California has seen 3 million new unemployment claims filed in recent months, and the state proposed a $740 million budget cut to its community college system. But California's two year colleges are drawing from lessons learned during the last recession to cope with mounting challenges amid the pandemic.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the system, which enrolls more than 2 million students across 115 campuses, talked with us about how the colleges are preparing for the fall. He described how the system has become more flexible for students, and why its leaders aren't counting on a federal bailout.

To help broaden Oakley's perspective to the rest of the nation's community colleges, we also spoke with Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, and the former president of Montgomery County Community College.

This episode is sponsored by the ECMC Foundation, which supports building a postsecondary education system that works for all learners through its grant making focus areas of college success and career readiness.