Santiago Canyon College has a lot to celebrate as it approaches the 25th anniversary of its official accreditation. Enrollment continues to climb, and this year the college ranked eighth among California’s 116 community colleges based on academic quality, affordability and student retention rates, among other factors, by the independent college ranking research organization EDsmart.org .
The school offers associate degrees, certificates and transfer programs in business and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), health sciences, humanities and other areas. Over the last 25 years, the campus has expanded, recently adding a new Health Sciences building and the Johnson Student Center.
SCC was a well-kept secret for far too long, said President Jeannie G. Kim. When she arrived in January 2023, her goal was to change that.
“My first order of business was to make sure that people really knew what SCC was — the excellence of our faculty, the top-notch, award-winning teaching that we were doing, the fantastic successes of our students as they went off to transfer institutions such as UCLA and Stanford and to Ivy Leagues, as well as to our local institutions such as Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine. It was really to make sure that people knew that we were here and that we had been doing excellent work for all these years.”
Those efforts paid off. “Our credit program enrollment is up by 12.2% in comparison to last year,” said Kim, who highlighted the college’s accomplishments during the annual Convocation on Aug. 15.
SCC’s noncredit program enrollment is up 21.2% for the year, she said. This program “is for all California residents who want to go into workforce development arenas or up their skill sets,” she said. “It’s 100% free to them as California residents.”
In addition, SCC has been identified as a military-friendly school. “We’re proud of the fact that we are a destination for folks coming out of the military,” Kim said.
As the college has become more widely known, students come from outside of Orange County, outside the state and even outside the country. “We are a destination for all students who just want to be able to get a good education, whether it’s through a typical credit program that leads to transfer or an associate degree, or just to be able to up their skill sets on the workforce development side,” Kim said.
Although marketing may have contributed to SCC’s enrollment growth, Kim notes another important factor.
“We already had a really good product,” she said. “We already had great academic programs. We have the second-largest apprenticeship program in the state, with over 5,700 apprentices and 55 degree programs and certificates. We have the only code enforcement program in California, and water apprenticeships, child development apprenticeships. We are doing the training and development of the workers who are actually building the infrastructure of California and beyond. Those kinds of jobs are critical in our community right now.”
Another point of success is the students themselves, as they continue their journey after leaving SCC. “Our students do really well,” Kim said. “We have such a large number of students who transfer to UCLA, USC, and to Stanford and Harvard.”
Support for students at SCC is key, evident in a unique transfer program called a reverse transfer from Cal State Fullerton.
“We’re in a deep partnership with Cal State Fullerton where students who may not have done well at Cal State Fullerton or were academically disqualified after doing their freshman year there can be sent from Cal State Fullerton to SCC,” Kim said. “They are being sent to us so that they can experience success, get a year under their belt with a higher GPA, with or without the same major that they had originally. They then have a guaranteed transfer right back into Cal State Fullerton. We don’t leave anybody behind in their academic progress.”
For these students and many others, one major benefit is SCC’s small class sizes. “We definitely deliver that small, private-college feel,” Kim said. “It’s a very calm and nestled environment, so it feels like a private college.”
The future looks bright for SCC, with a new partnership with the city of Orange and Orange Unified School District to develop a Middle College High School. The goal is to prepare high school students for medical occupations in the many Southern California hospitals. A bond measure on the November ballot, if passed, will help fund the project as well as a Veterans and Student Life Center on campus.
Official celebrations for SCC’s 25th anniversary will begin this fall and continue through 2025 with a gala, concerts and other events for the college and surrounding community.
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