Cypress College: 2023 Aspen Prize Top 150 U.S. Community College

Cypress College – the beautiful, thriving campus that you see today – has modest beginnings in 1966. On September 12, most of the initial student body of 1,200 stood around the flagpole with a barely dry concrete footing for the first flag raising, complete with a Marine color guard and several dignitaries present.

The new community college campus was dubbed the “Instant Campus” by Newsweek Magazine because of the mere 74 days that intervened between the digging of the first shovelful of dirt and the beginning of classes. Indeed, the main electrical transformer for the classrooms was turned on just hours before the first class sessions began. The buildings were all temporary modular constructions, though some of these “temporary” buildings continued in service for over 40 years!

The first students to apply at Cypress College were indeed an intrepid, pioneering group, for when they applied, there was no campus, only a few apartments and houses converted to administrative offices, and a place to register students. But register they did, and the college’s first semester started on schedule with students taking classes with a bare-bones curriculum. After the first year, 25 transfers to the college became its first graduates.

Cypress College has since grown into the beautiful 112-acre campus that it is today, one of the most attractive campuses in the state and nation. It was ranked the #1 community college in California by Niche.com, a wellrespected school search platform, in both 2018 and 2020. For two years in a row in 2021 and 2022, Cypress College has been named an Equity Champion of Higher Education for Latinx Students. Cypress College was also honored as a 2023 Aspen Prize Top 150 U.S. Community College.

Today, approximately 16,000 students attend Cypress College each semester, taking courses that range from advanced calculus to computer science, nursing, air conditioning and refrigeration, and geographic information systems. The college now offers 174 career-training programs, associate degrees in 98 areas of study, and 56 transfer degrees. Since 2017, Cypress College has also offered a Bachelor of Science in Funeral Service on campus, one of only 15 bachelor’s degree programs in any field offered at a California community college.

Cypress College students have gone on to succeed at four-year institutions across the nation, where Cypress College transfers consistently do as well, or better, academically as their peers who began their education at the four-year school.

The college’s Career Technical Education programs are also premier, with several ranked among the best in the nation. The preponderance of respondents to a 2016 survey of 2,438 former students reported improved employment success as a result of their education at the college. They noted a 53.5 percent increase in their hourly wages after completing their coursework and 90 percent of them voiced satisfaction with their Cypress College experience.

At Cypress College we invest in the success of our students. Buen Cypress! We Take This Journey Together.