Having invested more than $100 million in the online-only community college Calbright, launched in 2019, the state of California found only 12 students had graduated after the first year, with nearly 400 dropping out.
May 12, 2021 08:36 am
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) A California lawmaker is calling for the state’s new fully online community college to be shut down after an audit found that just 12 of its 900-plus students graduated in its first year and more than 40% dropped out, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The findings about Calbright College were reported to the Legislature by state Auditor Elaine Howle on Tuesday.
Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, who asked for the audit at the request of community college faculty leaders, said Calbright has failed.
“The Legislature must end the Calbright College experiment,” Medina said in a statement.
Medina and Assemblyman Evan Low, D-San Jose, are carrying a bill that would eliminate the school at the end of the 2022-23 academic year.
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California s $175 million online community college graduated just 12 students in its first year, audit finds
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State Auditor Elaine Howle, right, at a state legislative hearing in January 2018 in Sacramento. At left is Democratic Assembly Member Joaquin Arambula. On Tuesday, Howle said in an audit that California’s new and fully online community college, Calbright, has graduated just 12 of its more than 900 students, seen 384 of them drop out and lost track of another 87.Rich Pedroncelli/AP
California’s new and fully online community college, Calbright, graduated just 12 of its 900-plus students in its first year and saw more than 40% of them drop out.
This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. May 12 to include new comments from former Calbright President Heather Hiles.
A long-awaited state audit of Calbright College, California’s exclusively online community college, criticized its previous leaders for overpaying some of its executives, lacking a strategy for spending state funds and failing to provide students with training and connections to employers.
In its two years of operation, Calbright has failed at its key mission of “enrolling adult students who cannot otherwise obtain postsecondary education,” concludes Elaine M. Howle, the California state auditor, in a report released Tuesday.
Larry Gordon/EdSource
Former Calbright College President Heather Hiles resigned after less than a year.
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