The Brief

In my years reporting on community colleges, I never knew that 29 campuses offer bachelor’s degrees (at the time of writing this).

My goal — as a first-generation Latina student — is to receive a degree at one of the UC schools. But, could my life have been different had I known about these degrees? If I knew there were other opportunities to get a bachelor's degree locally, would I still be a journalist? (I like to think I would.) Along with many others, I felt like I was missing out on what these community colleges provide.

So, I interviewed students and faculty to learn more. This guide contains tips, history, research, and student, faculty, and expert voices.

This guide is for everybody: students, educators, co-workers, and everyone in between.

You never know who might want to start or resume their college journey.

How long have these programs been around?

In 2014, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that allowed community colleges a few years to try out bachelor degrees programs.

A 2021 assembly bill extended the programs indefinitely and allowed colleges to offer an additional 30 bachelor’s programs per year.

A state bill passed in 2024 even attempted to make these baccalaureate programs free at community colleges, as an extension of the already existing California Promise Program. (Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it.)

Which colleges offer bachelor's degree programs?

Here's a list of all of them and their websites. But we also made this handy map if you want to glance what's close to you:

How much do these degrees cost? 

California Community Colleges states that a bachelor’s degree costs $10,560. On most of the community college websites, this number is rounded down to $10,000.

The $10,560 number is determined by the sum of 60 units in lower division courses and 60 units in upper divisions. (We're going to explain units in that infobox two paragraphs down from here.) Californians pay $46 a unit for community college courses. This includes those parts of an associate’s degree or general education — or lower divisions. Courses for a bachelor’s degree (upper division courses) cost more: $130 per unit.

Out-of-state students pay more.

Bottom line: Apply for financial aid.

“Honestly, it's weird. I think this hasn't happened before; community colleges offering bachelor's degrees,” said Alison Parrales, a senior in the interaction design program at Santa Monica College. “Because many people, the reason why they don't do it is because, maybe they don't have the time, don't have the money. And community colleges are for people who are like that, basically.”

What should I know before applying?

The application process for the bachelor’s degrees at community colleges, while simpler than UC and CSU applications, still require effort and planning. Some programs can get competitive, as most colleges try to maintain a 25-student cohort size.

(A cohort is what the community colleges call the group of students in the bachelor’s program of that year.)

Research finds that many students who pursue these degrees are already within the community college system, as they build off of pre-existing associates degree programs. But these bachelor’s programs are open for everyone!

So if you’re interested in getting a bachelor’s degree at a community college in California, here are some things to think of ahead of time.

• Look into the program you want to join at least six months to a year before enrolling. 
• Check if you need to provide a portfolio of work, or if you are missing any prerequisite courses.
• Make an appointment with a community college counselor — for new and returning students.

How do new programs get established?

In order for these programs to exist, a community college must submit an application to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office where strict criteria is expected to be met: curriculum, enrollment projections, unmet workforce needs, and the curriculum and program itself that does not duplicate a CSU or UC program — to name a few.

This process is necessary for every community college that applies for a bachelor’s program, and once the program is approved, it then needs to be accredited.

Cecilia Rios-Aguilar is a UCLA Education Professor, and co-author of a research study about Latino experience and success post community college bachelor degree program.

“[Students] end up having jobs, you know, in the field that they're studying,” she said. “That's part of why these programs are created. They have to have that component, even from the application, from the design, they're very thoughtfully and intentionally designed so that students can take advantage of jobs that are available locally.”

Some opponents of these degrees at community colleges claim that they take students from four-year universities. Rios-Aguilar disavows this claim, and argues that the community colleges help to serve Black and Latino students — who historically have low baccalaureate degree rates.

“But they're not serving the same students,” Rios-Aguilar said. “If we had done a good job as a state of serving students, they may be competing. The evidence tells us we are not serving a large portion of Californians, ones who need a baccalaureate degree to achieve that upward economic and social mobility.”

What I do if I'm interested?

If this guide piqued your interest — for you or someone else — here are some next steps to get a bachelor’s degree at a community college.

• Look into the program you are interested in — online or in person. Whether the degree is related to a field of study you are familiar with or not, bachelor programs are available to everybody. Here's a handy list of all the programs. 
• Take a tour. Even if your degree is mostly remote, or just two years, it will allow you to learn about your college and make in-person connections. 
• Book an appointment with a counselor at the college you want to attend! Whether in person or online, counselors are there to help you with the enrollment process. They can let you know what general education courses are needed if you are new to college. They will also fill you in on costs and scholarships unique to the college. 
• Look into financial aid. Even though these degrees are available at a reduced cost compared to universities, it is still a pretty penny. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a great place to start.

Get a copy of our zine

Our newest zine.

(

Ross Brenneman

/

LAist

)

We have a limited number of copies of this story as a 12-page zine. If you work for a community college, an academic enrichment program, or community space in the L.A. area and would like to provide copies for your constituents, please reach out to Ross Brenneman, senior editor for our education team. Please note that supply is limited.

Notice any issues?

There is a lot of information to cover. And there are a lot of programs, and things can change fast. Anything important we missed? Spot any problems? Get in touch.

A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state’s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite widespread support from other lawmakers and families of drunk driving victims.

The bill would have required in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI, bringing California in line with most states. State law currently only requires the devices, called ignition interlock devices, after repeat offenses or injury crashes.

Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided a hint of changes last week when she said there were amendments to the bill that had been approved unanimously by the committee. This week, an updated version of the legislation emerged, and it effectively killed a key provision to start requiring the devices for thousands of first-time offenders. Such changes are commonly referred to as “hostile amendments” because they are made without the involvement or support of the bill’s author.

Cervantes was arrested for a DUI in a high-profile incident in Sacramento in May 2025. The District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute her after a blood test showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes then sued the city of Sacramento and several of its police officers, alleging that that police fabricated evidence and falsely arrested her. Cervantes’s sister, state Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes, has herself been convicted of two DUIs in Southern California, according to media reports.

Sabrina Cervantes did not respond to our request for comment for this story. We will update it if she does.

As news of the bill’s gutting spread this week, Kellie Montalvo was left wondering if there’d been some sort of horrible mistake. Montalvo, whose 21-year-old son Benjamin was killed by an impaired driver in Cervantes’s district in 2020, said she was just in Sacramento two weeks ago lobbying lawmakers – including Cervantes – on a slate of dangerous driving bills. Many of those bills have already failed.

“It’s heartbreaking, and I try to tell myself not to lose hope,” Montalvo said. “I mean, California has got to do something. Our numbers are horrific.”

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California spiked more than 50% in a decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal data shows. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions.

Over the last two years, a CalMatters investigation has shown how state officials have allowed dangerous drivers to stay on the road and kill, and how elected leaders have looked away even as the death toll skyrocketed.

For years, lawmakers have tried and failed to require in-car breathalyzers for all DUI offenders. Progressive justice reform groups and the DMV have opposed similar bills in the past, citing fears about unfairly penalizing poor DUI offenders, high costs and the DMV’s aging technology.

Montalvo and other advocates thought this year might be different. The DMV has actively participated in state hearings and, she and others said, provided technical advice to make sure the bill was realistic. Gov. Gavin Newsom also instructed lawmakers last year to continue to work on the state’s breathalyzer laws and develop “a lasting program that strengthens public safety.”

It’s unclear why this year’s bill was gutted at the 11th hour. Public records show that Senate Appropriations committee staff recently expressed concern about costs.

The amendment process is opaque even to Sacramento insiders.

“Honestly it’s sometimes a bit of a black box even for us as legislators,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Orange County Democrat. “I am still trying myself to get to the bottom of it.”

Petrie-Norris, who has spent the past three years trying to pass a version of this bill, said she does not believe Cervantes’ personal experience played a role in the decision to amend the bill. She added that she is still working to re-amend the measure after “unintended consequences” that she says would make the policy unworkable for the DMV and hurt California’s eligibility for federal funding.

Asked for an interview to explain the changes to the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Monique Límon’s office referred questions to Cervantes. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s chief deputy director of communications, also declined to answer questions about the breathalyzer bill, saying the office does not typically comment on pending legislation.

While the bill heads into the final days of negotiations, Montalvo and other victims’ families are grappling with deja vu. It was just about a year ago that they were standing in the Capitol with photos of their loved ones and told the bill was doomed.

She stays busy checking in with the parole officer for the Riverside County driver who killed her son. Last she heard, the driver was trying to get her license back after being released early from prison.

Long Beach streets got deadlier last year than they’ve been in a decade. Now the city wants to build a whole new division bent on reversing that, powered by the $5 million it expects to get annually by ticketing people with new speed cameras.

As part of Long Beach’s budget, city leaders are proposing a new traffic safety division, which consolidates two Public Works teams and adds more than a dozen staff who will administer a state pilot program for 18 automated speed cameras around the city.

A proposed traffic safety division

It comes after the city saw a record number of fatal traffic collisions in 2025 — 53 last year, the most in more than 10 years — that includes 32 pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders killed. That eclipsed the number of people murdered in the city that year.

High rates of traffic deaths and collisions coincide with a record number of public requests to overhaul dangerous arterial streets, calibrate traffic lights and add traffic calming measures to neighborhoods known for dangerous driving. Long Beach currently sits on a backlog of more than 1,400 open traffic requests.

Many delays are tied to the 4% completion rate of traffic investigations. Officials explained many of those unresolved cases involve arterial streets the city already knows need expensive, yearslong overhauls. Neighborhood traffic calming requests have also spiked, from about 35 in the second half of last fiscal year to 306 in the first half of this one.

Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie said the shift reflects years of pressure from residents.

She added that the old system wasn’t built for the volume of requests coming in now.

“I think we all recognize that the old ways of managing these requests simply just wasn’t working for the volume that we are seeing come into Public Works,” she said.

Public Works Director Josh Hickman put it more bluntly: “We’re barely keeping up,” citing data that requests have risen swiftly this year compared to late last year.

He explained the current model only adds unnecessary delays, even on simple fixes.

“In order to do street sweeping and in order to enforce parking control, you need to have signs,” he said as an example. “Those require our engineers to review and approve the signs, which are in a different bureau. Once it gets approved, well, then it requires another bureau to go and install those signs.”

The new division could streamline the city's traffic system

This division would alleviate that, he said, by folding the city’s existing traffic engineering and traffic operations divisions into one unit under the Transportation Services Bureau.

The new division will be powered by citation revenue generated from the city’s automated speed enforcement program, a state pilot that will bring 18 cameras to handpicked streets and intersections later this fall, with warnings starting in October and citations beginning in December.

Officials say the cameras will rake in about $5 million a year, half of which will go toward operating costs with the other half restricted to funding traffic-calming projects.

Hickman called that estimate “quite conservative,” in hopes that the cameras will discourage drivers afraid of paying for tickets — which start at $50 for those driving 11 mph over the limit.

New speed cameras

It’s a program that has seen success in other California cities.

In San Francisco, the program’s 56 cameras led to 163,906 citations and brought in $7.2 million in its first year, according to the city’s transit agency. About 65% of drivers who got a warning or ticket didn’t reoffend, and 82% were cited no more than once or twice over the year.

Madhu Unnikrishnan, a spokesman for SFMTA, said that has led to $3 million in street improvements across San Francisco, while the rate of drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit has fallen by 80% in the enforcement areas.

By state law, that money has to cover operating costs first, and anything left over must go toward traffic calming — such as crosswalk upgrades, no-turn-on-red signs, speed humps — within three years. It can’t be spent on anything else, even to help close a city’s budget gap.

Jonathon Bolin, a Public Works bureau manager, emphasized that the point of the cameras is to change driver behavior and discourage speeding, not “bankroll revenue.”

Long Beach’s 2027 budget would add seven new traffic and five new customer service positions to the division. Hickman said the department plans to fill the new positions “as quickly as possible.”

Seperately, the city is also proposing $37.3 million for roadway improvements, curb and sidewalk improvements and traffic safety projects funded by the Measure A sales tax.

An additional effort by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez is looking to place more speed cameras along Pacific Coast Highway.

Reading, writing, and drilling down on the craft — that’s the focus this weekend at the 2nd Annual Los Feliz Writers Festival. Various free workshops are happening at multiple venues across the neighborhood such as Barnsdall Art Park, Fred 62, and the Vermont Triangle.

A tradition of writers

Festival founder Sammy Ginsberg has a passion for small literary festivals. She fell in love with them while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, and once she moved back to Los Angeles, her love continued.

Sammy Ginsberg (right) poses for a picture at a Los Feliz Writers with L.A. Poet Laureate Brian-Sonia Wallace (left).

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

Last year she set about hosting one in her own neighborhood, Los Feliz.

“There's a tradition of writers and artists being in Los Feliz. Joan Didion lived in Los Feliz for a bit. Charles Bukowski went to Jumbo's [Clown Room],” Ginsberg said.

Last year’s inaugural festival had six events and about 100 people. This year, there are 1,000 RSVPs for its 13 events.

Local Feliz

Writers living in Los Feliz are leading all of the workshops. Like William J. Meyer, who’s published his fantasy and sci-fi writing as podcasts. His workshop is at the diner Fred 62 this afternoon, focused on how to write with audio in mind.

Attendees at a Los Feliz Writers Festival event.

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

“It's about taking that writing and making it fun for an audio recording. Tone, voice, and things like that,” said Ginsberg.

Willa Lane is a writer and tarot reader. She’ll perform tarot readings today at her workshop in Barnsdall Art Park, using the cards and their symbolism as writing prompts.

Willa Lane sits in front of a table with her tarot cards.

(

Willa Lane

/

Willa Lane

)

“Sylvia Plath had a deck of tarot cards that she used. So a lot of artists and creatives have been using tarot to inform their work at some level,” Lane said.

Today’s events culminate in a live reading of a zine put together by Los Feliz Writers for the festival. The Barnsdall Art Park event will feature a mix of short stories, a screenplay, an audio play, and more.

“ I wanted to represent different voices in the neighborhood and different backgrounds and I really think that this does,” Ginsberg said.

A literary event for every neighborhood

The festival continues through tomorrow with an open mic at the Vermont Triangle, a panel and performances from writers of color, and a mixer for activists and writers.

Ginsberg wants to continue the literary tradition in Los Feliz — for all kinds of writers, emerging or established.

“Live, work, or play. It's L.A., that's the energy. Like, we want you to be part of this,” Ginsberg said.

She said the wider vision is to help and inspire other neighborhoods to build their own literary events.

"There’s 99 neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. That’s like 99 writers' festivals and 99 poet laureates," Ginsberg said. "That is magical."

Bellflower isn’t exactly known for its stand-up comedy culture. But that may be changing.

Since 2021, comedians like Tisha Campbell, Frankie Quiñones and Jo Koy have taken the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in downtown Bellflower.

“We knew that the Downeys, the Cerritos, the Lakewoods, the Long Beaches, the Norwalks, and Compton and Paramount would come,” said general manager and co-owner John Giries. “That was our bet, and it's been working.”

Jo Koy (left) and Finesse Mitchell (right) take the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

From a comedy magazine to a comedy club

Giries, a former stand-up comedian himself, grew up in Bellflower. He co-created and helped run The Stand Up Comedy Magazine in the mid-aughts, along with his late friend and fellow comedian Julian Vazquez. Names such as Maz Jobrani, Sebastian Maniscalco and Rachel Feinstein all graced its cover.

After Vazquez’s passing in 2020, Giries decided to put the magazine on hold indefinitely and launch a comedy club.

The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Giries’ family was an investor in Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse on Belmont Street, next door to the Bellflower Theatre, downtown. He recalled seeing that theater for the first time and how it felt like something out of a movie…

“It was one of those moments like "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner saw the baseball diamond being built in the cornfield,” Giries said. “And I kind of looked at it and said, ‘you know, I can see it.’”

Tisha Campbell takes the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

After doing gut renovations and waiting through the first year of the pandemic, Giries and his wife and co-owner, Scarlett, opened the club in June 2021.

The roughly 2,400-square-foot space space seats 140 and has a full bar with a steakhouse feel. Photos and memorabilia of Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller pay tribute to some of comedy’s legends.

Why Bellflower, not Hollywood

Giries had always planned to have famous comedians perform here. He chose Bellflower because it didn’t have the competition of legacy clubs such as the Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. It was also a closer alternative for locals who didn’t want to brave Hollywood traffic and pay for valet parking.

Interior of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Interior and stage of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

“[Bellflower] fit the criteria of what we wanted to do. It's not in the desert. You're not by the beach and it's easy to get to if you live in a five to 10 mile radius,” Giries said.

“So never L.A. Never thought about it once.”

Landing the headliners

For the first three years of opening the club, Giries focused on getting big-name acts. He had already made connections with notable performers through his magazine, and was able to enlist help from talent bookers including Richard Barrett, who was the entertainment director for The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Giries credits Barrett as “one of the best bookers in L.A.”

Since then, Deon Cole, Sheryl Underwood, Paul Reiser, Billy Gardell, Chaunté Wayans and others have taken the stage.

That list is growing.

Stormy Daniels visited the club in July on her "Unicorns in the Kitchen" storytelling and comedy tour. Last week, Jamie Foxx produced and hosted a comedy special featuring Donald Ray “Speedy” Caldwell. All four shows were sold out.

Giries recognizes that the club is still young, but is proud of what they’ve accomplished since opening five years ago.

“No one remembers, ‘Hey, they've been here for 30 years,'" Giries said. “They just remember, ‘Man, that club was kind of cool. They really took care of us. That was really funny stuff there.’”