Kunal Patel: Community colleges should not give 4-year degrees

If a pending proposal is enacted, the University of California could soon have a new competitor in the market for bachelor’s degrees.

The Baccalaureate Degree Study Group, a committee convened by the chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, is examining the viability of giving community colleges the ability to offer four-year bachelor’s degrees.

Although a discussion of revitalizing California community colleges is long overdue, this specific proposal overreaches the original purpose of California community colleges, whose goal should remain training students in vocational skills and preparing them to transfer to four-year universities.

The California Master Plan for Higher Education laid out goals for each “segment” of the higher education system in this state. Describing the community colleges, the authors of the document wrote, “From the beginning, (community colleges) recognized a dual purpose – transfer and terminal.”

That is, community colleges were meant to prepare students for four-year institutions or to provide them “instruction through, but not beyond the fourteenth grade,” as the document states.

In these original goals, community colleges are currently struggling.

Instead of moving into new degree programs, it is important that the UC, California State University and community college systems thrive in the missions for which they were designed.

If the community college system begins to funnel resources into four-year degrees, they shift those resources away from readying students to transfer.

Community colleges in California have already had to turn away more than 600,000 students in the last few years, as budget cuts have chipped away from their ability to educate students. Because of state disinvestment from higher education, community colleges have had to reduce course offerings between 5 and 15 percent, and class sizes have increased.

Rather than undertaking entirely new educational ventures, the community college system should focus on directing resources toward the goals laid out in the master plan.

Even if community colleges begin to grant bachelor’s degrees, there is no guarantee that the value of those degrees will be comparable or equivalent to similar diplomas offered at other institutions. There is a big difference between a degree from a community college and a degree from the UC or CSU.

In the job market, community college degree-holders will be competing with graduates from the UC and CSU systems. As community colleges have traditionally served as the pathway to a CSU or UC campus, rather than standalone baccalaureate institutions, those degrees may not hold the same value for employers.

Admittedly, California does have an increased demand for a properly educated workforce. As technology gets more advanced, it becomes more important for our education system to keep up with the growing job market. However, creating new community college four-year degrees is not the answer for dealing with the increased demand.

Community colleges need to prepare students to transfer in order for campuses such as UCLA to fill the seats they set aside in upper-division classes for those students.

California community colleges, like the UCs and the CSUs, are struggling to cope with drastic reduction to their budgets since 2008. Granting four-year degrees would cost them money, staff and space that they do not currently have.

Ultimately, the main purpose of the community college system would be hindered by attempting to grant four-year degrees. Instead of community colleges being stepping-stones to four-year degrees at other schools, community colleges would become poorly funded imitations of universities.