The head of California’s vast community college system formed a group to consider the viability of adding four-year bachelor’s degree options to its campuses.
Brice Harris, chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, assembled the Baccalaureate Degree Study Group in August to examine demand for and cost of the degree programs while considering the effects of deviating from the community college system’s traditional role. California would join a growing number of states whose community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees.
In addition to members from the community college system, the 16-person committee includes representatives from the UC and CSU systems. It will make recommendations to Harris in December, and if the system’s governing board accepts the recommendations, the proposal would require approval from the state Legislature, the governor and an accrediting commission authorized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Michael Morvice, president of the California Community College Student Affairs Association, stated that the degree program would benefit students by providing them with additional options.
“If there is a need in society, why not consider and review it?” Morvice said, citing the four-year degree model of Florida’s community colleges.
With more than 2.3 million students across 112 campuses, California’s community college system is the largest higher education system in the United States.
Norton Grubb, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, suggested that the community college system’s traditional function — transferring students to four-year institutions as outlined in the Master Plan for Higher Education — might be overshadowed by a baccalaureate degree option.
“It’s a really bad idea, a really poor idea,” he said. “Community colleges have a lot to do already without having to work with baccalaureate programs.”
The plan, implemented in 1960, differentiated the functions of California’s three pillars of public postsecondary education: the UC, CSU and community college campuses. This three-tiered system allows the institutions to fulfill different roles as a coherent and noncompeting system.
“(The) UC has historically viewed the state’s Master Plan as an efficient way of managing and allocating limited resources to equally important higher education functions,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron. According to her, the university is waiting on recommendations but reiterated its commitment to the plan, adding that it has served California well.
Rachel Fishman, an education policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, was critical of the proposed degree program, saying it drifts from the mission of the Master Plan by duplicating efforts in the tiered system and shifting costs to students.
“Instead, California’s community college system should look at innovative ways to open up the courses that are overenrolled, like entering into an online course-sharing consortium,” Fishman said.
The group is scheduled to meet again Oct. 15.
Contact Jeff Landa at [email protected].