City College graduates can receive a bachelor’s degree from California State University Channel Islands by enrolling in its Extended University program, catered to working adults. 

It was designed for working adults needing schedule flexibility, affordable tuition and accessibility to complete their bachelor degrees by offering classes in the evening and weekends. There is a campus located in Goleta, but services have shifted online since the pandemic.

“A majority of the students came from our partnership community colleges in Santa Barbara County, including SBCC,” director of Enrollment Management and Outreach at CSUCI’s Extended University Daniel Banyai said. 

The partnership  began in 2011 with Channel Islands offering higher division classes to City College business alumni at their Goleta and Santa Barbara campuses. 

The program included undergraduate degrees in psychology, nursing and business, and have since expanded to online undergraduate and graduate business degrees. 

Approximately 16 City College students have joined the psychology program this past fall and 11 new students will begin the nursing program for Spring 2021. 

Lynette Landry, the CSUCI Nursing department chair, explained that despite the adjustments to the pandemic, the nursing students continue gaining work experience in the field.

“We’ve been blessed,” Landry said. “Even though we have had fewer students in the hospital because of COVID we still have been able to get students in.”

The bachelor’s in nursing program is a full-time two-and-a-half-year program in collaboration with Cottage Hospital allowing students to experience interactive training and guaranteed hiring. Courses include theory, labs, and clinicals. It only admits potential students during the spring semester. 

“What we have seen is hospitals hiring our students as [patient] care extenders,” said Landry. “They are being hired by the hospital to assume roles up the level to where they are in the program.”

The bachelor’s in psychology two-year program teaches skills that can be applied to different careers in psychology, while the bachelor’s in business is offered online.

The business degree teaches its students the concepts of accounting, economics, finance, information systems, management and marketing. 

Students in all three programs are eligible for financial aid and federal loans. 

“The relationship expanded to other community colleges, including Allan Hancock and Ventura College, to provide student options within the Santa Barbara area,” Banyai said. 

In addition to undergraduate degree programs, City College alumnus can also apply for a Master’s in Business Administration.

The two-year program is offered through Channel Islands’ Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics and values career coaching for its students. 

“We pride ourselves in placing students at the center of the educational experience. We want to support community college students to achieve their undergraduate completion in either field of [psychology] or nursing, now and in the future,” Banyai said. 

As for the nursing program, Landry hopes to expand in the near future. 

“I would love to see it expand. I think there are creative ways in giving students the experience they need. I think we could look at alternate partnerships that would help us expand the program and also like to see it a little more accelerated,” said Landry.