In June, the California legislature finalized a plan that will encourage community colleges to confer degrees to students and allow them to transfer to four-year colleges by withholding funding from low-performing community colleges.
This is a flawed plan for three major reasons. First, encouraging community colleges to graduate students who are not ready for four year colleges is not feasible. Second, if a community college really is unable to move its students through the transfer process successfully, it does not make sense for the government to take away resources from that school rather than try to help it. Third, the plan fails to understand that not all community college students have the goal of transferring to a four-year institution.
