\n<\/p>\n
While California has made gains in expanding access to college, the state remains well short of Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s goal of 70\u00a0percent postsecondary attainment by 2030, according to a new report.<\/p>\n
The report, from Complete College America and the Campaign for College Opportunity, found that California\u2019s postsecondary attainment rate\u2014which includes certificates, associate degrees and bachelor\u2019s degrees\u2014stood at 56\u00a0percent in 2023, requiring the state to produce more than 1.3\u00a0million additional college-educated adults in the next five years to meet Newsom\u2019s target.<\/p>\n
Jessie Ryan, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, said reaching the goal will require not only increasing enrollment across the state\u2019s public higher education systems but also significantly improving completion outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 70\u00a0percent attainment goal is ambitious, but I would argue that our students and families deserve nothing less,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
The attainment goal is both a higher education benchmark and a workforce and economic imperative, the report argues. Labor market projections indicate that more than two-thirds of annual job openings in California between 2021 and 2031 will require some form of postsecondary education or training, with the strongest growth expected in high-demand sectors such as health care and STEM fields.<\/p>\n
Ryan noted that more than 6.4 million Californians under 65 have some college credit but no credential, while completion rates across the state\u2019s public systems have remained largely flat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about how we can move the needle on that ambitious 70\u00a0percent attainment goal, we first have to recognize that we cannot do so unless we do more to re-engage those students with some college and no degree,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just an economic imperative but it\u2019s also a moral one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approach:<\/strong> To address these challenges, the report outlines several strategies aimed at improving completion\u2014including strengthening coordination between the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges systems.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest challenges we\u2019ve had in California is that we have lagged the rest of the country in terms of coordination between our K\u201312 systems, our higher education systems and our workforce,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cAs any student will tell you, having an opportunity to access their college dreams also has to come with a clear road map to a meaningful career.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat that means is standing up California\u2019s first education interagency council. We are one of the only states in the country that hasn\u2019t had that infrastructure, and it\u2019s really been to the detriment of our students,\u201d she said. She noted that Newsom and the State Legislature recently invested in developing such a council, which she described as a \u201ctremendous opportunity to align and create more streamlined, student-centered systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan also pointed to improving transfer systems through common course numbering and clearer articulation agreements, as well as creating stackable credentials and structured academic maps to reduce excess credits and time to degree.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing more discouraging than a student taking coursework, hitting their point of transfer and learning that not all of those classes are actually going to be seamlessly articulated to a four-year university,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cThat often is the decision point between whether or not a student continues on or stops out, derailing their college dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan cited Shasta College as an example of an institution using data to identify students who were eligible\u2014or close to eligible\u2014for a certificate, an associate degree or a transfer pathway, ensuring degrees are awarded when they are earned. In particular, Ryan said the institution contacts \u201cstudents who were close to that critical momentum point and offers them an opportunity to re-enroll and even retroactively award hundreds of degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy does that matter? Because in many cases those students didn\u2019t even know that they were eligible for that degree,\u201d Ryan said, noting that past state legislation that would allow students to receive retroactive degree audits was deemed too costly to implement.<\/p>\n The report also calls for a renewed focus on funding structures that support transformational reform at scale, including a potential shift toward \u201ccompletion goals funding,\u201d a model designed to provide institutions with up-front resources tied to clear attainment targets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe total cost of attendance in California can be really prohibitive for students and families,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cOne of the things that I think is powerful under a robust and aligned coordinating entity in California is that there\u2019s an opportunity to open up the college affordability conversation in a way that moves away from fees and really recognizes some of the structural barriers preventing students from being able to access and complete their college dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n Those barriers, she added, include food insecurity, housing instability, transportation challenges and access to mental health services.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next:<\/strong> Ryan said stronger coordination between the state\u2019s K\u201312 system and higher education institutions will be critical for improving student pathways and meeting California\u2019s college attainment goal.<\/p>\n Above all, she said state lawmakers should prioritize policies that make it easier for students to receive credit for coursework they have already completed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to remove the burden from students and instead place the burden on institutions to demonstrate where credits aren\u2019t aligned to learning outcomes,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cThat would be transformational, and that would send a clear message to students and families that college is not only accessible, but that we\u2019re removing a structural barrier to a timely path to a degree.\u201d<\/p>\n Get more content like this directly to your inbox. <\/em>Subscribe here.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While California has made gains in expanding access to college, the state remains well short of Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s goal of 70\u00a0percent postsecondary attainment by 2030, according to a new report. The report, from Complete College America and the Campaign for College Opportunity, found that California\u2019s postsecondary attainment rate\u2014which includes certificates, associate degrees and bachelor\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3874,667,535,771,293,3213],"class_list":{"0":"post-46037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-college","11":"tag-improve","12":"tag-report","13":"tag-urges"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}