POPULATION TRENDS AND PROFILES California’s Community

The California community college system describes itself as the largest postsecondary education system in the world (CCCCO, 2006a), with more than 2.5 million mostly part-time students enrolled in more than 100 colleges around the state. These institu-tions offer a broad variety of courses for their students, including academic coursework for an associate’s degree or transfer to four-year colleges and universities, vocational training, basic skills, English as a second language (ESL), and enrichment courses. In this issue of California Counts, we examine the community college population in Cali-fornia. Why do students attend, and how do their goals differ in relation to their demograph-ics? Which students achieve their objectives for attending community college? Who returns for a second year, who transfers to a four-year institution, and who obtains a degree or certifi-cate? Answers to these questions provide a basic yet essential backdrop for understanding how community colleges serve California’s diverse population. Given such a large student body, it should be no surprise that community college students are an extremely diverse set of people. In 2003, half of all students were aged 17 to 20, but almost two out of five students were over age 25. The share of younger students has grown in recent years, while the share of older students has dropped. Females outnumbered males, and this difference increased with age. About 40 percent of entering community college students were white, about 30 percent were Latino, and almost 15 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander (API). Most had high school diplomas, but substantial numbers of students without diplomas or with postsecondary degrees also attended. We identified students ’ reasons for attending community college according to the classes they took in their first year. Students took a majority of their classes in one of five areas