The program initiated a couple of years ago to start offering bachelor’s degrees in more applied areas is to be evaluated in 2018 and 2022. In other states they offer such degrees.
Are you a CA resident? Are you hopeful or critical of the program? What is your experience or the experience of someone you know in another state who has done a program exactly like this at a community college?
Report for context: http://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3722
It’s pretty clear that demand for UC and CSU degrees has soared over the past decade. It’s also clear that the UC and CSU systems haven’t been able to grow fast enough to keep up with the growth in demand. Over the past 50 years, only one new UC campus and three new CSU campuses have been established. Of course, there has been growth of the older campuses as well, but many of the more popular urban campuses are running out of room for further expansion.
So there is a case that California could use a lot of new four-year campuses. Adding two more years of study at 75 to 100 CCCs seems like it might be a good way to do that. Obviously it would be necessary to expand the CCC campuses and add more faculty, but this would be faster and less expensive than building new UC and CSU campuses.
Consider a CCC like Allan Hancock College, for example. They have a good track record of producing AA graduates, but where do those grads go on for the bachelor’s?
AHC is in the Cal Poly SLO service area. But Cal Poly admissions have become very difficult – they now function like a mid-tier UC in terms of admissions, not like a typical CSU. OK, the admissions standards are more reasonable at other central California CSUs, like Channel Islands, Bakersfield State, or Monterey Bay – but all of those campuses are more than 100 miles away, outside of reasonable commuting distance.
The sensible alternative would be to let AHC students simply continue for their bachelor’s degrees at AHC. It’s so sensible that it’s already happening, through partnerships with private schools. There are now around 20 bachelor’s programs offered locally at AHC, through partnerships with different private schools like Chapman, University of La Verne, and Embry-Riddle, depending on the major:
http://www.hancockcollege.edu/university_programs/
So in effect, CCCs like AHC are already four-year schools. But partnerships with a bunch of non-local private institutions doesn’t seem like an ideal solution – it’s got to be more hassle and expense than simply getting a degree from AHC alone. So why not just let AHC handle it all?
If CCC students want bachelor’s degrees (and they do) and if the UCs and CSUs can’t meet the demand (and they can’t), then maybe expanding the CCCs is the right move.