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Many people do not realize the incredible mission, efforts,
accomplishments and impact of community colleges.
 In
Spring of 2008, some 90,000 faculty and staff served more than
1.7 million students (a million full-time) at 109 California
community colleges. For credit tuition was $20 per academic
unit ($60 for a typical 3-unit class), and non-credit courses
were free to California residents. Half of full-time students
received financial aid.
California community colleges are also incredibly diverse,
serving most demographic categories, including all ethnic
backgrounds, academic achievements, sexual orientations,
educational goals, and schedules. Students range from high
school students seeking additional challenge, to people who
never graduated high school but need employable skills, to
high school graduates seeking an affordable pathway into 4
year colleges, to working professionals with advanced degrees
seeking updated knowledge and skills.
Many Californians falsely believe they cannot afford college.
Anyone can afford a California Community College education!
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and ICT
infrastructure are essential, enabling, strategic
infrastructure for successful information and knowledge
economies of the 21st century. Across the entire United States
of America, community colleges are the most cost effective way
of pushing ICT knowledge and skills out into communities where
they can be utilized by every kind of person, organization and
endeavor to advance society.
Of course, we also need cutting edge research in universities
and enterprises to advance ICT technologies, but we need
community colleges to develop widespread technical knowledge
and skills so that technologies are actually implemented in
the real world to benefit real efforts by real people.
For these and other reasons, the Mid-Pacific ICT Center, and
the NSF ATE program are primarily focused on improving
community college education.
Back to Q4 2008
Newsletter |
