BY HANK REICHMAN

Calbright College, California’s ridiculously named and fully online community college, graduated just 12 of its 900-plus students in its first year and saw more than 40% of them drop out, according to a scathing report released May 11 by the California State Auditor.  The college, which expects to receive more than $175 million in taxpayer funds through 2025 and has already received $100 million, has “no detailed strategy for spending” those funds, the report found.  Although Calbright paid its executives more than any other community college in the state, the audit concluded that it “failed to follow sound hiring practices, resulting in a substantial lack of needed experience across key positions.”

Perhaps most important, the report found that Calbright “delayed setting up a student support system” and that its  “methods for ensuring that students succeed are inadequate—most students have either dropped out or stopped progressing.”  Of the 904 students who enrolled at Calbright in its first year, 384 dropped out, the auditor said.  The college could not account for the status of 87 other students.  Moreover, the school “has not developed a process for helping students obtain well‑paying jobs.”

The report’s conclusions come as no surprise to those who have been following Calbright’s short but checkered history, as has this blogger.  “We are unsurprised by the critical findings,” said Evan Hawkins, executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.  “Calbright is inherently flawed, and no amount of time can fix its inability to effectively serve students.  As our 115 accredited colleges have stepped up to serve nearly all students online, the audit shows Calbright continues to serve a small number of students who are not supported enough to become successful in their goals.  Simply put, Calbright is falling far short of its promise.”

The idea of a separate totally online community college was a brainchild of former governor Jerry Brown and, despite intense legislative skepticism, has been kept alive by Brown’s successor, Gavin Newsom, backed by California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley.  Faculty groups were skeptical at best from the start, with criticism mounting after Calbright’s stumbling launch in Fall 2019.

Most of Calbright’s initial excessively compensated leadership resigned under a cloud of controversy, but, the audit found, its original chief technology officer remains, earning $270,000, nearly twice the median salary of counterparts elsewhere.  According to the report, nine of 14 hiring decisions made in 2019 were “problematic because Calbright either did not conduct competitive hiring processes or gave preferential treatment to certain candidates.”  The audit noted that some job candidates received their contracts because of a “past personal or professional connection” to someone on the college’s executive team.  These candidates lacked public education experience or experience working in the public sector, which hindered the college’s success.  While most of those hires are now gone, the audit found that Calbright still lacks salary schedules to ensure the problem doesn’t happen again.

According to the audit, as of October “Calbright employed about 60 staff members, including five executive staff, five instructors, and support staff.  Calbright experienced significant staff turnover in 2020.”  Five instructors?!

Brown’s Calbright plan was to help working Californians get access to better, higher-paying jobs by securing certificates in industries in demand.  It was designed to offer an alternative to high-priced for-profit online schools.  Leaders promised the school would not only find jobs for every student, but would supply on-the-job coaching.  Yet as of October, the audit found, the college enrolled far fewer low-income people, veterans, immigrants, and women who were its target population than proponents projected.  Moreover, “a significant percentage of students enrolled in its first year—more than 25 percent—had already earned at least a bachelor’s degree.”  Calbright’s “failure to enroll its target population is likely due in large part to its failure to develop and implement an effective outreach plan,” the report concluded. 

The report also pointed out that students at some Calbright programs, such as cybersecurity, may not be able to access good jobs because those often require bachelor’s degrees or significant industry experience.  “Calbright’s decisions regarding the programs it offers have not adequately reflected an awareness of the needs of its target population,” the auditor concluded.  Calbright has also failed to build relationships with employers to ensure its graduates can get good jobs, the report said.  The school began offering career services such as one-on-one coaching in November, but the report said that was an inefficient substitute for strong relationships with employers.

The audit was requested by Assembly Member Jose Medina (D-Riverside) and released just days after the California Assembly voted 71-0 to abolish the school by 2023.  In June of last year the legislature agreed on a state budget for 2020-21 that would have eliminated all funding for Calbright and redirected more than $100 million to support other needs in the 115-campus community college system.  However, Oakley and Newsom stood behind the school and Calbright survived final budget negotiations.

“Although I believe that the original intent and mission of Calbright is noble, it has struggled with numerous issues since its inception that we can no longer ignore,” Medina said after last week’s Assembly vote.  “The other California community colleges have demonstrated their ability to adapt, expand and serve their 2.1 million students even in a pandemic,” he added.  “Having graduated so few students while taking away resources from other programs in the California Community Colleges is simply not helping our students.”

The great irony here, of course, is that even while a global pandemic compelled almost all higher education institutions to become “online-only” almost overnight, Calbright, designed from the start as a totally online alternative, continues, as so many predicted, to stumble badly.