How the Austerity Agenda Disappeared Over a Million California Community College Students: A Faculty Perspective

The largest system of higher education in the nation, the California Community Colleges (CCC) has disappeared more than one million students in the past 15 years, a 35% decrease in its student body since 2008 despite California’s population increase. This dramatic shrinking of the CCC system was not an accident. It was manufactured by a vast neoliberal policy network and funded by edu-philanthropist foundations, with the goal of disrupting, defunding, and dismantling public education. Tracking faculty and student advocacy against so-called student success policies, this article concludes that edu-philanthropist foundations have created decades of policy designed to shrink and disinvest from California’s community colleges. Building on the literature documenting neoliberal educational reform within the public sector of the United States, this article is based on original ethnographic research and leadership experience within local and statewide faculty organizations, including participation in the CCC governance and legislative processes from 2007 to 2022. The article calls for the nation’s community colleges to build a coalition that will educate the public about the 50-plus-year neoliberal project to defund public education; expose the philanthrocapitalist takeover of community colleges; and advocate for reinvestment in the millions of students who need the community colleges the most.