
“We’re just going to be Compton College.’” “It was a sudden thing, like, ‘Oh, we’re not going to be with El Camino anymore,’” Benham said.

Ĭachét Benham, a first-year student studying psychology, and Cevin Garrett, a first-year student studying business, also said they didn’t know the college had ever lost its accreditation or that it planned to separate from El Camino. “I found out probably like a month ago,” he said. The college officially became independent from El Camino on June 7.Īt least some Compton College students said they weren’t aware of the challenges the college has endured or its road back to accreditation.įelix Feliu, a first-year student studying computer science, said he wasn’t aware of the college’s challenges with accreditation until he enrolled recently. The accrediting commission in 2017 put Compton College on the path back to accreditation and in 2018 approved returning control of the college to the Compton Community College District, allowing the college to again stand alone under local control. Since losing its accreditation, the college also has started offering new academic programs, including cosmetology, heating and ventilation, and air conditioning. In 2017, the college introduced the Compton College Promise program, which waives enrollment fees for high school students from Compton, Lynwood and Paramount Unified school districts who attend the college the fall after their high school graduation. In addition to a library, it houses centers for tutoring, math and science, and reading and writing. The school has opened new facilities, most notably the Library-Student Success Center, a state-of-the-art building that Curry describes as a symbol of the college’s progress. The college reversed years of deficit spending, steadily increased its reserves and reduced the number of audit irregularities in its financial reports from a high of 26 in 2011 to zero each year since 2014.
EL CAMINO COLLEGE BASKETBALL SERIES
Since then, Compton College has undergone a series of reforms that put the college on the path back to accreditation.Īn evaluation submitted to the accrediting commission by a team of twelve community college educators in California credited Compton College administrators with restoring the college to fiscal stability. Students could still enroll at the Compton campus but received degrees from El Camino. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 signed AB 318, which provided the college with $30 million in emergency funding and enabled it to continue to operate as a satellite campus of the El Camino Community College District.Īfter losing its accreditation and merging with El Camino, Compton College was renamed El Camino College Compton Center. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) in 2005 stripped the college of its accreditation, citing fiscal instability and corruption on the governing board. It’s the most ambitious of a series of goals that Curry has set for the college as part of a turnaround he has led since becoming chief executive of the college in 2011. “Why can’t Compton College win an Aspen award by 2024?”Ĭompton College CEO Keith Curry has helped steadily reform the college since taking over in 2011. “My thinking is that we want to be one of those schools that people look at as doing good work for students,” Curry told EdSource. Located on an 83-acre campus about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, the college enrolls about 12,000 students - slightly more than the 10,800 students it enrolled during the 2004-05 academic year, prior to losing accreditation.Ĭurry has his eyes set on gaining national recognition for the turnaround, such as being a contender for the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, an honor awarded for excellence and high achievement among U.S. President Keith Curry is now plotting for a new type of fame, with the two-year college officially regaining its independence earlier this month after more than a dozen years of rebuilding its brand. Local Control Funding Formula ExplainedĬompton College gained unwanted attention 14 years ago for becoming the first community college in California to be stripped of its accreditation for financial mismanagement.California’s Homeless Students: Undercounted, Underfunded And Growing.
EL CAMINO COLLEGE BASKETBALL FULL

Education during Covid: California families struggle to learn.College And Covid: Freshman Year Disrupted.Adjuncts’ gig economy at CA community colleges.California’s Community Colleges: At a Crossroads.A town’s library fight spotlights inequities.

