Community College News

San Francisco is in trouble, with a threat of accreditation loss looming and uncertainty over whether the school will even be able to remain open for much longer. According to many who have carefully examined the issues facing the college, the fault primarily lies with the school itself. From ineffective governance to mismanagement of funds, the City College of San Francisco is facing serious issues that could take Herculean efforts to overcome. Now, time is also running short for the school, as the accrediting commission has set a deadline in which the school must begin to show progress in improving their operations overall.

This video discusses how the fate of City College of San Francisco and its 77,000 students continues to hang in the balance.

Implications of “Show Cause” Rating

The accreditation commission recently gave the City College of San Francisco a “show cause” rating, which means the school shoulders the burden of showing why it should remain accredited. This sanction is the most serious of the three options an accrediting commission can offer. The San Francisco Examiner reports that a “show cause” rating is typically only given when an institution is in “substantial non-compliance” with accreditation standards.

Only two California schools have received similar ratings currently, according to the Los Angeles Times. College of the Redwoods and Cuesta College both are working their way through accreditation violations, in

California community colleges have long been at the forefront of technology adoption in higher education. What began as early cloud-based email and collaboration tools has evolved into a system-wide transformation focused on data sharing, artificial intelligence, and scalable digital infrastructure.

Today, cloud computing is no longer just a convenience; it is a core part of how colleges operate, support students, and deliver education.

The Original Shift to Cloud Technology

The transition to cloud computing in California community colleges began with efforts to unify communication systems across campuses.

The Los Angeles Community College District, the largest in the nation, initially moved hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and staff to a centralized cloud-based platform.

Early cloud systems allowed for:

• Unified student email accounts
• Shared calendars and communication tools
• Online document collaboration
• Cross-campus connectivity

This move marked the beginning of a broader digital transformation across the state’s community college system.

👉 Explore a leading example of a large California campus: https://www.communitycollegereview.com/california/los-angeles

What Cloud Technology Enables Today

Cloud platforms now support far more than communication. Modern systems allow colleges to:

• Deliver online and hybrid learning at scale
• Provide real-time student data access
• Support mobile-first education tools
• Improve cybersecurity and system reliability

Colleges increasingly rely on cloud infrastructure to maintain flexibility, especially after the rapid expansion of remote learning during the pandemic.

In addition, cloud-based learning management systems (LMS) and student portals now allow seamless integration between coursework, advising, and administrative services. This reduces friction for students and improves overall retention and completion rates.

👉 Learn

The Obama Administration has focused heavilyon community colleges and college completion rates over the past three years, raising awareness about the importance of education in improving the country’s unemployment rate. However, some have criticized the President for placing too much emphasis on education and not enough on actual job development. In addition to the Skills for America's Future program initiated in 2011, President and Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled their latest plan to transform vocational education nationwide.

Making a Solid Investment

The latest initiative by the White House is titled “Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education.” The program was designed as an outline for revamping the current Perkins Act of 2006, initially created to provide funding for vocational training at the secondary and postsecondary levels. According to the U.S. Department of Education website, the Perkins Act primarily distributes funding through state grants, which State Boards for Vocational Education are encouraged and eligible to apply.

While the Perkins Act has been significant in developing vocational training across America, the current administration believes it could go further in helping Americans train for the industries that have the highest need for skilled workers today. At a time when unemployment rates are still high, a restructuring of the Perkins Act could make vocational training more widely available both to displaced workers and high school graduates who cannot afford the hefty tuition rates at a four-year institution.

Duncan reported in the Huffington Post:

Discrimination has become a point of focus at Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Arizona, as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has launched an investigation of some of the practices of the college system. The investigations are in response to concerns raised over two key issues: the request for immigration status from some students and the failure to provide appropriate services to non-English speaking students.

Concerns Raised by Civil Rights Center

Concerns over these issues were initially raised mmigration status. Accordiby a non-profit organization based out of Phoenix, the Civil Rights Center. Information on this organization is limited, but according to a report in the New York Times last year, the bare-boned group is run out of the Phoenix home of its director, Silverio Garcia Jr. Last year, Garcia filed a class-action complaint with the Department of Education, alleging that teachers in Phoenix schools were improperly transferred due to speaking accents that some children had difficulty understanding.

“This was one culture telling another culture that you are not speaking correctly,” Garcia told the New York Times.

The complaint, filed in May 2010, was closed in late August 2011 after the state agreed to alter its policy, stating that only teachers who were fluent in English could teach students learning English. State officials said accents were not a part of their monitoring process to determine whether teachers should remain in the classroom.

This year, Silverio Garcia’s organization has once again targeted Phoenix

Although STEM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects is touted as the wave of the future for practical fields of study that can launch lucrative careers, it appears that women back in the 2000s were not taking full advantage of the STEM opportunities presented at community colleges today. The gap was a concern for employers who wondered if there would be enough skilled workers to fill their positions in the future. Why were women appearing to shy away from STEM degree programs? There were many reasons for the drop, but the primary focus of educators and employers wass to help women overcome the challenges of STEM studies in order to produce a qualified, competitive workforce for the 21^st century. And those efforts appear to have paid off.

An Upward Trend

When this article was written in 2012, the trend was downwards. Data in 2020 suggests that the number of women pursuing fields of study in STEM subjects appears to be increasing. According to a report at the Community College Times, women earned 34 percent of two-year STEM degrees in 1997. In 2020, according to USAFacts, the number of women graduating in STEM subjects shows steady year-over-year growth.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities states that a college education remains the brightest path to a future of mobility and economic security. The STEM fields offer a particularly lucrative path, with higher than average salaries and projected job