The Cerritos College Adult Education program offers a wide variety of courses such as writing and math, at no tuition cost to the student.
Many students however are unaware of the programs existence, and as such are not taking advantage of the free opportunities provided to them.
Graciela Vasquez, associate dean of the Adult Education and Diversity program said, “this department has been here for 30 some years.
“the basic goal of this is to offer programs which are limited to 10 program areas by the state of California, they [the state] reimburse all costs for free so students do not pay tuition, because the courses are meant to really support those students who are most in need.”
Vasquez states that courses range from basic education, to more advanced classes such as math and english courses.
Students who are a part of DSPS, or Disabled Students Programs and Services, can also take full advantage of these courses. All the same accomodations will be provided such as note takers and extra test time.
Martha Robles , an instructor the ESL Chair said, “we have a couple of courses that we collaborate with the instructors from the DSPS area, but they’re offered through adult education because again, the advantages to some of our courses is there is no GPA impact.
“students are able to truly take advantage of our courses for free without using any financial aid or any sort of money out of pocket for materials or the course itself.”
Gabriela Barrera De Contreras said, “some of the courses I think have been tremendously successful to the point of being used as transition to credit.”
De Contreras also stated, “we have an array of programs that hit different goal sets for students.
“The ones that have definitely helped students transition into the credit are some of the basic skill courses that we offer like preparatory math, which used to be the math 20 on the credit side, and is no longer being offered.
“Now it’s exclusively a non credit course, in college English skills. Both of those used to be the lowest levels on the credit side for the English and the math sequence.
De Contreras concluded by saying, “there are students of course that are exclusively non credit students, like Stella mentioned, and there are some that will fulfill their goals academically and financially just through non credit programs, like the CTE (career technical education) areas where the apprenticeship students will complete courses.”
Adult Education courses are open for enrollment at the same times as fall and spring courses, and are open to all.
