Brown proposed an online community college back in June, when he directed Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley to create the institution.
In his proposed budget, Brown set aside up to $100 million toward startup costs for the college. Another $20 million would go toward ongoing costs.
The June directive included a memo explaining that an online college could make higher education more accessible and establishing a deadline of November for plans to move forward.
“The college would create and coordinate online courses and programs targeted toward working adults with a high school diploma but lacking a college degree or certificate,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office report on the proposed budget reads.
About 2.5 million Californians between ages 25 and 34 fall into that category. The argument that the school would support working adults and help them avoid student debt was furthered in the Online Community College Proposal, authored by the Department of Finance.
"About 80 percent of these economically and educationally stranded adults are working, and 49 percent of these adults are Hispanic," the proposal reads.
The school could be open as soon as fall 2019 as the 115th community college. Accreditation and whether a physical classroom is needed for specific courses are some concerns being raised.
"To date, California does not offer a flexible online experience that is designed to address the unique and diverse needs of students and that ensures program offerings are leading to knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the current and future workforce," the proposal continues.
While the memo outlined that the college should run on a learning management system, how it interacts with other campuses and its governance structure are still concerns, according to the report.
Before this, one effort for creating an online college was the Online Education Initiative, a collaborative effort to build the social and technological infrastructure for online education at the individual community college level. It has provided common infrastructure at no or low cost for all California Community Colleges, including systemwide resources and centralized support services for students, the proposal states.
Some challenges that have been streamlined by that initiative are:
- a common course management system, with training
- system infrastructure
- online proctoring
- plagiarism detection
- course design standards
- help desk support
