Enabling Lifelong Learning in California Community Colleges

Abstract

Creating flexible pathways for students, especially those who are caregiving, balancing working and learning, and/or acquiring skills and knowledge outside of classrooms, requires coordinated state- and college-level actions. This chapter describes how the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and its supporting Success Center, undergirded by the system's north star, the Vision for Success, established an infrastructure of policy and resources at the state level, especially through credit for prior learning and competency-based education, to enable colleges to better support students' lifelong learning. Colleges such as Shasta College leveraged these pre-conditions to advance new reforms and accelerate existing ones to transform student journeys.