Front Matter

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Contents

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pp. v-vi

Tables

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pp. vii-ix

Acknowledgments

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p. xi

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Patrick Perry in the California Community College System Chancellor’s Office kindly provided us with the student records analyzed in this project. Myra Hoffman, Willard Hom, and Charles Klein in the Chancellor’s Office helped us...

1. Introduction

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pp. 1-13

American community colleges are complex institutions committed to a number of different missions and to serving a variety of constituents. Historically, community colleges concentrated on two missions—supplying introductory college-level courses to students interested in transferring to a four-year college...

2. Development of the California Community College System

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pp. 15-24

California’s extensive public postsecondary education system includes the University of California (UC) system, the California State University (CSU) system, and the California Community College System (CCCS). To place our empirical analysis in context, this chapter provides a brief discussion of the...

3. Studies of the Effect of Community Colleges on Educational Attainment

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pp. 25-45

This chapter provides an overview of the literature relating to the first research question posed in Chapter 1. To review, the question is whether community colleges are meeting the educational and training needs of current and recent generations of immigrants. Three distinct literatures are reviewed. We begin...

4. Studies of Community Colleges’ Responsiveness to Changes in Employer Skill Requirements

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pp. 47-59

In Chapter 1 we advanced a definition of labor market responsiveness borrowed from the recent U.S. Department of Education (DoED) Community College Labor Market Responsiveness Initiative. An important aspect of this definition is that a labor market responsive community college seeks to develop programs...

5. Responsiveness to the Educational Needs of Immigrants by Broad Categories of Race or Ethnicity

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pp. 61-107

This chapter addresses the first research question posed in Chapter 1. The question is whether California community colleges are meeting the educational needs of current and recent generations of immigrants. By educational needs, Chapter 1 specified that what we have in mind is a successful outcome of a student’s...

6. Responsiveness to the Educational Needs of Immigrants by Narrowly Defined Ethnic Categories

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pp. 109-129

In this chapter, we continue our analysis begun in Chapter 5 that attempts to explain observed gaps in community college outcome variables for Latino and Asian students. As discussed in Chapter 5, Asian community college students outperform whites despite disadvantages associated with a high proportion...

7. Community Colleges’ Responsiveness to Local Labor Market Demand

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pp. 131-170

The second of the two research issues outlined in Chapter 1 is to evaluate the success of community colleges in meeting the skill requirements of local employers. In Chapter 4, we described three approaches taken in the literature to investigate this issue. We concluded that chapter with a discussion of a new approach...

8. Summary and Policy Implications

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pp. 171-190

This monograph provides an empirical study of the labor market responsiveness of California community colleges. To define what we mean by labor market responsiveness, we borrowed from a definition recently advanced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Community College Labor Market Responsiveness...

Appendix A: Data Sources

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pp. 191-197

References

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pp. 199-204

The Authors

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p. 205

Duane E. Leigh is professor emeritus of economics at Washington State University, Pullman. He was economics department chair from 1994 to 2003, and he has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Wisconsin– Madison and the University of Virginia. Since the mid-1980s, his research has focused on the operation...

Index

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pp. 207-217

About the Institute

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p. 219

Back Cover

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