Award 4-Year Degrees? It’s Complicated, Say California’s 2-Year Colleges – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education

• Award 4-Year Degrees? It’s Complicated, Say California’s 2-Year Colleges – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Maybe the community colleges should offer these in demand programs that lead to immediate employment but have a test to observe what colleges have the infrastructure in place to offer BAs. Probably only the deep pocket community colleges can afford to offer a BA. I do agree that community colleges should offer more accelerated certificate and AA degrees in one year or less.

  tags: education learning college universities highered degrees california colleges

  • Leaders of the California Community Colleges heard the case on Friday for supporting state legislation that would give them the authority to open a handful of programs awarding four-year degrees. If it did so, California would be following the lead of 21 other states.

  • the state’s higher-education system is moving away from a financial crisis that consumed the past five years and is starting to struggle with the question of whether its traditional policies, embodied by the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education, still meet the state’s needs.

  • For instance, she said, the nursing profession is moving to require a bachelor’s degree, rather than an associate degree, for entry-level positions.

  • it makes sense to give community colleges the authority to offer them, said Ms. Carroll, a member of a special task force formed to study the issue.

  • A main concern among opponents of the proposal is what they call "mission creep"—that the community colleges’ entire purpose would shift if they were allowed to grant four-year degrees.

  • The Master Plan

  • But, Ms. Shulock pointed out, the walls set up in 1960 have already been breached

  • Reservations based on a 50-year-old policy underscore how the state is lagging in putting its work-force needs front and center, Ms. Shulock said.

  • "Those of us who’ve been in California for any period of time know that, the way our tax structure is, we have sort of a boom and bust revenue picture out here,"

  • after seeing state legislators float baccalaureate-degree proposals in recent years, he felt it was important to form the task force so the system could discuss the idea internally before it might be forced to adapt abruptly.

  • State Sen. Marty Block, a Democrat, has said he plans to introduce legislation in January that would give community colleges the authority to confer such degrees.

  • Robert M. Shireman, executive director of the advocacy group California Competes and a former U.S. Education Department official, said baccalaureate programs should not be first on the system’s list of priorities.

  • "It would be better to start by bolstering the credibility of the two-year and one-year career- and technical-education degrees that exist," Mr. Shireman said

  • Ms. Carroll said, adding that while establishing the degree programs would take some initial state funding, they could be made budget-neutral within a few years.

  • Still, money continues to be tight across the system.

  • But, Mr. Harris said, neither that priority nor financial pressures will keep the system from having big-picture talks about its future.

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