California Community Colleges (CCC) Chancellor Sonya Christian highlighted the importance of Black History Month during a Feb. 14 statewide teleconference call, and discussed topics ranging from rising enrollment numbers and late start classes to supporting justice-impacted students. 

Christian acknowledged the start of Black History Month by recognizing the many ongoing events happening on campuses across the state, saying the Chancellor’s Office remains “steadfast in our commitment to support our black and African American students by breaking down barriers standing in their way of a quality higher education.” 

Toward that effort, Christian announced a new CCC podcast called “Educate, Elevate” that she said is geared toward “inspiring current and prospective black and African American students.” 

The podcast was launched by the I Can Go To College campaign on Jan. 29, and episodes are available on it website, Christian said.

The Chancellor also spoke about what she called the “fabulous” growth in student enrollments across the state, saying that students attending the 116 California Community Colleges now represent 20 percent of the nation’s total community college student enrollments.

CCC enrollment has now surpassed every other state.

While the official enrollment numbers are still being finalized by each campus, over 2 million students are currently enrolled throughout the state, reflecting an 8 percent increase in enrollments throughout the CCC system. 

What’s more, said Christian, the state’s community colleges are now responsible for 50 percent of the total growth in community college enrollment nationwide.

“I really must appreciate and recognize our colleges, our classified staff, our administrators, our faculty, and our trustees,” Christian said, crediting employees within the CCC system for the strong enrollment growth.

Also on the call, Christian highlighted the availability of more late-start classes on most CCC campuses and invited students to take advantage of these opportunities for flexible academic advancement.

At the same time, and despite these successes, the Chancellor addressed the problem of fraudulent student enrollments, in which people aim to steal financial aid by falsely enrolling in college. Christian called the scam of fraudulent enrollments a “huge issue… on everyone’s mind,” and said CCC is working to address it.

In response, the state college system plans to implement a new ID Me interface for the application process, which Christian said could help combat financial aid fraud.

The chancellor added that “once we move to a much more unified common data platform, we could leverage technology to find solutions.”