Untraditional Programs for Nontraditional Students
Jessica Blake
October 19, 2023
Eight California community colleges are developing programs to help adult learners earn degrees faster and more efficiently.
Before community colleges became training grounds for people wanting to work in trade jobs or as technicians in specialized fields that didn’t require four-year degrees, students mostly learned through apprenticeships and vocational programs or got on-the-job training.
Employers now increasingly rely on community colleges to train and certify workers for these positions; they also prefer or require workers to have degrees.
“If you look back in time, how did automotive technicians learn to do their trade? They didn’t sit in a classroom for 16 weeks, take a bunch of Scantron tests, and then all of a sudden, they can fix the carburetor,” said Randy Beach, faculty curriculum committee chair at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif. “They were on the ground; they had their hands in the work.”
