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City Colleges of Chicago Fact Sheet
Full Description
Institutional
profile
- Size: The largest community college system in Illinois and one of the largest
in the nation, with 5,700 faculty and staff serving about 100,000
students annually.
- Scope: The system includes seven colleges, six satellite sites, and about 70 adult education instruction off-sites citywide. It also oversees the Washburne Culinary Institute, the French Pastry School,
two restaurants, a cafe, five Child Development Centers, the Workforce
Academy, the PBS station WYCC-TV, and WKKC-FM.
Strategic
initiatives
- Reinvention: Launched in 2010, the Reinvention of City
Colleges is a collaborative effort to review and revise programs and practices
to ensure students leave CCC college- and career-ready.
- College to Careers: The internationally-recognized College to Careers initiative partners
City Colleges with industry-leading companies to prepare Chicagoans for careers
in growing fields: healthcare, TDL, business, advanced
manufacturing, information technology, education, and culinary arts and hospitality.
Launched in 2011, more than 200 companies and universities are now helping align curricula
and facilities with employer demand to close the skills gap. More than 3,000
students have found a job or paid internship since the C2C program
launched.
- Capital plan: A capital plan of nearly $700 million includes the completion of a new $251 million Malcolm X College campus, a $45 million TDL Center at Olive-Harvey College, and
$70 million in system-wide academic and student-facing technology enhancements
(i.e., smart classrooms, libraries, labs, student support centers.)
Recent
achievements
- Completion and enrollment growth:
- The number of degrees
awarded crossed 5,000 in FY2016, compared to an average of 2,000 annually
before the Reinvention initiative.
- The graduation rate has more than doubled since the launch of Reinvention, reaching 17 percent in FY2016, the highest City Colleges' history.
- 4-year
partnerships: CCC has robust transfer agreements with 86 four-year
institutions, including at Illinois Institute of Technology, University of
Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, DePaul University
and Lewis University.
- Adult education overhaul: City Colleges has realigned its adult education (ESL, GED, adult basic
education) off-site locations to better serve community need per 2010 census
trends. In FY2016, transitions to credit courses had more than doubled since the launch of Reinvention.
- Strong
financial profile: Under
Chancellor Hyman’s leadership, City Colleges’ budget has been balanced with no
increase in property taxes and CCC has saved $70 million in operation costs that are being redirected to the classroom.
External recognition
- In 2015, Kennedy-King College won the first-ever Aspen Institute Rising Star Award for its rapid improvement in completion, tripling its graduation rate since the launch of Reinvention.
- Kennedy-King College and Wright College were among 150 community colleges in the nation to be invited to apply for the 2015 Aspen Institute Prize for Community College Excellence.
- Daley College and Olive-Harvey College were recognized
in 2014 as among the country’s top ten fastest- growing community colleges (for
the 2011-2012 year) by the national publication Community College Week.
- Kennedy-King College was recognized in 2013 as
one of the country’s top 50 community colleges by Washington Monthly magazine.