The board of governors overseeing California’s 116 community colleges next week is expected to discuss proposed bachelor’s degrees that have been blocked by California State University.
The board is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Sacramento. The meeting agenda includes a discussion item on the system’s baccalaureate degree program. State law allows the community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees so long as they fill a local workforce need and don’t duplicate what’s offered by the state’s four-year universities.
More than 50 bachelor’s degrees are currently offered or will be offered soon at community colleges across the state, but several other proposals have stalled because of objections from CSU campuses, which argue the degrees would duplicate what they offer.
In total, 16 proposed degrees are in limbo, including seven initially proposed in 2023. The local community colleges have grown increasingly frustrated, believing their proposed degrees are not duplicative and would serve students who otherwise would not pursue a bachelor’s degree.
The board is not expected to take action at Tuesday’s meeting, but the discussion could clarify whether some or all of the degrees will be approved soon.
A recent analysis by WestEd, a nonprofit organization, suggested that many of the degrees are not necessarily duplicative and could provide reason for the board to approve them. The state chancellor’s office last year contracted WestEd to analyze duplication concerns.
If degrees were to be approved, it does not necessarily have to happen during a board meeting. State law allows the president of the board of governors to give final approval to the degrees, which has often occurred outside regular board meetings.
Who cares if they do duplicate and if they offer a more afforable alternative to the individual that is all that should be considered or that matters. We know exactly why the CSU and major academic institutions object and that shouldn’t even be a consideration. Those institutions are propped up by tax payer dollar. Junior college is a more affordable option and given the current enviroment with the types of graduates being pumped out by these institutions it’s time to kneecap them and do what’s right for the citizen!
Got to protect the grift. A lot of community colleges have better career training than the state & UCs.
Yes they do plus they are more cost efficient so the grad is not saddled with a high rate long term loan on an education that is not fit to wipe one’s behind with!
A college education only indoctrinates students to a progressive point of view, which, I believe, is regressive.
College is not necessarily the key to a prosperous life.
How many college graduates can only find menial work?
Young people need to find their own way, not be directed toward something that leaves them behind later.