Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, City Council members, staff and members of the audience. It's a pleasure to be here this evening sharing with you the great work that happens at your local community college. I have with me some colleagues of mine and so please have them stand up. We'll have deans, we have two of our vice presidents, members of our foundation as well as faculty. So please, please stand up Moorpark College, if I say so myself, is an incredible place.
And the reason why it's an incredible place is because of our people. So who do we serve? As you can see, we serve a diversity of people from variety of backgrounds. All are welcome at Moorpark College. Who do we serve at Moorpark College from Moorpark? The data point is pretty clear. 7.48% of our student population is actually from Moorpark, so that's 1,068 students.
And if you look at the breakdown of those students, you will see that there's a gender breakdown but you will also notice that 293 of those students are first generation college students. They are the first in their families to go to college. Moorpark College makes that possible. You will also see that we serve veterans, we serve students with the access program and students with disability. And you will also note that we have a lot of young students from the city of Moorpark and those young students are probably mostly through our dual enrollment program. I'll talk a little bit about that as we proceed.
We have a PACE program for adult learners. We have a dual enrollment program for high school and middle school age students. We have online degrees. We provide hybrid instruction. We have certificates, we have associate degrees. We have two bachelor's degrees now. And we work with the cities that we serve and the communities that we serve through their workforce development offices to create ongoing just-in-time training for our community members. So these are the cities that we serve and the populations of individuals from those particular cities.
I'm very proud to tell you that our enrollment has increased by 4% spring-to-spring, which really builds upon the previous year's enrollment growth as well. So your college, your local community college is growing. In addition to the growth, we're known for outstanding transfer outcomes. You already know that we've been a finalist for the Aspen Prize twice now. We hope that this will be the third time with the charm. So this time next year, we'll be celebrating.
But what you probably may not know is that 89% of our students who apply to the CSUs get accepted. In terms of the UCs, we had 650 nicense who applied to the UCs and 529 of those students got accepted. That's an 80% acceptance rate for the UC. That's an incredible acceptance rate but we don't stop there. If you look at our students and you compare them to the students in the top 10 Aspen finalist institutions. So there are 1,200 community colleges in the country. Aspen looks at the top 200 of those community colleges, invites them to apply for a prize, and then they select the top 50, then the top 25, the top 10, and then the institution that gets the prize.
Of those top 10 best community colleges in the nation, Their transfer rates, Moorpark College outperforms their transfer rates at 13 to 14 points. So you see that here on this slide. So 2021 to 2023, we do much better than even the top 10 community colleges in the nation. Now what happens when our students transfer to a university or professional school? When we compare Moorpark College students with those students from those top 10 institutions in the country, top 10 community colleges in the country, once again, we do better than those students.
You have a community college in the city that you should be proud of because it is the pride of the nation. So, why are we successful at doing this work? What allows us to do that? Well first of all we have the degrees that allow us to do that. We have 36 associate degrees for transfer which means students can finish at Moorpark College and get a guaranteed admission to CSU.
We also have articulation agreements with public institutions and non-public institutions. And we have a certification that allows us for general education transfer curriculum. You see the list of the top 10 institutions our students enroll in after they leave Moorpark College. So we have a strong culture of transfer and student success. That culture is supported by the fact that we have an honors program, that 71% of the students who apply to UCLA's Honors Program get in at first try. First try. So three out of five people who applied to UCLA from Moorpark College getting their first try.
We're a member of the Aspen Transfer Network. The Aspen Transfer Network is an opportunity for our students to get into the most prestigious institutions in the country, so Aspen works with us so that we can not only identify those students but then provide them opportunities to meet with those institutions, those high-ranking institutions and they get mentors at that institution who work with our students so that they can be accepted into these research one institutions as well as other prestigious institutions nationwide.
We have on-the-spot and on-the-spot same day admissions with some of the universities in our local area. So if you're a Moorpark College student, CLU comes to campus, CSUCI comes to campus, Laverne, Grand Canyon, Woodbury comes to campus, and you can actually present your transcript, get an opportunity to meet with a counselor from that institution, and get admitted on the spot.
That is an incredible opportunity for our students, particularly our first-generation college students because they get that opportunity to engage with these institutions on their own terms. And then we have a transfer center that does incredible work in preparing students for transfer but also helps faculty and staff to connect to those institutions that we serve.
We invest in our students' future through the work that we do, and that work is being rewarded by these various organizations that recognize the distinction of Moorpark College. We not only work well within our own institution, but we collaborate. Here you are a list of businesses, organizations, vendors, employers, internship sites and transfer institutions that we work with at Moorpark College. And this is not an exhaustive list, but this is a list of those individuals who we see as our main partners. And you will see there that both the city, the chamber, as well as the school district are partners of distinction.
So we talk about how we are investing in our students, and we do this in two ways. We're looking at their post-graduation success and transfer, so just the data points I've shared with you is about transfer. And we also look at the student's success in terms of workforce. So when we look at the CT outcomes survey, which is a survey that's conducted of our students two years after they leave the institution and we ask them about their experience of the institution. 90% of those students are not only happy with the experience that they had at the institution but they're consistently acknowledging that it's one of the best experiences of their life so not just about being at an institution. We also note that students get a salary bump by coming to Moorpark College.
What we pride ourselves in is the fact that more and more of our students are leaving the institution, and they're going into direct employment. More and more of our students are, while they're at the institution, getting internships. Participating in internships. And we're very proud of the fact that for most of those students, those are paid internships. Again, that is important for students who cannot afford to take time out and work for free. The opportunity for us to receive grants that then support them as they go ahead and do that work of getting real workplace experience is an additional bonus to the successes of our students.
You have some of our students who are interns in the city of Moorpark as well. You see there what our students tell us about the importance of internships and work-based learning opportunities. So I want to focus on the fact that not only are we training students for the workplace, not only are we training students to transfer, but we're also training students to start their own businesses Entrepreneurship. We're also supporting students and individuals who are already entrepreneurs so that they can better enhance their skills.
An example of that is the work that our game design program does with our game design students. We currently have two students whose games are now being considered for mass publication and distribution by well-known game companies in the local area, and that is an example of the work that we do to add to the economic wellbeing of the city of Moorpark, of the county of Ventura, and obviously of this region.
Similarly, the work that we do with the Navy Base of Ventura County is one that we need to call out because that work comes from the collaboration between our college, our college district and the Navy Base. It is an understanding that the Navy base has 4,000 civilian employees and that those 4,00 civilian employees there's a consistent need not only to replenish those employees but the fact that we want to hire folks who are going to stay in Ventura County. One of the ways we do that is we start off by educating people who are from Ventura County, who live in Ventura County and who live in the service area so they can get employment there.
So, the Navy Base of Ventura County is partnered with our institution so that there are internships that are available to our students and internships that are more than just a semester or summer. They're long-term internships. We've also gotten partnerships with the Navy Base so that they pay for their employees to take classes at the institution so that they're in an engineering technology program, they're in a computer network systems engineering program. then a business program. And this then offers individuals who may not have the credential, the opportunity to get credentials so they can then promote within the Navy-based structure.
We have incredible partnerships with the biotech sector. You know, we have a bio-manufacturing degree and those partnerships are evident in the equipment that we get sometimes donated other times purchased specifically for us or funds provided to us to be able to equip our labs so that our students get trained on the most cutting edge pieces of instrumental technology.
We also have partnerships with companies like Takeda and Bank of America, where they support our foundation through really robust donations that then support our students as they pursue their education at the college. We're very proud of the fact that we see ourselves in partnership, in collaboration with our local businesses. And one of the areas I would like to call out and really celebrate is the partnership that we have with the City of Moorpark. The work that we do with John Bandek and what we do with the team at Moorpark is an exemplar of the work that we can do with our municipal partners Because there's an investment on the part of the city to support the work of the college, and there's investment on the part of the college to really respond to the economic development needs of the city.
The ways in which you engage us so that when you bring new businesses into the city and you engage us with it we're part of that promotion of the city, that helps us because then we already have built a relationship with the companies and with their leadership where they see us as relevant partners in the work. So some things to brag about. These are some of our workforce outcomes.
83% of our former students who are employed full-time are working in a job closely related to their field of study. That is very important because we're not training people to go into disciplines that may not be necessarily connected to their education. We are providing them with appropriate career guidance, career exploration, and appropriate connections to the workforce so that they can seamlessly build careers that then support their families and in so doing support our community.
We're ranked seventh statewide by the College Futures Foundation. They did a return on investment study, and that study they looked at students from 10 years ago, actually from 2015, and they noticed that those students increased their salaries by 37%, within a year after leaving Moorpark College. There are institutions where that is not close in terms of the return on investment. So you should be proud of that.
In 2025, over 300 local employers engaged in partnerships with the college. And I've given you some examples of that. I'm very proud of the fact, and this is an area where we could do better and we could continue to do better work, is that we had 227 of our students participate in internships in 2024 and 2025. We want to increase that number, particularly looking at the number of women, number of students of color, and the number of first generation college students and low income students who participate in internships because we know that workplace learning opportunities lead to long-term career success.
And then I just spotlight two of our health programs, the Spotlight on Nursing 100% five year average licensure exam pass rates. Again, the nurses who take care of you and your families are Moorpark College graduates and we're very proud of the way in which we've prepared them to be caring and career-invested professionals. The same thing with the RADTEC is a 91% five year average licensure exam pass rate, and I just got this a couple of days ago EMT paramedics program. This is their third cohort, and they have 100% pass rate in that three year time frame.
So what's coming up at Moorpark College? What's next? In the fall of 2026, we will begin to offer a bachelor's degree in cyber defense network operations. As I probably mentioned this last time when I was here that we were in the process of getting approved for that degree. There are 750 jobs that are unfilled on any given day in cybersecurity nationwide. We are helping to support and to address that much needed career pathway and industry success.
I'm very proud of this program because it is a program that's designed for individuals who are place-bound. Folks who are not going to leave Moorpark or leave Simi or leave Thousand Oaks, our service area and go to San Marcos or to Irvine. They will stay here because they have connections that they have jobs here. They have families here. And so they need also an education and access back to a bachelor's degree And this bachelor's degree in cyber defense will do that. You should also note that the college's CNSE program has already been identified and recognized by the NSA as a center of occupational excellence, so we're very proud of that.
So that is coming in the fall of this year. The other thing that's coming this year, and actually not in the fall but coming later this summer is I may have shared with you previously these incredible drawings of our amphitheater. Now, I may have told you that it was going to cost us $60 million. And as you know, 60 million just doesn't drop out of the skies. So we're raising funds to get that work done on the interim Our foundation has purchased a temporary amphitheater stage for us at the college that we will look to then begin to deliver concerts this summer.
And we'll be working with the city so that we can sort of align our concert series, but our hope is by the tail end of the summer and the beginning of the fall that we'll start a concert series outside between the library and the gym, that beautiful space right there on the green grass, and that we will have this Wonderful opportunity to bring people to Moorpark, the city and Moorpark, the college to enjoy high quality entertainment.
Once again, I want to thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share with you the incredible work that's going on at Moorpark College, your local community college. And just as a sort of a heads up, the college turns 60 next year. So we have been in this community and you as this community has supported this college now for 60 years. So will be celebrating 60 years of Moorpark College beginning this fall and will be inviting you all to add various times over the course of the next year to recognize the incredible gem that you have in Moorpark College. And we continue to see ourselves as partners in economic development of the service area. So thank you so much.
Any questions or comments?
