Community colleges lobby to offer 4-year degrees

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/2056520.html


Abner

 

Interesting idea! Here in NC, some community colleges offer bachelor degrees via partnerships with universities. A student will complete the first two years of the program at a community college and then complete the last two years of a bachelors degree, normally online, at the four year university of college. Here it is limited to education degrees.

I think its an excellent idea and will help to keep the costs down for any student if they can earn a bachelors at a community college. Looks like the traditional four year university is under assault and should watch out for not only the for profits but now local community colleges!

 

I don't see community college bachelors degrees happening in California. The State Masterplan for Higher Education was written in stone and will never be significantly altered, at least in my lifetime. What's more likely is that more community colleges will become remote sites for selected bachelors degree programs offered by different colleges and universities.

We are already starting to see that happen. One of my local community colleges has been hosting other universities' bachelors programs for several years now, mostly in healthcare-related subjects like nursing:

http://www.canadacollege.edu/university/index.html

Elsewhere in North America, upgrading community colleges has become a real trend. Eight Washington State community colleges are in the process of being accredited to offer bachelors degrees. Most of their offerings at this point seem to consist of a single bachelors in business administration or management.

http://www.nwccu.org/Directory%20of%20Inst/State%20Map/Washington/Washington.htm

Maui Community College in Hawaii has recently rolled out its first bachelors, in business IT I believe. Great Basin College in remote Elko Nevada has kind of stealthily become a new NV state college, offering a whole assortment of bachelors programs in applied subjects.

http://www2.gbcnv.edu/programs/programs.html

Up in Canada, several BC community colleges have been upgraded into full-fledged public universities, offering bachelors and masters programs. In Canada, the gap between universities and commuity colleges is bigger than in the US, without the smaller colleges in-between. So the leap in these cases was bigger than just rolling out one new bachelors program.

The new Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo

http://www.viu.ca

University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford

http://www.ufv.ca

Using existing commnity college facilities more intensively is a lot less expensive for cash-strapped governments than building whole new state universities from the ground up would be.

 

Many community college have offered bachelors degrees. Off the top of my head I recall that Great Basin College in Nevada offers several bachelors degrees. Vincennes College claims to be the oldest community college in the nation. They recently began to offer a bachelors degree in education. They also changed their name to Vincennes University. These are different from the many partnerships that one finds between community colleges and universities in that the degree is actually conferred by the community college.

 

I think this a great idea, but I wonder if employers will raise an eyebrow when they see that you have earned a 4-year degree from a school with the word "community" in it. Someone with the word "university" on their resume may have the upper hand.

 

We've got that occurring at Tidewater Community College in VA. A Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies can be completed from the University of VA at TCC's Va Beach campus.

 

In Florida we have a number of former community colleges now offering 4-year degrees. When the change happens, the name of the school also changes to reflect the new status. For example:

http://www.mccfl.edu/pages/1.asp

Manatee Community College is now State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.

Daytona Beach Community College is now Daytona State College. Others either have or are in the works to make the change.

 

I can see this EXPLODE into the occupational studies/applied technology field. The universities really don't "do" this kind of skilled training anyway, so I don't see it as a turf war so much, and I would really support this kind of degree. If it were available, I would have went that route instead of a BA in social science, and would encourage other trade occupations to do so. A soap box of mine has always been that skilled trade associate degrees are terminal degrees marketed in a way that makes the whole non-transfer concept in really really small print. This would mean all of the AOS/AAS degree holders could go back to school- and that's $$$.

I also think that when CCs start building expanding into the BA degrees (which they would) it could get ugly. I can see state universities breaking off articulation agreements if the CCs don't play nice.

 

I like the idea of being able to pick up 300 and 400 level courses at CC prices.
Can anyone list such courses?

 

Sometimes I think that Indiana does everything backwards backwards. I was a professor at Indiana's Ivy Tech State College; now, I am a professor at Ivy Tech Community College. We haven't changed a thing other than our name.

Retake posted earlier some concern about college over university. I do not think that there is a distinction between these two terms in many people's eyes. Indeed, think about how many people use the term, going away to college, when they are really students at a university.

 

When was the state master plan written in stone? How long is your lifetime?