Rural communities make up more than 60% of California, but are often forgotten by metropolitan areas and lack enough higher education resources to meet the needs of those communities.
That’s the challenge Calbright President and CEO Ajita Talwalker Menon identified in her remarks at the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) Board of Supervisors meeting last week.
Rural communities often have some higher education available, particularly community college branches, and these can be absolutely vital for the populations they serve. But unlike in metro areas, where they are plentiful and relatively accessible by transit, colleges in rural areas can be a great distance from some communities, and hard to reach – especially for working people with families who can’t add a big commute to their day. That means educational opportunities are limited, restrictingeconomic growth and upward mobility for Californians in rural regions.
This problem is clear in the numbers: According to a University of California study, only 17% of California’s rural population has a college degree and only 53% of rural residents are in the labor force, compared with 62% statewide.
This is a critical issue Calbright College has been focused on since its inception, noting in 2021 that there’s a “rural opportunity gap” in California, for example, and calling attention to the needs of California’s half-a-million rural college students in 2023.
Calbright’s mandate, as California’s first statewide online community college district, is to help address those needs, Menon said. It provides internet hotspots and laptops free of charge to students who need the technology to access the programs. Calbright’s Competency-Based Education programs are flexibly paced so that students can attend classes wherever they are, whenever they want. That means rural students can study on their own time, and don’t face travel barriers to get the necessary skills training to succeed in today’s workforce. Calbright is also free, eliminating cost barriers too.
Using the Calbright model, “People in rural communities don’t have to leave their communities and families for opportunity or upskilling,” Menon said.
The approach is working. Calbright has students in 53 out of California’s 58 counties, including 35 of the state’s 40 rural counties.
“Calbright aims to be a workforce engine,” Menon told the RCRC Board of Supervisors. “And with your collaboration, we can shift the trajectory of local economies and create more opportunities for the families in your communities.”
