Using data for 108 colleges in the California Community College System, this paper poses two questions. First, do California community colleges differ in their missions? Second, if they do, can inter-college differences in missions be explained? We address the first question by developing college-specific measures of curriculum mix, which we use…

Reverse transfer has recently become a topic of interest. There are concerns that some university graduates are having a difficult time finding good jobs and are enrolling in community college programs to make themselves competitive in the job market. To assess the extent of reverse transfer, the Commission conducted an analysis combining…

Postsecondary education is a major enterprise in California. The state provides $12 billion annually in funding to the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges. A major concern is how well the output of degrees, certificates, and other qualifications from these three public segments meets the…

Over the past 20 years, California has experienced a continuous, growing flow of Mexican immigrant laborers. Although Mexican labor was originally linked to agriculture, by 1980 Mexican-born labor was filling a substantial proportion of jobs in all sectors of the California economy, particularly in manufacturing. Because they are concentrated in…

This paper examines the use of racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions, focusing on the extent of their use and their impact on the careers of the intended beneficiaries in light of the California Civil Rights Initiative, which is designed to end such preferences. A study by Kane (1995) found that at the most selective four-year…

Proposed United States immigration reforms are founded on the assumption that illegal immigration can be significantly curbed by reducing economic incentives to migrate. Effects of these reforms, however, are not the same for all undocumented workers. Data from 61 rural Mexican households in Michoacan were used to explore which undocumented…

In 1980, 25% of the 14 million foreign-born persons in the United States were in California; 1.7 million of these were in Los Angeles County. Half of the 2.1 million undocumented immigrants counted in the 1980 United States Census lived in California, and about 75% of these were of Mexican origin. Results of a 1983 Urban Institute poll revealed…

This policy brief examines programs from California and elsewhere in the United States for attracting and retaining quality preschool and child-care staff and places these programs within the broader context of K-12 reforms. While this brief is specifically aimed at early-childhood-education planners and policymakers, it contains information for…

In 1994, California voters approved Proposition 187, which prohibits provision of publicly funded education and social services to undocumented immigrants, and which requires public schools to verify the legal status of students and their parents. This paper examines socioeconomic and immigration trends leading to the emergence of Proposition 187,…

The California Youth Authority (CYA) planned to offer a training program covering all aspects of the automotive trades to wards during their incarceration. Through analysis, it showed future job opportunities exist, due to increased job numbers and high turnover rate, for persons trained in the automotive trades in California over a 10-year period…