Award 4-Year Degrees? It’s Complicated, Say California’s 2-Year Colleges

This entry was posted on 12.4.13, in Community College, Curriculum, Postsecondary, Private Institutions and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leaders of the California Community Colleges heard the case on Friday for supporting state legislation that would give them the authority to open a handful of programs awarding four-year degrees. If it did so, California would be following the lead of 21 other states.

But this is California, where “everything that happens” in higher education is controversial, said Constance M. Carroll, chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, who presented a report on the issue to system leaders on Friday.

The recent talk about the proposed introduction of baccalaureate-degree programs shows that the state’s higher-education system is moving away from a financial crisis that consumed the past five years and is starting to struggle with the question of whether its traditional policies, embodied by the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education, still meet the state’s needs. <Read more.>

Via Andy Thomason, The Chronicle of Higher Education.