright future for our students means not only executing on Chancellor Oakley’s Call to Action, but in taking the long, necessary journey to host honest conversations, call out structural barriers, present solutions, and continually measure our progress to hold ourselves accountable. Equity will remain the heart and focus of our work in support of the Vision for Success, and as we continue to support the nation’s largest and most diverse system of higher education in achieving its goals and commitments. We’re proud of our pivotal role supporting the California Community Colleges in making higher education more accessible, affordable, and equitable in California, and this report provides an overview of our accomplishments this last fiscal year across our five areas of impact.

Looking Ahead

While we celebrate the progress we have made to date, we also know there is much more to be done to ensure the California Community Colleges remain affordable and accessible for all. The Foundation has established a growth-minded goal to “double our impact” by the end of our third decade of service and, in June 2020, adopted a new Double Impact Strategic Plan to guide us towards achievement.

We strongly believe in the unique power of California Community Colleges to change the lives of individuals, their communities, and our state through equitable educational and economic opportunity. We take pride in our role as the system’s non-profit auxiliary foundation, and are committed to being its hub for innovation and an intermediary for transformative change at scale.