My experience in community college was defined not by my role as a student, but by my role as an educator. Across four cumulative years of enrollment at Yuba College (two as a dual enrollment student, and two while completing my associate degree in early childhood education), I stepped foot on campus less than twenty times, with twenty-two of my twenty-three total courses taken entirely asynchronously.
As a remote learner, I sometimes felt disconnected from my identity as a community college student. Attending community college had not initially been my plan, and my sense of physical, social, and temporal disconnection to my campus deepened the divide in my head between who I was and my role as a student. While I expected this detachment to hinder my sense of community, it actually opened the door for an unexpected, richly fulfilling connection to my local community.
Knowing I would remain untethered by a traditional class schedule, I began working within my school district’s California State Preschool Program the summer before I began community college. By taking my courses remotely, I saved time on both attending in-person class sessions and the logistics of commuting forty minutes round trip to campus, ultimately allowing me to instead invest my time working in our Child Development Programs, where I served as an assistant teacher, substitute, and one-on-one aide for students with disabilities. In the two years I spent in the program, I had the opportunity to work with hundreds of students and dozens of educators and administrators across thirteen classrooms on five campuses. The depth and breadth of my time teaching manifested more experiential learning opportunities than I ever could have hoped for –opportunities only made possible by the asynchronous learning format offered by my community college.
Remote learning pathways are an increasingly common option for community college students like me, particularly after their widespread adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most community college students today are non-traditional in some way, with80% of part-time and 44% of full-time students working throughout their enrollment. My ability to redirect my time and supplement my early childhood education coursework with my daily work experiences deepened my learning immensely and allowed me to actively build upon my knowledge in a practical setting. My role as an educator was, of course, strengthened by my coursework, but my role as a student benefited more greatly than I can describe from my time teaching.
One of the greatest benefits of my time as a preschool educator – beyond the valuable professional experiences I gained, the deep connections I built to my community, and my ability to save money while working, living at home, and benefitting from tuition waivers as part of the Yuba College Promise Program– was the enduring passion I developed for education at every level. The unique, firsthand insight I gained while managing my roles at every end of the system – teacher and student; early childhood and higher education – has carried me through my graduation from Yuba College, my transfer to UCLA last fall, and now my role as an intern with ACCT.
While I expected my experiences as an early educator and community college student to be as detached theoretically as they were physically, these seemingly distinct parts of my life and our education system are actually deeply entwined. Community colleges are as vital to our early childhood education systems as those systems are to community colleges.
Over 3 million undergraduate students care for dependents, and their access to childcare and other material and financial resources are strong determinants of their degree completion. Access to on-campus childcare specifically is often cited as a needed resource for student parents, but slots in campus childcare centers are limited, and access is often restricted to children of faculty or campus staff or to those with the most demonstrated need. Federal programs like the bipartisan Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS)grant program help bridge the gap between student parents and childcare resources, but funding is competitive, and the need for increased access remains.
Investing in integrated, on-campus childcare centers or high-quality care in the community benefits not only student parents and their children, but early childhood education students themselves. Early education systems across the country are reliant on community colleges as a source of professional development and degree attainment for early educators. Historically low pay in the childcare sector makes the professional certification and two-year degree programs offered by community colleges an attractive, affordable option for early educators, most of whom are women, with many caring for children of their own. Community colleges serve as a vital source of learning and training for current and prospective early educators, and further integration between these campuses and local childcare centers would benefit early childhood education students, student parents, young children, and communities at large across the country.
Although my time in community college did not involve much contact with my own campus, the time I spent in state preschool classrooms throughout my district served as a richer source of academic, personal, and professional growth than I ever could have imagined. I’m deeply grateful for the flexibility offered to me by Yuba College, and the teaching experience I gained as a result has become integral to my identity as a student, professional, and person. The ability to simultaneously manage my work and a full course load through my community college's asynchronous learning offerings allowed me to actively complement and build upon my experiences as both an educator and student throughout my two years in both programs. Community colleges and early childhood education systems are vital not only to each other and in my life and community, but to our education system and country at large – it’s time we recognized them as such.
Paige Podesta is ACCT's Fall 2026 Public Policy Intern
Photo: Paige and her grandmother at her graduation from Yuba College in June 2025.
