Category: Completion

Guaranteeing Transfer Admission to the University of California

Improving transfer from community colleges to four-year universities is an important step in meeting the state’s future workforce needs. In April 2018, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office and the University of California (UC) entered an agreement to guarantee admission to community college students who meet certain qualifications. If sufficient funding and space exist, the guarantee could take effect in fall of 2019.

There are already several pathways for community college students to enroll in UC. For example, all but three campuses (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego) have a guaranteed admission program for students from certain community colleges. UC has also established academic road maps in 21 majors to help prepare students who plan to apply to transfer. However, completing an academic road map does not guarantee admission.

The new plan would guarantee admission for eligible community college students to a UC campus, but not necessarily to their preferred campus. Specifically, it creates a referral pool—a way to redirect students away from full campuses toward campuses with space. This transfer referral pool would be similar to UC’s referral pool for freshmen. At this time only one campus, UC Merced, accepts applicants from the freshman referral pool. In 2017, thousands of eligible students were redirected to UC Merced, but few actually enrolled.

How might a referral pool work for transfer students? Currently, three campuses—Santa Cruz, Riverside, and Merced—are having a particularly difficult time enrolling sufficient numbers of transfer students. These campuses would need to absorb redirected transfer students. However, it’s not certain that redirected students would enroll, even if offered admission. Right now, many transfer applicants decline their offer of admission to these campuses.

To improve transfer pathways for community college students, UC and the state should consider both expanding capacity at high-demand campuses and exploring ways to encourage students to attend other campuses.

Parents Have High Educational Hopes for Their Children—Can California Keep Up?

The most recent PPIC Statewide Survey on Californians’ views on education finds that the vast majority of parents (83%) hope their children will obtain at least a bachelor degree—in fact, nearly half (48%) want their children to earn a graduate degree. These parental aspirations are relatively constant across race/ethnicity, political ideology, and income. They are also fairly consistent across regions—although, among the regions represented in the survey, parents in the Central Valley are the least likely (77%) and San Francisco Bay Area parents are the most likely (96%) to want their children to earn college or graduate degrees. These parental aspirations may be linked to student course taking and performance in high school. Over the past decade, there has been a 48% increase in completion of the coursework that makes California high school graduates eligible for UC or CSU; in 2015, 43% of the state’s graduating class met this eligibility requirement.

Moreover, these aspirations are aligned with urgent state needs. If current economic and educational trends persist, California will fall 1.1 million bachelor’s degrees short of economic demand by 2030. The state economy is increasingly reliant on high-skill workers, but most K–12 students do not stay on track to obtain a bachelor’s degree, let alone a graduate degree. Previous PPIC research has shown that for every 1,000 9th graders in California, only 305 will earn a bachelor’s degree at UC or CSU.

Parental Aspiration Figure

California has a long way to go in meeting demand for higher education, but there are signs of progress. The state has been reinvesting in public higher education, increasing undergraduate enrollment, and improving student outcomes—and the public education systems are increasingly willing to work together to streamline the higher education pipeline. California will need continued innovation and significant investment in facilities and faculty in order to accommodate the kind of enrollment growth that can keep up with economic demand and individual aspirations. Moreover, given the large share of Californians who see advanced degrees as important, the state may want to begin a more robust discussion about graduate school, along the lines of its recent focus on career technical education.

Five Factors for Successful Online Learning

Governor Brown’s budget proposal requested a $100 million initial investment, along with $20 million annually, to establish a new online college that would be part of the state’s community college system. This college would initially focus on short-term certificate programs for non-traditional students ages 25–34 who are already in the workforce. In the long term, this college would seek accreditation, provide pathways to transfer to a four-year college, and compete with established online course providers like Arizona State Online and the for-profit University of Phoenix.

Tens of thousands of students already take online courses offered by California’s community colleges. In fact, the share of student enrollment in these courses has increased 9 percentage points over the past decade to more than 13% in 2016–17. The new online college, if established, is likely to accelerate this trend.

Previous PPIC research has identified five key factors to help ensure student success in online programs:

  1. Use a systems approach to course design. In this model, an instructional designer works with faculty, media developers, and programmers to develop an online course. This approach recognizes the fundamental differences between online and face-to-face instruction and allows instructors to focus on the subject matter and student engagement.
  2. Provide professional development. Effective online instruction requires distinct strategies. For example, to guide discussion online, instructors must gauge student engagement and develop appropriate norms without the usual visual and auditory cues. Rapid changes in technology and the isolated nature of online instruction also make professional development and mentorship particularly important.
  3. Set student expectations. There is a common misconception that online courses are easy. On the contrary, students in online courses often struggle with the autonomy, time management, and digital literacy necessary to succeed. Successful online programs use orientation courses to set expectations and clarify the differences between online and face-to-face education.
  4. Create community. Communication is essential to foster a constructive learning environment and positive peer interactions. Online courses that encourage regular and effective communication among students and between students and their instructor develop a better sense of community and improve the likelihood of student success.
  5. Take advantage of the online environment. Online tools offer unique insights not available in face-to-face pedagogy. Data on student engagement (e.g., did students view the syllabus or access additional course resources?) can provide clues for how to improve student outcomes. Online learning also facilitates personalization and can be adapted to different learning styles and special needs.

In 2013–14, the community college system launched the Online Education Initiative (OEI), which promotes these best practices and has established online course standards and faculty training in pedagogy and course design. As the state moves forward with its proposal to create a new online college, the OEI could play a key role. Overall, the line separating online and face-to-face learning is not as stark as many suppose. Most college courses already incorporate some online aspects, whether it’s an online course management system, chat room, or video conferencing. As the online and face-to-face worlds continue to merge, furthering our understanding of best practices for online instruction will be critical to student success in higher education as a whole.

Testimony: Transfer Is Key to Closing the Workforce Skills Gap

Hans Johnson, director and senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center, testified March 20, 2018, before the Senate Select Committee on Student Success.

Here are his prepared remarks.

California faces a shortage of highly educated workers. Specifically, economic projections to 2030 show that about two in five jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree, while demographic projections suggest that only about one in three Californians will attain this level of education. This shortfall equates to 1.1 million workers. To close the gap, all higher education systems will need to play a role, increasing access, transfer, and completion. Improving access and outcomes among groups historically underrepresented in higher education—including low-income students, first-generation college students, Latinos, and African Americans—is essential if we are to close the workforce skills gap.

The good news is that California’s students are rising to the challenge. College preparation among high school graduates has increased, with the share of students completing the college preparatory requirements of UC and CSU now at an all-time high. Strong demand for UC and CSU is likely to continue as college preparation improves and the transfer pathway becomes more efficient and effective. In addition, new initiatives, including reforms in remedial education at the community colleges and CSU, have the potential to substantially improve student success rates and boost transfer. Finding ways to accommodate all these students remains a central challenge, but one that must be met in order to ensure a better future for all Californians.

In this testimony, I will focus on the importance of transfer. California enrolls a disproportionate share of students in community college. We rank 47th in the nation in the share of recent high school graduates enrolling in four-year colleges and 5th in the nation in the share enrolling in community colleges. This means that we must do more to ensure that community college students reach their educational goals—since the vast majority of recent high school graduates attending community colleges say that they want to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. As shown in the chart below, there is a lot of room for improvement—only 40% of recent high school graduates who go to community college will end up transferring to a four-year institution.

PPIC has identified ambitious targets that would close the workforce skills gap. As shown in the table below, doing so will require large increases in access to UC and CSU, both for first time freshmen and for transfer students. In its Vision for Success, a blueprint for improving student outcomes, the community colleges have established new goals for transfer that align exactly with the PPIC targets. Those targets include a 35% increase in the number of transfer students at UC and CSU, increasing from about 72,000 combined in 2015 to almost 100,000 by 2020.

I’m pleased to say that the colleges are currently on track to meet those targets. We are now two years into PPIC’s projections, and both UC and CSU have met the closing-the-gap targets (see charts below). The concerted efforts of policymakers, higher education officials—including staff and faculty—and, of course, students have led to these early gains.  State general fund allocations for each system have increased since the Great Recession, allowing for increased enrollment. At UC, those budget allocations were partially tied to increasing enrollment, hence the sharp rise in transfers from 2015 to 2016.  New articulation agreements, such as the Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT), have streamlined the pathway from community colleges to four-year colleges, especially CSU. And an increased focus on improving student outcomes in the community colleges has led to multiple substantive reforms designed to increase persistence and completion (including transfer).

These early successes are very promising. Still, California needs to build on them if it is to close the degree gap.  We offer the following recommendations for moving forward:

  • First, the state should work with the systems to ensure that students who are eligible for transfer successfully make the transition. Some students who are eligible to transfer never even apply to do so. More work needs to be done to understand factors that prevent those students from moving on, including an assessment of equity implications. At the same time, many transfer-eligible students do apply to transfer, but are not admitted because of insufficient resources at UC and CSU. Because of budget constraints, CSU reports turning away more than 32,000 transfer applicants from 2013–14 through 2016–17, even though they had met CSU admission requirements (based on systemwide unduplicated counts of California resident applications). UC does not report how many qualified applicants have been turned away, partly because UC eligibility is less clearly defined. UC has general transfer requirements, including courses and grade point average requirements, but advises students that “meeting these basic requirements doesn’t guarantee admission to the campus or major of your choice.” Enrolling more students will almost certainly require more funding, either from the state via the general fund or from students and their families through tuition increases.
  • Second, the pathway from community college to UC and CSU needs to become systematically and comprehensively streamlined. The Associate Degree for Transfer is a step in the right direction. Students earning an ADT are guaranteed admission to CSU in a major aligned to their course of study. But these degrees are offered only in some majors at some colleges. While the number of students earning an ADT has grown rapidly, it is still the case that the majority of transfers to CSU do not have the degree. As shown in the chart below, institutional participation in the program varies by college and by major. Some majors, including engineering, have no ADT at all.  Moreover, UC does not formally participate in the ADT guarantee. At UC, transfer admission requirements vary by campus and by majors within campuses.  For example, UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering has much higher standards than the UC minimum requirements for transfer, including a 3.5 grade point average and the completion of courses that are not offered at all community colleges.

  • Third, the state and its higher education institutions need to plan for potentially large increases in the number of community college students prepared and ready to transfer. New reforms in the community colleges hold the promise of dramatically increasing persistence and completion. Assessment and placement reform, spurred by AB 705, is likely to lead to an enormous increase in the number of students placed directly into college-level English and math courses—bypassing traditional remedial classes that have been the single largest impediment to student success. Other new initiatives, including “guided pathways” intended to provide a clear road map to students on courses of study and the supports needed to succeed, could lead to further gains. Because most transfer students enroll in CSU and UC, capacity issues at those institutions must be addressed. The state’s private nonprofit colleges are also an important destination for transfer students, and continued efforts should seek to gain greater participation and enrollment in that vital sector.

Through thoughtful planning—and yes, additional funding—closing the workforce skills gap is possible. Improving the transfer pathway is a necessary and critical component. And because community colleges are highly representative of California’s economic and demographic diversity, improving transfer pathways will ensure that more low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students have access to a four-year degree.

Video: Improving English Courses at California’s Community Colleges

California’s community colleges are in the midst of numerous reforms to improve developmental—or remedial—education. Developmental education is supposed to help prepare students for college work but it has long been an obstacle to student success: most students in developmental classes never go on to complete a college-level course in English or math. A recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) looks at the effectiveness of some of these reforms in English. It finds that one reform in particular shows real promise. Called one-semester acceleration, it’s a highly intensive course that leads directly to a college composition class. Still, there is much room for improvement, especially for underrepresented students.

PPIC researcher Marisol Cuellar Mejia presented findings from the report in Sacramento this week. In a discussion following the presentation, panelists talked about promising initiatives underway in developmental education. Many of the current efforts to more accurately place students in appropriate classes and transform course sequences are motivated by AB 705, a legislative proposal signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown last fall. Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, who authored the bill, said it provides flexibility to the state’s individual community colleges “but with clear requirements that colleges use the best of multiple measures—including high school performance—in placing students.” The bill also instructs colleges to maximize the possibility that students pass a transfer level class within a year.

Laura Hope, executive vice chancellor for educational services at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, described the central challenge involved in full-scale implementation of reforms across the state’s 114 community colleges as an instructional paradigm shift. “It’s about changing minds and hearts about student capacity and the belief that they don’t come to us just a jumble of deficits . . . It’s about shifting that mindset away from fixing students into activating students.”

Summer Serpas, assistant director of the California Acceleration Project, underscored the professional support that teachers will need as a larger and more diverse group of students move out of developmental courses and into transfer-level ones: “These students are capable of doing the work, but they come in needing [additional] support.” Serpas said it will be critical to learn from colleges that have already adopted successful reforms, including accelerated pathways and the “co-requisite” model, in which students enroll directly in college composition with concurrent support.

Testimony: How Can California Produce More College Graduates?

Hans Johnson, director and senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center, testified today, February 6, 2018, before the Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance and the Assembly Higher Education Committee. The master plan defined a strategy to meet the state’s education needs in 1960—but today, California faces new challenges. The topic of today’s hearing: how to meet the state’s future economic need for more college graduates. Here are his prepared remarks.

PPIC’s work has revealed a serious gap between the number of highly educated workers that California’s future economy will need and the number the state is on pace to produce. We call this the workforce skills gap—and it’s quite large. To meet economic demand and secure a more prosperous future for our state, California’s higher education institutions will need to produce 1.1 million more college graduates by 2030.

Admittedly, doing so is an ambitious goal. But there is significant room for improving how many students graduate from college—especially if we consider that currently only about 30 percent of California’s 9th graders will earn a bachelor’s degree.

PPIC has quantified the role of each university segment—the University of California, the California State University, and private nonprofit colleges in California—in closing the workforce skills gap. Overall, the number of bachelor’s degrees would need to increase by about one-third over baseline projections. Almost half of the gains would need to occur at CSU, the nation’s largest public university system. UC and private nonprofit colleges would also play an important role.

Most immediate to today’s conversation about goal setting for the state’s public systems, PPIC has identified the combination of increases in freshman eligibility, transfer, and completion rates necessary to close the gap.

Our preferred approach—a closing-the-gap scenario—combines increases in eligibility, transfer, and graduation rates, as shown below. Along with increases in enrollment and completion at private institutions, reaching these targets would fully close the workforce skills gap.

In our scenario, each target would be reached gradually through a phase-in period. In the first few years, projected increases would be minimal as the systems would enroll more students and implement policies to improve completion and transfer. But within five years, the increases would become quite large. By 2020–21, CSU would award almost 25,000 additional bachelor’s degrees; UC would award more than 12,000.

For the purposes of setting annual goals, we are identifying annual targets in new freshmen enrollment, transfer, and completion rates that would match the closing-the-skills gap degree targets. Enrollment and transfer targets depend on graduation rates and time to degree—meaning that enrollment increases could be lower if graduation rates improve and students complete their degrees more quickly. For example, students who take 12 units per semester will take five years of continuous enrollment to earn the 120 units necessary for graduation.  If those students instead took 15 units per semester, they would graduate in four years and free up additional space for other students.

It has been a couple years since PPIC first developed our projections, and we’ve now been able to chart early progress by the systems. Later you will hear in detail from the segments about their plans, but right now I am happy to report some good news: the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded at UC and CSU is actually higher than our initial scenario called for.

Of course, we are just at the start of our projection period, and to close the gap the numbers must ramp up quickly after the first few years. Nonetheless, growth in graduation rates and enrollment has led to a notable expansion in degrees awarded at both systems. Over the past two years, UC and CSU combined have awarded 295,000 bachelor’s degrees—21,000 more than in our closing-the-gap-scenario and 23,000 more than in our baseline scenario. In addition, the number of transfer students has increased 8%, also higher than in our closing-the-gap scenario.

In addition, community colleges and CSU have adopted new goals for student success that are entirely consistent with PPIC’s closing-the-gap scenario. CSU’s new graduation initiative calls for reducing time to degree and increasing both four-year and six-year graduation rates. CSU’s goal of a 70% six-year graduation rate by 2025 is in line with and in fact slightly more ambitious than our scenario. In their new “Vision for Success,” the community colleges have adopted a goal to increase transfer to UC and CSU by 35% over the next five years, a goal that is entirely consistent with our work.

There is an important additional benefit of meeting these goals: reducing equity gaps. Today, students who have been underrepresented in higher education—including Latino, African American, low-income, and first-generation students—make up a majority of California’s high school graduates. Strong increases in college preparation among the state’s high school graduates are expanding the pool of potential college graduates, with the share of students—including African American and Latino students—completing the college preparatory requirements of UC and CSU reaching an all-time high. Ensuring that the growing number of prepared high school graduates have meaningful access to and success in higher education will not only help California meet its economic challenges, it will ensure that higher education continues to serve as a ladder of economic and social mobility.

Our focus at PPIC has been on college graduates with at least a bachelor’s degree, but we acknowledge the importance of other postsecondary training. We have a series of reports and ongoing projects that identify successful vocational pathways and high value awards (certificates and associate degrees) offered by the state’s community colleges. Lande Ajose of California Competes will discuss in more detail the need for sub-baccalaureate post-secondary education. We also acknowledge the importance of post-baccalaureate education, including professional and academic graduate degrees offered primarily by UC and the state’s private nonprofit colleges. Those degree holders have the best labor market outcomes in the state.

Figuring out how to pay for all these increases is no easy task and will be discussed later in this hearing.  Let me alert you to two projects underway at PPIC that will help shed light on this issue. One will examine the role that tuition policy could play and the other will focus on capital finance. In addition, we will continue to monitor affordability issues, including student debt, identified by respondents to the PPIC Statewide Survey as the number one higher education issue.

Finally, it is worth noting that the governor has proposed a funding formula for the community colleges that for the first time will provide additional funding based on student outcomes and enrolling low-income students. PPIC has argued that this approach has the potential to incentivize investment by the state’s higher education systems in areas that further state priorities.

 

Funding Increase for Community Colleges

Nearly 70% of new funding for higher education—or $570 million—in Governor Brown’s proposed budget goes to the state’s community colleges. This continues a trend that has seen community colleges get an ever-growing portion of higher education funding even as overall funds for higher education have shrunk—from 18% of the General Fund 40 years ago to just under 12% now. This trend is likely to continue—mostly because Proposition 98, passed by the voters in 1988, sets minimum funding levels for the state’s K–12 and community college systems.

Blog figure: 2018-19 Budget, Community College FundingThese mandated minimum funding levels have protected community colleges from the kind of budget cuts that have affected California’s other public higher education institutions. In addition, Governor Brown has prioritized investments in the community college system, which serves 2.1 million students and is the gateway to higher education for the vast majority of California students.

Governor Brown and the legislature have vastly increased investment in community college programs intended to improve student outcomes and eliminate achievement gaps, including programs focused on adult education and career technical education. Moreover, last year the governor provided a one-time allocation of $150 million to develop the Guided Pathways program, aimed at integrating disparate student success programs into one model and creating clear pathways for students to earn a certificate or degree, or transfer to a four-year college.

The governor’s current budget proposal also contains a new funding formula for the community colleges. This formula would shift future funding to districts with higher proportions of low-income students and those that have achieved better student outcomes. Under this formula, each district would get 50% of its funding based on enrollment, 25% based on enrollment of low-income students—those who receive a tuition waiver or Pell grant—and 25% based on district performance. Performance would be measured by the number of degrees and certificates provided, the number of students who complete a degree or certificate in three years or less, and the number of Associate Degrees for Transfer granted.

California’s community colleges have long struggled with low completion rates, low transfer rates, and persistent achievement gaps. Additional funds and a new funding formula may help to address these issues and lead to greater student success—which, for most community college students, means transferring to a four-year institution. Today, more than half of CSU students are community college transfers, as are nearly one-third of UC students. If current investments in community colleges do in fact improve student outcomes, then California’s four-year institutions will need to be ready for even more transfers.

 

Improving Community College Course Catalogs

Before the start of a new semester, students at California’s community colleges must sift through hundreds of courses and decide which ones will help them make progress toward their college and career goals. However, course prerequisites and program requirements can be complicated, and staff and counseling centers aren’t always readily available to help students make informed decisions. Course catalogs are a widely available resource at all 114 California community colleges—and improving these catalogs could help students better navigate their way through college.

Course catalogs contain most, if not all, of the information students need to build their college and career pathways. These resources are about 300 pages long on average and list detailed information about the college itself and the courses taught in a given academic year. They generally include degree and program descriptions, assessment and placement procedures, course prerequisites, credits earned per course, and much more. But course catalogs are often not structured in a way that makes this crucial information accessible.

Using clear flowcharts and diagrams is one way to help students understand the sequence of courses they need to take to achieve their academic goals. For instance, there is evidence that many students don’t fulfill math requirements, earn a degree or certificate, or transfer to a four-year university due to lengthy and confusing math course sequences. While most colleges depict course sequences using flowcharts and diagrams (88 out of the 114 colleges), there are still students at 26 colleges who have to figure out the appropriate sequence for themselves. San Jose City College has a good example of a flowchart that illustrates the sequence of math courses students need to take depending on their academic discipline—with different possible sequences for STEM and non-STEM majors (see p. 40 of the course catalog). Even among colleges that do provide helpful illustrations, less than half (46 colleges) provide them in a central resource like a college catalog. This adds an extra step for students who need to know which math courses will count toward their degree.

In addition, students on a vocational track may want to collect or combine different types of certificates within the same program. But only five colleges attempt to illustrate the course requirements for related degrees and certificates, and even then, the information is only available for a small number of programs. Including a diagram helps organize and distill this complicated set of information. For example, LA Trade Tech College designed a flowchart for the renewable energy program that shows how students can advance through and collect different degrees and certificates within a single program (see p. 120 of the course catalog).

There is a growing awareness that students need comprehensive tools that will allow them to make informed course selections. As part of the Guided Pathways project—which aims to better align campuses’ program structures with those of four-year colleges and the needs of the labor market—20 California community colleges are using “program maps” that include clear course sequences and academic milestones to help streamline students’ decision-making process. Leveraging the course catalog to make key information more accessible is another way that colleges can help students more efficiently achieve their college and career goals.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

California’s Brain Gain

Recently released data from the US Census Bureau show that even as California continues to experience large net losses of residents moving out of state, the state is still a net importer of college graduates from other states. This interstate migration pattern—gaining large numbers of college graduates while losing large numbers of less educated adults—is unique among the states. Over the past five years, California has attracted 137,000 more college graduates (adults with at least a bachelor’s degree) from other states than it has sent to those states. For comparison purposes, the University of California (UC) awarded about 250,000 bachelor’s degrees at its nine undergraduate campuses over this same time period. In other words, interstate migration provides California with half as many college graduates as the entire UC system.

College graduates come to California from all over, but seven states send California substantially more college graduates than they get in return. Between 2011 and 2016, net gains of college graduates from New York (45,000), Illinois (32,000), New Jersey (20,000), Pennsylvania (17,000), Michigan (15,000), Florida (14,000), and Massachusetts (14,000) totaled more than 150,000. California experienced sizable net losses of college graduates to just four states: Texas (-26,000), Oregon (-20,000), Nevada (-14,000), and Arizona (-11,000).

The new migrants to California tend to be quite young. Indeed, college graduates age 20–29 account for almost all of the net gains. (In contrast, California experiences small net losses of older college graduates.) From a labor market perspective, attracting young college graduates is especially advantageous. Young adults with college degrees are at the start of their careers and provide the state with much-needed highly educated workers. The largest gains are in majors that are in relatively high demand in the labor market, including engineering (22,000), social sciences (19,000; mostly economics and political science), computer science (17,000), communications (17,000), biology and health sciences (14,000), and business (13,000).

The migration of young college graduates to California is a consequence of the state’s growing demand for highly skilled and highly educated workers. But the numbers are not high enough to meet the state’s changing needs. PPIC’s research has shown that by 2030 California will face a shortfall of 1.1 million college graduates. Failing to keep up with the demand for skilled workers could curtail economic growth and limit economic mobility—resulting in a less productive economy, lower incomes, less tax revenue, and increased dependence on the social safety net. Although many college graduates move to California from other states, the most important source of highly educated workers in California are the state’s colleges and universities. Policies and practices to improve college access and completion in the state will ensure that more Californians are able to help create and benefit from a strong economy.

Video: Keeping Students on Track for College

Only about 30% of California 9th graders are expected to earn a bachelor’s degree—a startling statistic in a state that faces a shortfall of college graduates. A new PPIC report finds that the vast majority fall off the path to a college degree in the last two years of high school or the first two years of college.

Report coauthor Niu Gao presented the analysis in Sacramento last week, along with recommendations for tackling the problem. Among them: updating high school graduation requirements, offering more of the college preparatory courses required for admission to California State University (CSU) or the University of California (UC), and improving placement policies in both high schools and community colleges to ensure that students take the classes needed to progress.

Gao’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion among experts who work in this area. In a conversation moderated by Hans Johnson—report coauthor, and director and senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center—participants touched on challenges, as well as potential solutions.

Jorge A. Aguilar, superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District, noted that while more students are completing college prep courses—known as a–g courses—many aren’t making it to or through college. Part of the problem, he said, is the “fundamental disconnect between K–12 and higher education.” Having worked in both sectors, he noted there are insufficient incentives for school districts to focus on persistence in higher education and for higher education to work with K–12 on the issue.

Kimberly Rodriguez, chief education advisor to Kevin de León, state senate president pro tempore, addressed one of the report’s key recommendations: increasing state high school graduation requirements in math. She noted that requiring a–g courses for graduation has been much discussed at the state level.

“The biggest barrier has always been money,” she said. “Because once you require it, the state is on the hook.” Implementation is also complicated, she said, requiring planning and attention to infrastructure—as districts that have already adopted these requirements have found.

The third panelist, Jim Dragna, talked about a promising initiative. Known as the “graduation czar” at CSU Sacramento, he supervises the Finish in Four program. Students are asked to pledge to take 15 credits a semester—the number needed to graduate in four years—and are provided extra resources to ensure they stay on track.

“Student progression problems have been with us so long that they’ve become part of the culture,” he said. So, he continued, “we tackled the culture.”