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Overview

The California Community College system is a major player in the state’s health care sector. Ten percent of community college graduates received their certificate or degree in a health occupations field. The State's community colleges host some 250 health occupations programs and graduate 11,000 healthcare workers each year (including 60% of all of California’s Registered Nursing graduates). The California Community Colleges also play a key role in diversifying the State’s health care workforce; an estimated 50% of graduates from community college health occupations programs are people of color.

Commissioned by the California Community College Health Care Initiative (HCI), this three-part study investigated and identified effective practices that health occupations programs have developed to improve recruitment, orientation, and other pre-program activities as well as to increase the effectiveness of early intervention and remedial student support services. The study includes (1) a literature review, (2) a survey of 250 California Community College health occupations program directors, and (3) an ethnographic study that included site visits and in-depth phone interviews with more than 150 faculty, administrators, students, and staff from 25 programs.

The RP Group conducted this study with support from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office through the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998, in partnership with the Los Rios Community College District and the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office.