California Community Colleges Partner With Historically Black Colleges

LOS ANGELES, California -- Many of California’s four-year public colleges are stuffed to capacity, while some of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities struggle to fill their classes. A new alliance between California’s community colleges and nine out-of-state schools may help both types of institutions fix their enrollment woes.

An agreement signed Tuesday will ease the transfer of students from California’s two-year programs into historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, outside the state.

California’s community college system—the nation’s largest, with about 2.1 million students across 112 campuses—already has guaranteed-transfer arrangements with the California State University system and six University of California campuses. But many of those public universities are near or at capacity, leading to challenges enrolling in classes and often longer paths to graduation.

Under the new deal, students who complete an associate degree at a California community college and maintain certain grade-point averages will be guaranteed admission to one of nine HBCUs, including Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala., and Dillard University in New Orleans, with junior-class standing.

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