Summer school in the San Diego Community College District has been dramatically scaled back, due to California State budget woes.  Many community college students now see their education plans delayed, with associated personal distress and unplanned costs and income loss caused by their graduation dates being pushed back.  Frustrated, many of them abandon the community college system altogether and opt for private colleges, where the cost is much higher maybe, but classes are available and student loans just a signature away.

If the community colleges chose to open themselves up to more creative collaborations, they could avoid losing students permanently.  By seeking collaborative arrangements with accredited private institutions, or setting up strategic outsourcing arrangements with eager external brick-and-mortar or online providers (like - full-disclosure - our own Belair Online), student needs could be met without additional expenditures on the part of the community college district.

The five biggest obstacles to such creative solutions are:

1. The unions.  Teacher unions would see such an approach as an effort to introduce non-union labor into the equation.
2. Administration.  Community college administration is not known for its creative, "out-of-the-box" thinking and would not see benefit for itself in setting up these external relationships.
3. Transfer partners.  Public universities would have concerns that students completing transfer courses outside of the community college system and existing transfer agreements would not be as well-prepared as expected.
4. The State.  While the State of California cannot provide adequate funding for post-secondary education due to its own fiscal mismanagement practices, it would nevertheless oppose this type of creative public-private partnership.
5. Possible private partners.  Most private schools wold rather "steal" the students away from the community colleges than partner with them.

Each one of these obstacles could be overcome, if the political will existed on all sides ...