The incoming class appears to have been almost exclusively white and primarily working- and middle-class. The first student to enroll at SMJC was Marjorie Brace, one of twelve women in SMJC’s first class. She had just graduated from the same high school where SMJC had opened and had hoped to go to Stanford. Her father was a clerk at the Southern Pacific Railroad, and Stanford’s annual $225 tuition put it out of the reach of the family’s modest budget.

SMJC enabled her to get an associate degree while living at home in Burlingame. Without it, as Brace later said, “I really don’t know what I would have done.” The College offered an affordable path to higher education — and one that was much needed. College tuition frequently ran hundreds of dollars a year at a time when the av­erage California salary was about $3,500. Most students were locals; but junior colleges were few in 1922 (North­ern California had only two, in San Jose and Santa Rosa) so SMJC drew students from all over the Bay Area, com­muting hours a week by boat and streetcar, and even out of state.

Today, of course, after a turbulent and fast-growing cen­tury, much has changed. The College has an enrollment in the thousands and occupies a 153-acre campus in the San Mateo hills. The community it serves has changed al­most beyond recognition, now hugely diverse, urban, and globally connected. The agricultural heartland has be­come a technology and venture capital hub. East of Sky­line, the duck farms and cabbage fields have given way to an almost continuous suburban sprawl knit together by freeways. Only the Coastside retains a connection to the county’s farming past.

In our student body of 13,200, some patterns emerge. A “typical” CSM student is just slightly more likely to be a woman (51%) and a person of color (64%) living in San Mateo County (78%). She is a graduate of one of our local high schools, probably San Mateo High School — where CSM got its start — and is the first in her family to attend college (55%). She studies part-time (58%); and most like­ly has significant commitments outside school, notably to a job (the main reason students gave for interrupting their education over the pandemic was the need to pri­oritize work). She is planning to transfer (61%). She is like­ly middle-class — not necessarily low-income (21%), but possibly receiving financial aid (38%). And largely thanks to the pandemic, she is well used to taking classes through multiple modes of delivery: face-to-face or on­line, synchronous or asynchronous.

But this is not 1924, and this “typical” student portrait, of course, cannot capture the variety of today’s student body. Today, CSM has a highly diverse student body of over 13,200 students, including over 270 international stu­dents, who come with a range of goals in mind: not only to transfer to a four-year institution but also to prepare for a variety of careers, from dental assisting to electronics to firefighting. In addition, about 10% of students are working towards a certificate in a Career & Technical Education (CTE) pro­gram. And while most students are high school graduates, a growing dual enrollment program (7%) is bringing high school students into the College (and bringing college to high school students).