Here’s a bold idea: offer community college students the opportunity to learn a trade and earn a bachelor’s degree — all with community college accessibility and tuition rates. Furthermore, ensure that students from all walks of life have access to the programs across the state with a focus on racial equity in academic and labor market outcomes.

That’s exactly what Adrian H. Huerta, Cecilia Rio-Aguilar (UCLA), and Marcella Cuellar (UC-Davis) are aiming to accomplish with their new College Futures Foundation Baccalaureate Program study, secured with a $275,000 grant.

With this grant, the goal is to support institutions in integrating racial equity efforts into community college baccalaureate programs (CCBs) across the state of California. California joins a national effort to increase the number of four-year degrees earned in society through a novel method of offering specialized labor-market degrees such as Applied Biomanufacturing, Automotive Technology, Health Information Management, Interaction Design, and many others that are affordable, geographically accessible and meet the needs of local economies. This is a bold idea considering that California is home to 116 community colleges serving over 1.8 million students across the state.

This study builds on recent research focused on narrowing the racial equity gaps in Community College Baccalaureate Programs. Innovative efforts to help first-generation, low-income and minoritized student populations are essential, as CCB efforts can increase college access. Still, persistence and success need to be further investigated for specific student populations that are often overlooked. Still, many questions remain about the effectiveness of these programs, program designs, labor market outcomes, and other facets that will be potentially answered by the USC, UCLA, and UC-Davis research teams to document best practices to inform other community colleges across the state and country.