The first die has been cast and now City College must appeal and appeal the decisions to hold there own as a community college. To be perfectly honest I can’t tell you why they have lost their accreditation, but I can tell you why City College is important to San Francisco.
I attended City College. I hadn’t planned to, but I was kind of lazy in High School and didn’t have the best GPA to get into State College so I chose the route so many other people did. You go to City College first and then transfer after you’ve done your core courses to a real college. I highlighted real because nobody gives a damn where you did your core courses you just have to do them to get out of college. What’s important is the final name on your degree when you finish.
After attending City College and transferring to San Francisco State I realized that I made a good choice. While I wasn’t broke going to college I took the courses everyone is required to take and realized why did I have to be paying more money for the same course at SF State than I did at City College [note: City College was free when I went]. This was a good reason why a lot of people went to City College was to save money.
While I was at City College I happened to run into my cousin who was in the Fire Department. Apparently, City College has the only courses locally that workers in the Fire and Police Department can take to advance themselves. I even learned that City College had a Fire Science department. Being a guy who liked to play with fire I thought this was cool.
Then you have many people that don’t necessarily need a four year degree but do need training in the job they want to do. City College has an excellent Hotel and Restaurant Management Department as well as an excellent Environmental Horticultural and Floristry department. You don’t need a bachelor’s degree for these, but you do need training to get a job and this is where you get those skills.
There are three reasons that should be good enough for just about anyone. If City College goes away we won’t have an affordable route to start college for many or training for those people in our Fire and Police Departments or just job training for those who don’t need a degree. This will affect the job market in San Francisco in that there will be a lot of local people who won’t be able to afford the necessary time in college to advance themselves. Local jobs will start to go to people outside the City because people won’t have the training because they’re on a restricted budget or simply because they can’t find the necessary classes elsewhere.
If City College’s administration has created a problem they need to fix it or the local government needs to step in and fix it, but the one thing that the City doesn’t need is for City College to close.