Fact: Contra Costa College transfers fewer students to universities than any other school in the district. The question is why. Barb Ross CCC�s director of public relations calls the school �the best value around...,� while administration touts it as a valuable local resource. Why then are most of its students not only failing to transfer, but they are not even prepared to become employed at the most basic of job levels?
Seemingly no one is paying attention to the fact that such a small number of students graduate and even fewer transfer. Diablo Valley College has the highest transfer rate in the state of California, yet CCC transfers less then five percent of it's students. In 1996 CCC said they had 5,249 students of these, only 251 students successfully transfered. Of the students who transfered to four year schools 193 students went to CSU�s while only 58 went to UC�s.
Day care
The answers to these and other questions can be found on the campus its self. Out of date equipment, a library full of textbooks circa 1954 and instructors who indulge themselves in lectures which encompass not the approved course material, but unrelated personal stories and mindless banter. This is not an institute which promotes higher learning, it�s day care for those who don�t have anywhere else to be and don�t particularly care about their future.
Counterproductive
At any time of the day more students can be found gathered around the quad area or in the student association building engaged in games of �chance� than can be found in any class room on campus. Most classes are not filled to capacity and those classes needed to transfer are especially sparsely occupied. It should also be noted that courses needed to fulfill transfer requirements are practically an endangered species in the schedule. Each semester there are fewer and fewer sections offered for these classes, yet there are more sections of remedial math and English then ever before. Exactly how many sections of math 101 does one campus need? College Dean McKinley Williams estimates the college will have to cut 15 to 18 percent of their existing sections for the next semester. How many of these will be transfer courses?
Web of Deceit
Certainly administration knows about this, but in a district which is currently embroiled in a twisted web of deceit and ever growing sea of bogus enrollment numbers this is of little importance. Instead the emphasis is on keeping the college financially afloat at what ever expense--even if it�s the students.
Over the last decade the practice of duplicated head count has garnered continued state funding and spawned a huge debt to the district. CCC Students from the previous semester are counted in the current semester even if they never enrolled. Additionally, students who sign-up for short term classes are counted for a second time as the school proudly announces an increased student population. This is an attempt to boost the money which the state gives for each enrolled student. Know as FTES and ADA, the state allocates a given dollar amount for every student enrolled. In the case of CCC, these students are counted whether they actually occupy a seat in the classroom or not. In further attempts to boost enrollment, the school wants students to enroll in a class that will give them empty units just for being employed. �We�re looking at every student who works and trying to have them enroll in a co-op education class,� William said. Such classes carry unit value, but do not count towards graduation or transfer to four year schools. College employees inlcuding instructors are urged to sign up for classes to increase enrollment.
Numbers down, way down
It�s questionable why a college would encourage faculty members with a BAs and in some cases Masters Degrees to take junior college classes. The college is here to provide education for those transferring and those seeking two year degrees, not to enlist their own faculty to help with sagging enrollment numbers.
At this point administrators are far more interested in maintaining enrollment numbers which equate funding than they are a high transfer rate which is of no monetary value. Clearly, education is not a top priority not for administration and not for most students either. The name of the game here is funding. Funding for the school, and funding for the students mostly who are welfare recipients and have no intention of ever graduating from anywhere-- let alone transferring to a university. They take classes as a stipulation of the state to continue receiving welfare. School here is a clever facade in which time spent in the classroom is only a requirement to assure the check arrives in the mail each month. For these CCC students this isn�t a way to gain much needed job skills which would assure financial independence; this IS their job. The truth is, these people come to CCC so they don�t have to work. They continue to �get paid� for doing absolutely nothing. And the school continues to allow it because they are getting something out of it too: another head to count. Astonishingly, out of 5,249 students who attend CCC in 1996 2,951 were receiving pell grants.
It's the money stupid
Case in point, last year the state mandated recipients of financial aid (which is paid in addition to their welfare) would be paid in two installments--one at the beginning of the semester and one at the end--after the drop period. The reason for this was the amazingly high number of students who would collect their aid in one lump sum, and then proceed to drop all of their classes only to re-enroll for the next semester to do the exact same thing. For this same reason, it was also decided that these students would have to see a counselor at the beginning of the semester and choose approved courses from a major, hence proving they were actually working towards an educational goal rather than simply wasting time and making a profit.
Creative Bookkeeping
Until something is done about this CCC will continue to flounder financially and it�s students will continue to fail. Education isn�t suppose to be big business where creative bookkeeping is an accepted, albeit unmentioned, way of life. Higher education should be the goal here and especially given CCC�s demographics, it�s a much needed resource which could give it�s students something which is priceless: an education.
We at Advoonline will continue to look at these and other issues in an effort to inform the community what is really going on behind the doors of Contra Costa College.