CALIFORNIA CAREER PATHWAYS

Building Strong Systems

Extended Opportunity Programs and Services/Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education

^{Updated December 2016}

These postsecondary initiatives of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) are state-funded assistance programs. Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) provides academic and financial support to community college students with educational and socioeconomic barriers to college success. Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (CARE) is administered by EOPS, and targets single parents with children under age 14 to help these individuals complete High School Equivalency programs or pursue job-relevant curriculum.

Eligible participants include California residents who are:

Enrolled as full-time community college students
Low-income and eligible for Board of Governors Fee Waiver A or B
Educationally disadvantaged and academically underprepared to compete in collegiate-level coursework at time of acceptance into programs as demonstrated by:
- Not qualifying to enroll in a minimum-level, degree-applicable English or mathematics class
- Not graduating from high school or receiving a GED
- Graduating from high school with a grade point average below 2.5/4.0
- Previous enrollment in remedial education, basic skills, and/or English second language courses
- Being a first-generation college student
- Being an emancipated or former foster youth
- Being a non-native English speaker

The California Community College Board of Governors allocates state funding to participating colleges.

Resources: Overview

Key Elements of the Career Pathway System

Opportunity?

EOPS/CARE could benefit from collaboration with initiatives that share their goals and have similarly aligned responsibilities.

There could be opportunity to connect services to populations identified in community colleges’ Student Equity Plans and structured career pathways. Leveraging Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act industry sector partnerships, as well as initiatives such as the Career Technical Education Incentive Grant program and Linked Learning programs, could connect participants to training for high-demand sectors and improve this industry-specific target.

Basic skills instruction and tutoring could be integrated with career technical education to provide contextualized foundational skill building, which may help this initiative take advantage of participant-focused, evidence-based practices. There is also potential to connect work-study to career pathway occupational programming to provide work-based learning opportunities.

This initiative could benefit from leveraging data across systems to capture participants’ progress benchmarks. This could help track progress through shared use of data, selection of metrics, and a commitment to formative and summative assessment to inform continuous improvement.

Access comparative information in a print-friendly PDF.