recently approved legislation<\/a> will make it more difficult for rural campuses to create those programs.<\/p>\n\u201cFor the rural students, they want that degree. They\u2019re less concerned with how they physically get it,\u201d Katie Brohawn, one of the report\u2019s authors, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
For some rural students, the problem boils down to geography: They are located in areas where there are no public California universities within at least 25 miles of a community college.<\/p>\n
For students in those communities, transferring would mean paying relocation costs, leaving behind family members or giving up a job. Rural students are more likely than nonrural students to report caring for children, older relatives or other dependents, the report found.<\/p>\n
Those students also find it more difficult to navigate the transfer process. They don\u2019t have the same access as their peers at nonrural campuses to guidance and information that can be helpful for transferring. <\/p>\n
The report recommends that rural colleges be proactive with their counseling, noting that \u201cpassive solutions, such as a resource on a website\u201d are not sufficient. Recommendations include providing students with step-by-step guides and checklists as well as hosting transfer workshops.<\/p>\n
Counselors also need \u201cprotected time for proactive advising,\u201d as well as better professional development on transfer pathways, the report says.<\/p>\n
About 72% of rural students said they would consider a community college baccalaureate degree, compared with 60% of respondents from nonrural colleges.<\/p>\n
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2694 and Senate Bill 960, that will, among other changes, create a new tiered system determining how many bachelor\u2019s degree programs each community college district can offer.<\/p>\n
Each community college district will be placed into one of five tiers based on the share of students who complete a degree or certificate or transfer to a four-year university. Districts with the highest rates will be permitted to offer more bachelor\u2019s degrees \u2014 up to a maximum of 12. Those with the lowest transfer and completion rates will only be eligible to create one or two bachelor\u2019s degrees.<\/p>\n
Kate Mahar, associate vice president of innovation and strategic initiatives at Shasta College, said she suspects the system will limit rural colleges\u2019 capacity to offer bachelor\u2019s degrees because their students typically have a harder time transferring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis arbitrary ranking of what colleges are worthy to have bachelor\u2019s degrees could end up working against us for the very reason we want to have it,\u201d Mahar said. \u201cSo that was disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke is a reporter for EdSource,<\/a> a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism organization covering education in California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most students at California\u2019s rural community colleges want to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree, but geography and limited access…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2494,7,4573,2491,153828,4378,1776,190232,48,52,51,47,50,49,190233,190230,190231,22273,3729,190229,190228],"class_list":["post-486852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bachelor","tag-california","tag-community-college","tag-degree","tag-four-year-university","tag-geography","tag-information","tag-kate-mahar","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nonpartisan-research-organization","tag-nonrural-college","tag-nonrural-student","tag-problem","tag-report","tag-rural-community-college","tag-rural-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}