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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Online at Community Colleges: Implications for UCLA & UC

Yours truly is catching up with some news items that appeared while he was traveling. One, from the LA Times, deals with the growing demand for, and prevalence of, online classes at community colleges.* According to the article: 

...In pre-pandemic fall 2019, 80% of community college classes were fully in person, 15% were fully remote and 5% were hybrid, a mix of online and in-person, according to a state report. Two years later, the numbers were nearly flipped, with 25% of classes in person, 65% remote and 10% hybrid... 

Note that UCLA accepts many transfer students from the community colleges. Thus, there may be expectations from these incoming students that may differ from what UCLA is offering. The switch to online courses is somewhat less pronounced in LA-area community colleges, but still quite significant. 

...In the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District, 50% of classes are remote, 7% are hybrid and 43% are in-person, according to district data... 

The article cites a report that found ...students who took an online course were more likely to earn an associate’s degree or transfer to a four-year university than those who did not take an online class. And more recent data have shown that students are now completing online classes at nearly the same rate as in-person courses...

So, the question for UCLA and other UC campuses is the degree to which this apparent demand for online courses can be accommodated. Obviously, some courses are easier to adapt to online than others. There may also be some tension in the future between 4-year and transfer students over this issue.
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