Eloy Ortiz Oakley

Chancellor

The California Community Colleges

My hope is that we can eliminate the need for luck for students [to succeed]...it shouldn’t be about luck, it should be about changing the odds.

About Eloy

Grew up in Southern California in a working class family where college was not heavily emphasized—would later become the first in his family to go to college.
Says he always had a passion to help people and wanted to make a difference, but had no idea how to channel that into a career.
Right out of high school, he got recruited to go to Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, but never went to class because he didn’t have a way to commute from where he lived 45 minutes away.
Decided to join the military and ended up serving four years in the U.S. Army—credits this with helping him realize the value of an education.
After the Army, he went to community college, then earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental design and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Irvine.
Says he missed out on the “typical college experience” because he was older, working full-time, and raising a family.
Has been part of several trailblazing policy efforts in business and education, but is best known for his role in creating the nationally recognized Long Beach College Promise initiative.
He is the first Latino chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, overseeing 114 community colleges in the state of California and serving 2.1 million students.