Twenty community colleges will participate in the California Guided Pathways Project, an effort to increase college completion that is modeled after the American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Pathways Project.

The colleges, selected through a competitive application process, will design and implement structured academic and career pathways for all incoming students by 2019.

Guided Pathways “provides a framework for colleges to help students who face barriers to completing a college education,” according to a press release from the Foundation for California Community Colleges.

The selected colleges are:

• American River College
• Butte College
• Cabrillo College
• College of the Canyons
• Cosumnes River College
• Chaffey College
• Cuyamaca College
• Los Angeles Trade Tech College
• Long Beach City College
• MiraCosta College
• Modesto Junior College
• Norco College
• Reedley College
• Rio Hondo College
• Riverside City College
• San Joaquin Delta College
• Santa Ana College
• Santa Barbara City College
• Southwestern College
• Yuba College

Over the next three years, the colleges will send teams to institutes to create pathways to high-quality credentials and develop strategies needed to implement them. College teams will comprise five people, including the president and a faculty leader. Each college will also receive support from pathways coaches.

Materials from the institutes will be available to all California community colleges interested in implementing the pathways approach.

This article was originally posted in Community College Daily.