California Community Colleges chancellor Dianne Woodruff and the Governator himself earlier today appeared at a joint press conference to announce that a massive donation has just been made to provide scholarships for community-college students statewide.

The Bernard Osher Foundation has pledged $70 million to the system, the "largest single gift that has ever been given to community colleges in the history of this country," Woodruff said in her remarks.

More of what she said:
"So you can imagine that this gift from Mr. and Mrs. Osher, which will provide $1,000 scholarships for students at all 109 of our community colleges, is going to make an absolutely incredible difference in the lives of our students. These scholarships will send a powerful message of hope to students all over the state that the Oshers and others believe in them and want to help them realize the American dream of getting a college education. And for many of our students I know that these scholarships will make the critical difference between whether or not they will be able to succeed in school and get that college education -- and particularly now, given the state of our economy, these scholarships are more important than ever. This gift is not only going to have a very significant impact on the success of our students but also on our colleges.

"I think it is brilliant how the Osher Foundation has structured this gift. The first $25 million of the gift will immediately fund an endowment which will enable us to begin giving scholarships to students next year in 2009, but the second $25 million of the gift must be matched two to one by the community colleges. And by making the gift in this manner it will provide a very powerful incentive that will help our colleges raise other private funds. You know, I have always dreamed of having an endowment like the Harvards and the Stanfords and now, with Mr. Osher's help, we are on our way to having a $100 million endowment which will provide 5,000 scholarships every year for our students.

"But that's not all. The Osher Foundation is providing an additional $20 million to support scholarships at the University of California and the California State Universities, but these will be restricted to community college transfer students. (Applause) And of course this is so important, because so many of our students do transfer to UC and CSU. In fact, almost two-thirds of all CSU graduates are community college transfers and similarly, almost one-third of all UC graduates are community college transfers. So this gift will continue to help our community college students after they leave us and have transferred to UC and CSU to help them so that they can complete their four-year degree."

The largest public higher-education system in the U.S., the California Community Colleges serve some 2.6 million students at 109 schools.