Georgia has ads to the growing trend by having 2 state college systems. In the past only The University System of Georgia (http://www.usg.edu) ran “colleges” and universities. They ranged from institutions such as The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech to community colleges like Waycross College and Costal GA Community College. (This was your traditional university/college/junior college system.) Then there was the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education which ran all of the Technical Institutes. (This was vocational/technical/industrial training.) However, as times changed, the Technical Institutes began to offer more and more classes. As college admission became somewhat more difficult in Georgia due to the explosion of the HOPE Scholarship more students began to turn to technical institutes and the technical institutes adapted to meet the demand offering classes that seemed to strike a balance of technical education and traditional college course work. They subsequently changed the name of all state technical institutes to Technical Colleges in 2000. Originally the University System schools refused to accept transfer credit from the technical colleges absent articulation agreements but now under a mandate from the former governor called “seamless education” (http://www.usg.edu/news/2002/1.09.02-1.html) transfer opportunities abound. I’m not sure what I think of the change, I have benefited from seamless education and in fact I graduated with an associate degree from one of the Technical Colleges, but I wonder if the name change was really necessary. It’s my personal belief all of this could have been accomplished under the Technical Institute names. At any rate, it’s very interesting to watch the trend evolve.
I must not have been paying attention to what I was doing. I ment for this to go under the College Vs. University poll.
