[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: Getting a college degree
is critical for success in today's job market.
But not enough students are completing them, especially
low-income students and students of color.
I recently visited Chaffey College in California
to see how they're helping students
stay on a path to a degree and into the workforce
so they can realize their dreams.
LAURA HOPE: Higher education has been
doing a lot of the same things for 700 years.
The very robes that we wear to commencement
are meant to support us in drafty castles
that we don't inhabit anymore.
We have to be more future minded, more responsive,
more nimble to provide the community with what it needs.
Students struggle with not knowing what it is they're
going to do.
We wanted to simplify that experience.
Rather than asking an 18-year-old what
is it you want to do with yourself,
we started to build a community around their interest clusters.
So if they're interested in health,
they're going to need guided exploration rather
than bouncing around in a series of courses that may not help
them formulate a future goal.
Dual enrollment has been a way for high school students
to earn college credit while they're also
attending high school.
We want to open up community college
access to students who don't see themselves yet
as college material.
Even taking one or two courses can
help to illuminate their strengths and their interest
to pursue a bigger goal than they
might have pursued otherwise.
MATTHEW CABRERA: Along with being a freshman,
I'm a college student at Chaffey taking college courses along
with my high school classwork.
I've known about college, but I've never
really understood the pathway to get into that college.
Joining this program provides a clear path, clear steps,
clear guidance to college.
LAURA HOPE: Chaffey made the determination
to become a leader in cybersecurity as a major.
And our students can identify that as a pathway
while they're still in high school,
start to take some courses, develop
some foundational skills.
SPEAKER 2: So this is our cybersecurity center.
And so what the students have to do
is they get to set up everything that an organization might
need, switching, routing, firewalls, services,
virtual systems.
LAURA HOPE: Most of our students get jobs
before they're even finished because the demand is so high.
In California alone, cyber has over 400,000 job opportunities.
SPEAKER 2: It's great that they have such hands-on experience
available.
If you get kids thinking, OK, here's what I'd have to do,
is that a fit for me, then you can
create a lot of clarity, which shortens the distance
to get to the job.
[MUSIC PLAYING]