During economic recessions, community colleges are typically the primary destination for people to pursue a college degree or job training while out of work, because community colleges are local and affordable. At the same time, however, recessions hit community colleges hard, because these schools rely on shrinking local and state tax revenue for most of their funding. As a result, community colleges often end up with greater enrollment demand precisely when the resources used to respond to that need are most scarce. This report examines the capacity of the California Community Colleges system to respond to a rise in enrollment, statewide and by geographic area.

The report looks at current enrollment and funded enrollment capacity at community colleges, in relation to a variety of need factors in multi-county regions in the state, to determine whether there is a match between need and funding.1 The report’s findings indicate that the funding currently available for enrollment growth is not aligned with the geography of need. Although Californians are not restricted from attending a community college farther away from home, for community college students, location matters. At the end of the day, students who cannot attend an affordable community college nearby suffer by delaying or abandoning their education plans, or attending a for-profit school that may leave them worse off than not attending college at all. The report ends with a set of recommendations for the chancellor of the California Community Colleges system and the state legislature to address the issue of the mismatch between seats available and need in some regions.

Overview

The California Community Colleges system was established in the 1960s, along with the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems. It is the largest higher education system in the country, serving 2.1 million students.2 The system includes 115 community colleges in seventy-three districts, plus Calbright, an online community college, for a total of 1163 colleges. Fifteen of the colleges award bachelor’s degrees in majors not offered by the UC or CSU.4

Community colleges serve a range of students, including high school students, high school graduates seeking an associate degree, the incarcerated, displaced workers, workers seeking additional training or a certificate, and retirees who want to explore a hobby. Courses are credit and noncredit, depending on the type of class and purpose. For example, some courses in technical training fields, such as welding and aviation, are noncredit because they are not transferable to CSU or UC. For many Californians, community college represents a vital piece of the American Dream because it is the first step for many immigrants, students of color, and first-generation college students who want to pursue higher education to obtain a good, high-paying job.

Technically, the California Community Colleges system is “open access”: by law, the colleges are required to accept any California resident with a high school diploma or equivalent degree who applies.5 From a practical standpoint, however, there is a limit on the number of students who can fit in any offered class, and each semester there is only a certain number of classes offered. It is this supply of funded seats that this report examines, in relation to anticipated need.

The California Community Colleges system is “open access”: by law, the colleges are required to accept any California resident with a high school diploma or equivalent degree who applies.

The way that the state’s community colleges are financed has positive and negative implications for student access. While tuition is a major barrier to student enrollment at many higher education institutions, tuition for in-state students at schools in the California Community Colleges system averages around $1,2616 per year, and this tuition is frequently waived.7 At the same time, though, the low level of revenue received through tuition means that these colleges are heavily reliant on state and local governments to provide the financial support needed for enrolling students. Tuition revenue accounts for only 7 percent of revenue at the state’s community colleges, while it is about a quarter at the CSU and UC systems. (The dependence of private colleges on tuition revenue ranges enormously, but it is usually far higher.)

table 1
Tuitions, Fees, and Expenditures ins California’s Public Higher Education Systems 
System In-State Tuition and Fees (Annual, full-time) Out-of-State Tuition and Fees (Annual, full -time) Portion of Core Revenue from Tuition and Fees Total Expenditures per FTE
California Community Colleges $1,261 $7,750 7.0% $14,311
California State University $7,294 $19,172 24.1% $21,360
University of California8 $13,940 $42,932 27.3% $63,391
Source: TCF calculations, based on data from IPEDS 2018–19.

California’s response to the current economic crisis with respect to community college funding essentially has been to defer payment for any likely funding gaps until future budgets. The legislature has authorized community colleges to maintain their current level of spending, while basically accepting an IOU from the state for some of the money. If current or future federal support is sufficient, or the economy rebounds quickly, the state might be able to fill in these funding gaps and thus avoid future spending and programmatic cuts.

California’s response to the current economic crisis with respect to community college funding essentially has been to defer payment for any likely funding gaps until future budgets.

For the time being, the community colleges are essentially frozen in place at their 2019–20 funding and enrollment levels, without any allowance for growth or a cost-of-living adjustment.9 However, there is one big asterisk that has gotten little attention in the past, known as the restoration entitlement. To understand restoration requires a tutorial about the way the funding (and enrollment) is allocated to the state’s community colleges.

How Funds Are Allocated to California’s Community Colleges, Determining Enrollment

Since the number of California residents that a college may enroll depends on the (limited) funding allocated by the state, there needs to be a methodology to determine how much funding to offer to each college, and thus how many seats it can offer to students. The funding formula has evolved over the years, but is largely based on a college’s historical enrollment, with various adjustments, such as supplemental, and student success allocations.10 The funding formula allocations currently break down as follows:

  • The base allocation, which makes up about 70 percent of the funding, is based on full-time equivalent student (FTES) enrollment in the prior year. The amount can vary somewhat, based on staffing and geographic factors.11
  • A supplemental allocation, which makes up about 20 percent of funding, accounts for the extra needs of low-income students. It is based on a headcount of students receiving College Promise Grants (previously known as Board of Governors fee waiver) and Pell Grants, as well as undocumented immigrant students.12
  • The student success allocation, which is about 10 percent of funding, steers additional funds to colleges based on their outcomes relative to other colleges in students earning degrees and certificates, transferring to a four-year university, completing transfer-level math and English within their first year, completing nine or more career education units, and attaining the regional living wage.13

In addition to these three allocations from the formula, community college districts in some years receive funding for enrollment growth. The calculation for the district’s growth is based on three factors—share of adults without a college degree, unemployed adults, and households below poverty14—as well as current and previous enrollment trends. These factors and enrollment trends determine the number of seats the district is allotted for the following year.

The formula discussed above is for regular “credit” enrollment of California residents, and it accounts for almost 90 percent of the revenue from the state. The state uses a different formula for the enrollment of high school students, noncredit courses, and incarcerated students.

Factors that Affect the Need for Community College Education

Community college students typically attend college near their homes, and even though the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed higher education almost entirely online for the moment, it is expected that the system will eventually return to in-person education at some time, and so the California Community Colleges system needs to be prepared for a possible surge in attendance. Since the number of California residents a community college can afford to enroll is limited by the level of funding promised by the state, an important policy question is whether funding is allocated in a way that reflects the needs of the different communities and regions in the state. For this report, regional community college capacity, growth, and need for seats were analyzed to determine the likely level of need compared to the funding available.

To assess the relative needs in different parts of the state, this analysis examines factors that often coincide with attendance at a community college: unemployment, limited English proficiency, the lack of a bachelor’s degree, poverty, and recent graduation from high school. Three of these factors—adults without a college degree, unemployed adults, and living in poverty—are what the state uses to calculate growth. This analysis in this report also includes two other factors—adults with limited English proficiency and high school graduates—because the first group disproportionately relies on community colleges for learning English, and the second group is a good overall indicator of the demand for seats.

Table 2 shows the total number of people in each category for the multi-county regions,15 and the discussion that follows presents some analysis at the region level for each factor for further evaluation and comparison. California has fifty-eight counties, and these regions account for thirty-seven of them, covering 97 percent of the state’s population.16

table 2
California Residents per Need Factor, By Region
Region Unemployed Limited English Adults without Degree Living in Poverty High School Graduates
Bay Area 584,100 1,375,414 3,203,348 791,421 80,432
Central Valley–Mother Lode 305,000 684,347 1,942,155 795,105 55,468
Inland Empire 295,500 629,863 2,258,235 704,804 58,911
Los Angeles–Orange County 1,180,200 2,853,451 5,961,882 1,949,459 138,766
North–Far North 186,000 247,043 1,369,221 426,993 32,191
San Diego–Imperial 251,300 491,549 1,468,890 444,381 38,583
South Central Coast 105,500 209,678 682,946 178,371 17,284
Note: Some need factor categories have overlap, as a resident may, for example, be both unemployed and have limited English proficiency.

Source: Author calculations based on data from California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables 2018, and California Department of Finance.

  • Unemployment.17 The region with the highest unemployment total is Los Angeles–Orange, with 1,180,200 unemployed persons, followed by the Bay Area, with 584,100. The 736,300 unemployed residents in Los Angeles county is the highest across the state. Colusa and Imperial counties have the highest unemployment rates across the state before and during the recession; Colusa was 19.2 percent in January and 26.3 percent in May 2020, while Imperial was 18.8 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
    Unemployment claims help identify which counties are struggling. Unemployment claim rates can also be matched by FAFSA completion rates. University of Missouri researchers Oded Gurantz and Christopher Wielga looked at FAFSA completion data in California in the weeks before and after the onset of the recession and pandemic (mid-March). They found that the “largest FAFSA increases occurred in counties that saw the most dramatic increases in Unemployment Insurance claims,”18 therefore demonstrating the connection between unemployment and need for training and education.
  • Limited English Proficiency.19 The region with the highest number of limited English proficient residents is Los Angeles–Orange, at 2,853,451 followed by the Bay Area 1,375,414. Los Angeles County has the highest total at 968,400. The highest rates at the county level are Imperial at 33.43 percent, Monterey at 28.23 percent, and Tulare at 26.62 percent.
  • Adults Over 25 Years and Older without a Bachelor’s Degree.20 The regions with the highest total of people 25 years and older without a bachelor’s degree are Los Angeles–Orange at 5,961,882, followed by the Bay Area’s 3,203,348. The counties with over 85 percent of adults without a bachelor’s degree are Lassen, Kings, Glenn, Merced, Tulare, Del Norte, Imperial, and Madera. These counties are centralized in the Central Valley and North–Far North regions. From this list all counties except Merced do not have a UC or CSU campus, indicating an even greater need for community college seats.
  • Living in Poverty.21 The region with the highest poverty total of people in poverty is Los Angeles–Orange at 1,949,459, and the lowest is South Central Coast at 178,371. The counties with poverty levels of over 20 percent are Tulare, Imperial, Fresno, Merced, Del Norte, Kern, Tehama, Lake, Madera, and Kings. Six of the ten counties are in the Central Valley, indicating that this is where poverty is concentrated in the state.
  • Recent High School Graduates.22 The region with the lowest total of recent high school graduates is South Central Coast at 17,284, and the highest is Los Angeles–Orange at 138,766. In the future, increases will occur in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and North–Far North regions, with decreases in the Bay Area, South Central Coast, and Los Angeles–Orange County regions.23 These projections give insight into which areas will have a greater need for community college seats.

The Current Status of Regions Based on Need Factors

In order to determine each region’s preparedness for a surge in community college attendance, the analysis for this report sought the simple ratio of the number of residents with need factors and the number of seats available, by region. To determine the seats available, the total number of FTES in each county was divided by the number of residents with each of the five need factors in that county, and the result of the multiple counties was combined to find the ratio for the region. The ratio represents the number of seats available per one hundred residents with that need factor. In the table, a region’s ratio is shaded in green if the region is among the highest rated for seats available to meet that need factor—that is, it has more seats available per capita than other regions; it is yellow if it is in the middle; and it is red if it is has the fewest seats available per capita for that need compared to other regions. The results are followed by some analysis on the regions and counties.

TABLE 3: COMMUNITY COLLEGE SEATS RELATIVE TO NEED FACTORS, BY REGION

  • Unemployment. The Bay Area, Central Valley–Mother Lode, Inland Empire, and Los Angeles–Orange regions all cluster at the bottom end of the spectrum regarding seats available relative to the number of unemployed residents.
  • Limited English Proficiency. The Bay Area, Central Valley–Mother Lode, Inland Empire, and Los Angeles–Orange regions have less coverage for limited English speaking adults. North–Far North has fewer non-English speakers so relatively less need by this measure.
  • Adults over 25 Years and Over without a Bachelor’s Degree. All regions had a similar number of seats for people without a college degree, except the Inland Empire, which had fewer seats relative to the need measure.
  • Living in Poverty. Central Valley–Mother Lode and Inland Empire have the least seats given the number of low-income people in the regions.
  • Recent High School Graduates. The North–Far North has the greatest number of seats available relative to recent high school graduates. Once again the Central Valley–Mother Lode and Inland Empire regions stand out with the lowest access given the need.

As indicated by the red, the Inland Empire (counties east of Los Angeles) has a low capacity of seats by every need criteria, while the Central Valley has a low capacity relative to all factors except adults without a college degree. This is not a surprise, as county-level data show that practically every county in these regions performs poorly in providing seats relative to the five need factors.

Latinx residents are the largest minority in the state, and in the community college system. Imperial, Tulare, San Benito, Colusa, Merced, Monterey, Madera, Kings, Kern, San Bernardino, and Fresno are the eleven counties whose population is over 50 percent Hispanic or Latino.24 Six of these counties are in the Central Valley, and San Bernandino is in the Inland Empire. This demonstrates that residents in areas with a higher percentage of Latinx population have high need, yet less access to a seat at community college, revealing a racial and ethnic disparity in California’s higher education system.

Combining the counties into regions is useful, since students do cross county and district lines when attending community college. However, presenting the data this way hides some important micro-level results. For example, Imperial County, in the San Diego–Imperial region, has a low seating capacity across all need factors; however, as a region it has only one need factor that is coded red, because San Diego County greatly improves the average for the region. Can the Colleges Meet the Need?A college’s capacity—the number of seats the state is committed to funding—is determined by the sum of three parts. The largest part is the base allotment, which covers seats based on the prior year’s enrollment (up to the state commitment). The second part is when the state sometimes includes a small added “growth” allocation for new seats, based on need measures. The third component is known as “restoration” funding, and requires a bit of explanation, especially as it is important to the findings in this report. Restoration funding is meant to help smooth out the bumps in community college funding resulting from enrollment shortfalls. It is sort of a promise by the state to districts that have failed to meet their enrollment targets, saying that these districts can “restore” resources to their prior level of funding, even if their base allocation is supposed to be determined by the prior year, which had a shortfall. The general rule is that restoration funding is available to a district for three years.25 In some cases, the legislature grants certain districts the ability to restore funding to match enrollment levels from more than three years earlier. (See Table 4.)

table 4

Community College Enrollment, and Seats Paid for by Growth Allocation and Restoration Allocations, By Region

Region 2019–20
Enrollment (FTES)
Growth Allocation (FTES) Restoration Allocation (FTES) (2017–18 and 2018–19)
2019–20 2020–21*
Bay Area 215,193 1,601 0 30,694
Central Valley–Mother Lode 112,763 1,123 0 4,136
Inland Empire 99,339 601 0 1,851
Los Angeles–Orange 419,752 1,689 0 29,997
North–Far North 98,675 406 0 6,420
San Diego–Imperial 107,735 285 0 8,318
South Central Coast 55,299 299 0 3,122
*The state set the growth allocation to zero for all districts in the 2020–21 school year.

Source: Author calculations based on California Community Colleges 2019–2020 First Principal Apportionment Exhibit C and California Budget 2020–21.

  • FTES Enrollment. This is the number of seats (full-time equivalent students) the state paid for in 2019–20.
  • Growth allocation. The growth allocation is the total number of FTES paid for by the state for the previous year (in this case, 2018–19) multiplied by the growth rate, which yields the number of students the region can increase by for the current year, 2019–20. The growth rate is based on the need factors and previous enrollment. In previous years, the growth allocation was based on the adult population and high school graduates.26 The current formula also takes into account the weighted average of the factors with “educational attainment at 50%, unemployment at 25%, and poverty at 25%.” This formula was designed to allocate more funding to high-need districts. The growth rates for 2019–20 range from 0.19 percent to 1.79 percent. For 2020-21 the growth allocation will be set to zero.
  • Restoration Total. The restoration authority includes the accumulated unmet FTES target for the previous three years. For 2020–21, the restoration is the sum of 2018–19 and 2017–18, but excluding 2019–20 because those data are not yet available. The Bay Area has the highest restoration total, at 30,694, due largely to 10,017 in San Francisco (10,000 from 2017–18 and 17 from 2018–19). The Bay Area has only about half the FTES of Los Angeles–Orange, yet around the same restoration. The least restoration is for the Inland Empire, at 1,850

The restoration of two colleges has been extended beyond three years. The legislature allowed the restoration allocation to refer to earlier years than the usual three-year allowance for City College of San Francisco and Compton College. Compton can go back to 2017–18 FTES enrollment, which was at 5,980, and in 2019–20 they reached it, therefore they will not have restoration. San Francisco can go back to 2012–13.27 In 2012–13, San Francisco was at 32,621 FTES enrollment, and in 2017–18, at 22,309, resulting in a difference of 10,312, which could have been its restoration; instead, it opted for 10,000 mentioned earlier in this section, which is still a very high restoration. (Later, this report will explore what San Francisco could do with its restoration.)

Table 5 compares each region’s capacity to address its need with the available expansion funding for the region. The rankings help evaluate whether a region has an equitable amount of expansion funding relative to its needs. The ranking for need factors was determined by the analysis done for Table 3. The ranking for available expansion funding was determined by dividing the restoration total by FTES enrollment, as shown in Table 4; the resulting percentages determined the rank of each region.

table 5
Ranking of Need Factors and Available Expansion Funding, By Region
Region Rank on Need Factors
(Most Need is 1)
Rank on Available Expansion Funding (Expansion Seats as a Percentage of Enrollment)
Bay Area 3 1 (14.3%)
Central Valley–Mother Lode 2 6 (3.7%)
Inland Empire 1 7 (1.9%)
Los Angeles–Orange 4 3 (7.1%)
North–Far North 6 4 (6.5%)
San Diego–Imperial 5 2 (7.7%)
South Central Coast 7 5 (5.6%)
Source: Author calculations based on California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables 2018, California Department of Finance, and California Community Colleges 2019–2020 First Principal Apportionment Exhibit C.

The Inland Empire has the most need, with a ranking of 1, and the South Central Coast the least need, ranked as 7. For available expansion funding, the Bay Area is at the top, with 14.3 percent. It has the highest amount of funds available for growth—significantly higher than the other regions, and almost twice as much as the next-highest-ranked region. The Inland Empire and Central Valley have the fewest dollars, therefore rank at 6 and 7. It is evident that the regions with the most need do not match the regions with the highest available expansion funding.

Key Findings

The most important finding of this report relates to the resources available to a district in order to grow in response to a surge in enrollment. Every year, each community college district is typically given a growth allocation for the following year, but due to the current recession, that will not be the case for 2020–21. As a result, using the growth allocation figures for this year as an indicator of colleges’ capacity for growth would suggest zero capacity. Thankfully, this allocation is not the only one that colleges can use for growth; instead, this report identifies restoration numbers as an alternative pathway for colleges to potentially expand seats for the coming year. The restoration allocation—which is really just a district’s accumulation of IOUs from the state for unfilled seats during the previous three years—can function like a line of credit that the colleges can use for expansion.

Using the growth allocation figures for this year as an indicator of colleges’ capacity for growth would suggest zero capacity. Thankfully, this allocation is not the only one that colleges can use for growth

Another significant finding of this report is that the regions with the greatest need often have the least funds to increase the seats at their campuses. The Inland Empire is ranked first in terms of need, because it has the least seats available per person for the five need factors (unemployment, limited English, adults without bachelor’s degree, poverty, and recent high school graduates), and is ranked last in terms of funding available for expansion. Central Valley–Mother Lode is ranked second in terms of need, but second from last in terms of funding available for expansion.

Policy Options for the Chancellor and Legislature

In the Great Recession, when some of the state’s community colleges were inundated with students seeking to enroll, college leaders responded as best they could. However, funding constraints meant that hundreds of thousands of students were turned away, many of them enrolling at high-priced for-profit colleges. If demand surges in the next few semesters due to the pandemic-induced recession, the state may again be in the same difficult situation, with California’s most disadvantaged populations left without good higher education options.

In 2012, a group of district chancellors told lawmakers that their colleges could temporarily expand their capacity at a lower marginal cost than the state’s per-student funding. To serve more students, they asked for a change in state law to allow them to charge enough tuition to cover their marginal costs for high demand courses in special between-term sessions. The proposal met with opposition because of strong grassroots support for low-tuition community colleges and the concern that the approach would establish a two-tier system. Ultimately, the legislature allowed for a pilot program, which Long Beach City College implemented (then led by the now statewide chancellor, Eloy Oakley). An evaluation of the pilot found that it succeeded in expanding course availability while addressing equity concerns by providing financial aid to its neediest students.28

To prepare for possible surges of demand in various locations across the state, the legislature could grant the statewide community college chancellor or Board of Governors the power to declare an enrollment emergency, allowing select districts experiencing high demand to offer additional courses at a marginal cost, with aid for those who need it, as piloted in Long Beach.

Before turning to controversial higher-tuition courses, though, the community colleges have another option: better allocate the restoration authority already existing in the system. Particular districts, most notably City College of San Francisco, can tap into IOUs from the state, but have not yet made use of that authority. The statewide chancellor should reallocate those seats to the underfunded districts. If it turns out that he cannot exercise the authority to reallocate, then he should work with the districts to develop cross-district enrollment plans if some areas of the state are experiencing high demand while others are unable to fill their allocations.

Longer-term, the legislature should accelerate its efforts to address the imbalance of funding across regions of the state. The growth formula is designed to accomplish equity across districts, but the state will never reach that goal if the allocation is too small—or zeroed out, as it was this year. Further, the legislature should incorporate limited English speaking adults and race and ethnicity into the formula to better encapsulate all need factors and ensure that districts with more need have the most seats to grow.

Notes

  1. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office assigns community colleges to the county they are located in, and counties are combined to create macro regions, which this report simplifies by calling them regions.
  2. “State of the System,” California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/State-of-the-System.
  3. “FAST FACTS 2019,” Community College League of California, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.ccleague.org/sites/default/files/pdf/state-advocacy/fast_facts_2019_final.pdf
  4. “CA Community Colleges Offering Bachelor’s Degrees,” Santa Rosa Junior College, accessed August 3, 2020, https://transfer.santarosa.edu/ca-community-colleges-offering-bachelors-degrees.
  5. “College Admission Requirements,” California Department of Education, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/ps/cefcollegereqs.asp#:~:text=California%20community%20colleges%20are%20required,board%2C%20is%20capable%20of%20profiting.
  6. Author calculations, based on data from IPEDS 2018–19.
  7. Mary Rauner and Sara Lundquist, “College Promise in California: Recommendations for Advancing Implementation, Impact, and Equity,” WestEd, November 2019, 4, accessed August 3, 2020, https://californiacollegepromise.wested.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/California-College-Promise-Legislation-Brief-FINAL.pdf. Prior to 1984, California’s community college students did not have to pay tuition; it is now $46 per unit. Forty-five percent of students’ tuitions are waived under the California College Promise Grant (Board of Governors Fee Waiver) program.
  8. UC data exclude Hastings College of Law and UCSF due to missing data in some fields and unique enrollment profiles.
  9. California State Legislature, Assembly, Budget Act of 2020 (AB 89), Chaptered by Secretary of State, June 29, 2020, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB89. SEC. 83, Provision 2a, (1); “California Budget 2020–21—Enacted Budget,” Department of Finance, accessed August 3, 2020, http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf. The community colleges did receive $120.2 million one-time Response Block Grants to support student learning and lessen learning loss due to COVID-19.
  10. “Student Centered Funding Formula,” California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/College-Finance-and-Facilities-Planning/Student-Centered-Funding-Formula.
  11. “The 2020‑21 Budget: Higher Education Analysis,” Legislative Analyst’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4168.
  12. “Student Centered Funding Formula,” California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/College-Finance-and-Facilities-Planning/Student-Centered-Funding-Formula.
  13. “Student Centered Funding Formula,” California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/College-Finance-and-Facilities-Planning/Student-Centered-Funding-Formula.
  14. “The 2020‑21 Budget: Higher Education Analysis,” Legislative Analyst’s Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4168.
  15. Data from Unemployment May 2020 from California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables, 2018: Place Of Birth By Language Spoken At Home And Ability To Speak English In The United States, Sex By Age By Educational Attainment For The Population 18 Years And Over, and Below poverty level!! Population for whom poverty status is determined, and California Public K-12 Graded Enrollment and High School Graduate Projections by County—2019 Series from Department of Finance.
  16. The twenty-one counties not included in the region analysis because they are not a primary county for a community college district are the following: Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Inyo, Kings, Lake, Madera, Mariposa, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, San Benito, Sierra, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, and Yolo.
  17. Unemployment claims from the California Employment Development Department. The total unemployment claims divided by the entire labor force per county to find rate per county. Data is compared from January 2020 (before recession) to May 2020 (recession); “Unemployment January 2020,” California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.edd.ca.gov/newsroom/unemployment-january-2020.htm; “Unemployment May 2020,” California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), accessed August 3, 2020, https://www.edd.ca.gov/Newsroom/unemployment-may-2020.htm.
  18. Oded Gurantz and Christopher Wielga, “How has COVID-19 impacted FAFSA submissions?” July 2020, accessed August 3, 2020, https://ogurantz.github.io/website/Gurantz_covid_fafsa.pdf.
  19. The limited English ability data is the total of “Speak Spanish!! Speak English less than very well” and “Speak other languages!! Speak English less than very well” from the Census were combined to create the measure “Total speak English less than very well” and then divided by “Total” for each county to get the county rate. ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables. Place Of Birth By Language Spoken At Home And Ability To Speak English In The United States, 2018.
  20. To determine the number of of adults without a college degree the following categories for males and females 25 years and older were combined: “Less than 9th grade,” “9th to 12th grade, no diploma,” “High school graduate (includes equivalency),” “Some college, no degree,” and “Associate’s degree” to create “Total adults over 25 with no Bachelor’s degree” and then divided by the total of this entire population to obtain the rate per county. ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables. Sex By Age By Educational Attainment For The Population 18 Years And Over, 2018.
  21. The figures for this factor are from 2018, before the economic recession. In the absence of more recent data, this analysis assumes that while poverty has certainly increased, the relative rates across regions are similar to what they were before COVID-19. The poverty data gathered by the Census was the total “Below poverty level!!Population for whom poverty status is determined” to create “Total poverty.” ACS 5-Year Estimates Subject Table. Poverty Status In The Past 12 Months, 2018.
  22. The total high graduates data is from the Department of Finance projections. See “California Public K–12 Graded Enrollment and High School Graduate Projections by County—2019 Series,” HS Grads Table, Department of Finance, accessed August 3, 2020, http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/projections/Public_K-12_Graded_Enrollment/.
  23. Ibid., column for 2028–29.
  24. ACS 5-Year Estimates Comparison Profiles, Comparative Demographic Estimates, 2018.
  25. “California Code of Regulations—§ 58777. Decline Restoration,” Thomson Reuters Westlaw, accessed August 3, 2020, https://govt.westlaw.com/calregs/Document/I07B54540D48611DEBC02831C6D6C108E?viewType=FullText&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)#co_anchor_I82ACAB63475D4BCDB3FA220A665652B3.
  26. “The 2018–19 Budget Higher Education Analysis,” Legislative Analyst Office, accessed August 3, 2020, https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3748.
  27. “Education Code,” California Legislature, accessed August 3, 2020, http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=EDC&sectionNum=84750.6.&article=2.&highlight=true&keyword=San%20Francisco%20Community%20College%20District.
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