A Third Attempt to Close Calbright College
California lawmakers are trying to close Calbright College for a third consecutive year. Will they be successful this time?
By Sara Weissman
Horn believes the state spent too much money on Calbright at the outset without clear enough expectations for the institution.
“You want a big innovation to transform X?” he said. “That’s great, but let’s state all of our assumptions and unknowns up front that have to prove true for us to really hit those benchmarks. And before we spend a whole load of cash on something that might be a pipe dream, let’s just spend a little bit here and there testing the assumptions to figure out if we’re on the right track or not and then pivot or shut it down accordingly based on the data we get back … They didn’t do that in this case.”
He also finds the “tug-of-war” over the college’s future to be unproductive and disconcerting for students.
“That’s probably the worst of all worlds, this limbo with the Legislature,” he said. “Because it’s a real drag on students also. It’s like, is the institution I’m thinking about enrolling in even going to be here?”
1 comment
I used to work there. Close them down. Total waste of CA money. I support AB 2820. In just two years, fewer than 80 students have completed a certificate at Calbright College, California’s exclusively online, unaccredited community college. Currently there are 911 students enrolled. However, of the 911 Calbright’s officials did not disclose how many students are active in their programs nor have they answered why their enrollment period is 6 times the length of all other community colleges. Additionally, in the college’s last Mile Stone report, 43% of students have not completed any substantive activity in more then 90 days, yet they are not dropped.
The funding could be redistributed to the other established accredited community colleges.
California has allocated 60 million in one time funding with an additional 15 million of ongoing funding. I support section 75013 education code to redistribute Calbright Colleges funding.