Accreditation Warnings at Many California Community Colleges

I didn't know so many colleges were risking sanctions.

At LAT, "More community colleges facing accreditation problems":

A warning to Los Angeles Mission College to correct a number of academic and administrative deficiencies didn't come as a great surprise to Daniel Campos.

The former student body president had long been frustrated with campus infighting, perceptions of cultural insensitivity and inadequate counseling and other student services.

All of these issues and others were cited recently by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges when it put the Sylmar campus on notice that it must make improvements.

"Most students in general are not aware of the impact of accrediting decisions," said Campos, who also served as student trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District. "If the college loses accreditation, I'll lose transfer credits, so I'll need to find a way to line up everything in one year in case that happens."

The warning issued to Mission is the mildest of the possible penalties. The college will remain accredited pending a follow-up report due by March 2014.

But in a raft of actions earlier this month, the panel made the rare decision to revoke accreditation from City College of San Francisco in July 2014 (the college is appealing) and issued warnings to Los Angeles Valley, Orange Coast and six other campuses. Sanctions were removed from West Los Angeles and Harbor colleges and seven other campuses.

Of California's 112 community colleges, one, College of the Sequoias in the Central Valley town of Visalia, is operating under the most serious penalty — "show cause" — meaning the college is substantially out of compliance with requirements and must correct deficiencies to remain accredited. Five other colleges are on probationary status, and 13 have been given warnings.

Continue reading.

I'm surprised OCC is on the list, since it has such a great reputation. But things that you wouldn't expect can get a college in trouble. You have to meet schedules determined from outside the institution and community colleges are extremely cumbersome places. Things don't move quickly. A lot doesn't get done. I've written about San Francisco CC before, and it's even deeper than that for that college. The place resembled more like a political machine with handouts to all kind of connected constituencies, minority constituencies. That's really corrupt.