This is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of La Voz News.
As artificial intelligence becomes a crucial tool and tech companies turn away from traditional bachelor’s degree requirements, the job market is becoming increasingly saturated, raising questions about the value of a four-year education.
Community colleges across the U.S. have actively responded to the evolving tech landscape with initiatives designed to get students into the workforce. In Cupertino, the heart of the tech world, De Anza College is uniquely positioned to offer its students the most competitive edge, but is it doing all it can to adapt?
This concern isn’t new. De Anza’s faculty and administrators have been raising this question for years. During a presidential search process that started in fall 2019, an institutional survey invited students, faculty and administrators to provide input on their hopes for the future president. The anonymous responses, published January 2020, praised De Anza’s diversity and quality of education, but criticized the lack of serious career opportunities.
“De Anza is in Silicon Valley with the most brilliant students, yet we have ZERO technology partnerships for our students — not one internship program, not one customized program for job experience or placement with our technology neighbors,” one anonymous administrator wrote.
“It is ridiculous to live right in the middle of Silicon Valley and have so few of our students being recruited into high-paying tech, design and construction management jobs,” an anonymous faculty member said. “Students should also be given the opportunity to do ‘job-shadowing.’”
Although De Anza has not implemented the partnerships or internship paths that these staff members have called for, the school’s career training education programs aim to prepare students for the workforce and enhance careers for current professionals. The 2024 annual report boasted of an average wage increase of 75 percent after completion across all CTE programs.
The Database Design for Developers program earned a Workforce Star from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office because “at least 70 percent of graduates earned at or above the regional standard for a living wage,” and “at least 90 percent of graduates found work in a job similar to their chosen field of study,” according to De Anza’s website. However, it is unclear how many of those graduates had already secured jobs in the field before enrolling.
Meanwhile, major companies such as Google, Amazon and Tesla have dropped bachelor’s degree requirements, suggesting that coding bootcamps, certifications and community college workforce programs may increasingly provide viable routes to jobs.
If the industry is trending away from traditional degree requirements, De Anza should position its students to take full advantage of these shifts, meeting the future market’s expectations where they land.
Several other U.S. community colleges have built industry partnerships to give their computer science majors the most marketable skills and quality industry connections.
At Oxnard College in Southern California, students in the Computer Networking/IT program take classes designed to help earn Cisco and Microsoft system certifications, in partnership with the two companies. Oxnard students also receive free cloud computing resources through partnerships with Google, AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Houston Community College offers an associate degree in artificial intelligence and a bachelor’s in artificial intelligence and robotics. According to the HCC website, the associate program was started in partnership with Intel. Intel not only supplies instructional content in data collection, artificial intelligence model training and coding, but also provides summer internships and mentors for students.
Houston’s Bachelor of Applied Technology offers courses developed by Nvidia, AWS, Intel, Apple and IBM. The HCC class catalog includes job yield rates and detailed salary information related to each major.
Under new leadership, following the appointment of President Omar Torres in January, De Anza has a chance to make active moves in favor of its computer science students.
According to The Mercury News, Torres has overseen expansions in career technical education, apprenticeship programs, noncredit courses and dual enrollment while serving as vice president of instruction at College of the Canyons.
Whether or not these alternative paths replace the traditional bachelor’s degree, De Anza’s proximity to Silicon Valley should put its computer science students at a competitive advantage.
In the face of industry-shaking technologies, it’s especially important that De Anza provides its students with innovative education and real internship opportunities; without these opportunities, they will miss out on a critical advantage over the rest of the hiring pool and risk falling behind in an industry that constantly looks to the future.
