With a full 60% completing 30 units in their first year of enrollment data show that sports benefit our students immensely. And that our student-athletes complete their degrees at a much higher rate than the average community college student.

Last month in a speech to workers at a training facility in Ohio, President Trump professed ignorance about what community colleges do: “I don’t know what that means, a community college.” The president continued, “Call it vocational and technical. People know what that means. They don’t know what a community college means.”

The equity mission of California’s community colleges necessitates liberating the 72 districts and 114 colleges to decide locally whether or not to offer baccalaureate degrees. California’s public community colleges are the most ethnically and socioeconomically diverse higher education institutions in the state, and their geographic reach—almost 90 percent of Californians live within 10 miles of a community college—is unparalleled.

As the contested holiday of Labor Day is recognized on this first Monday in September, California’s Community Colleges are at an interesting point in their century-old history especially as it pertains to our mission and students’ professional lives. (I use the term professional life rather than workforce both to avoid the connotations of workforce as managed employees in replaceable positions, and to focus on the distinction between private life and the hours for which individuals receive compensation for their labor).