As a graduate of City College of San
Francisco, it was with surprise and outrage that I responded to the
news of the college's loss of accreditation. I have been open about
the negative aspects of my experience as a student of CCSF,
documented in a report by the Campaign for College Opportunity titled
“Challenged
from the Start: Stories of Student Perseverance and Determination in
California's Community Colleges”. I will be the first to admit
that the experience of a CCSF student is often a confusing,
burdensome one – but the fact that such confusion and such burdens
exist are only a testament to how much the school itself is needed in
the community.
In the words of the Accrediting
Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), accreditation
is “a voluntary system of self regulation developed to evaluate
overall educational quality and institutional effectiveness”. Yet,
by withdrawing accreditation entirely, the ACCJC is moving towards
potentially replacing what they have deigned a sub-par education
system with no education at all.
Perhaps
the cruelest cut of all comes when comparing student outcomes of CCSF
students to those of students statewide, and students attending other
colleges in the Bay Area. As part of the Student Success Initiative,
the Student
Success Scorecard is a demographic overview of student outcomes
viewable to the public in order to hold educational institutions
accountable for the performance of their student bodies. As of 2013,
CCSF's completion rate is 55.6%, over 5% above the national average
of 49.2%. The neighboring Skyline College achieved a 2013 rate of
53.6%, and College of San Mateo, a rate of 55.1%. The section size of
a credit course at CCSF is equal to the national average of 29
students. Of 47,870 credit students, 32,632 of them – about 68% -
are enrolled full time, surpassing the statewide percentage of full
time enrollment, which is 47%. Skyline College comes in at 48.9%, and
CSM, 13.9%. Also, while CCSF falls over 7% below the state rate of
successful math remediation, it is 5% above the statewide rate of 38%
in successful English remediation, and more than double the state
rate of 23.6% in successful English as a Second Language (ESL)
remediation.
While
we will all probably concede that a completion rate of just over half
of a college's students is far from what we would like to see, it
still stands that CCSF, despite being rife with inefficiencies, still
produces outcomes on par with if not exceeding those of schools which
are not losing their accreditation – and outcomes should be the
be-all, end-all of accreditation. After all, what other purpose does
accreditation serve, except for evaluating a school's ability to
successfully bring students to outcomes that correlate with
educational success?
If
City College of San Francisco does in fact lose its accreditation in
July of next year, the school would no longer be eligible to receive
state taxpayer funds, nor would students be able to receive financial
aid in the same capacity that I was able to access as a student and
that many continue to access today. There are speculations that the
college may even face shutting down entirely, leaving the over 40,000
credit students – not to mention another 40,000 non-credit students
– to seek their education elsewhere. Serving over double the
population of Skyline College and over triple the population of CSM,
the closure of a school the size of CCSF could effectively double
class sizes in the area, or decimate already dwindling retention
rates. The numerous police officers, nurses, and other healthcare
employees that come out of CCSF's programs every year would have to
seek out the qualifications needed for employment elsewhere.
If, on
the other hand, City College is privatized – its fate is very much
up in the air. Will it go the route of many other private
institutions and raise tuition on its students? If so, it would
effectively reduce accessibility to education almost as much as
shutting the school down entirely. It would also do away with the
ability of many members of the community to take non-credit
enrichment courses at prices within their means – at yet another
institution, it will be fundamentally forgotten that education is
valuable in more ways than simply being a tool for economic success.
And
yet, the economic aspect cannot be minimized when thinking about the
weight of this decision. At so crucial a juncture in the evolution of
the American economy at which acquiring employment is more and more
reliant upon the acquisition of education and technical skills, the
closure of a major Bay Area educational institution is nothing short
of outrageous. Despite its shortcomings – and admittedly, there are
many – City College of San Francisco is meeting the economic need
of the city of San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area by producing
degree- and certificate-holding employees who are prepared to work
and possibly seek out further education when financially able. It is
meeting the need of tens of thousands of people for affordable,
accessible education.
City
College of San Francisco will need an overhaul. It will need to
reevaluate its procedures and its use of resources. It is an effort
that will take a great deal of time, effort, and – yes – money in
order to create a structure which can sustain its tens of thousands
of students. It will require taking up the mantle of commitment of
the city and the state to investing in education, even at a cost.
But
the alternative – closing the doors of one of the most relied upon
educational resources of the Bay Area – places an unbearable burden
on the students, the schools who must strive to accommodate them once
they are displaced, and the State of California.
