PCC Chancellor Dr. Roy Flores Calls President Obama’s Community College Proposal ‘Historic Event’

July 14, 2009

Tucson, AZ – Pima Community College Chancellor Dr. Roy Flores today reacted positively to President Obama’s proposal to spend $12 billion over the next 10 years to improve and expand programs, infrastructure and online education at the United States’ community colleges.

“President Obama’s focus on community colleges is a historic event. It recognizes the important role community colleges have played in the past, and recognizes that community colleges are the key to America’s continued prosperity,” Dr. Flores said.

Speaking at Macomb Community College near Detroit, President Obama today outlined the major elements of the federal plan to increase support for community colleges:

1. $9 billion in competitive grants to develop new partnerships with employers, improve job-training and remedial education programs, and integrate methods for transfer of student academic credits between high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges. Funding also would be made available to test promising initiatives such as performance-based scholarships and data systems to track students’ employment outcomes.
2. A $2.5 billion loan fund to upgrade and expand community college facilities.
3. $500 million to create and provide free online general-education courses through the nation’s community colleges, and assess learning in those courses.

“We look forward to working in partnership with local business, industry, and K-12 and university systems to compete for funds so that we can focus on meeting the needs of the people of Pima County and southern Arizona,” Dr. Flores said.

“Since their inception 110 years ago, community colleges have responded quickly and ably to the educational needs of their communities and have helped make America the strongest nation in the history of the world,” Dr. Flores said.

“Community colleges have provided opportunities to talented men and women who otherwise would not have had access to higher-learning institutions. We have partnered with business and industry to create the most productive workforce in the world,” Dr. Flores said. “We continue to help solve some of our nation’s thorniest and most intractable social problems by providing remedial education, and by offering second chances to those individuals who have been left behind by society.”

CONTACT:
A. Rachelle Howell, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Marketing
(520) 206-4850