Community colleges new foray: as more two-year colleges begin to offer bachelor's degrees, higher education officials ponder benefits, possible pitfalls - related article: taking a stand on the movement

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 22, 2003 by Kristina Lane

Though no faculty left Dixie State because of the squabbling, there are still bad feelings swirling around campus, according to Huddleston.

Dr. George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, said faculty issues are one of his biggest concerns.

"The faculty are going to be seen as first-class and second-class. I don't see how you can create a cohesive faculty if you are going to have those kinds of differences," Boggs says.

TOWARD A MORE PERFECT INSTITUTION?

However the calculus of pros and cons works out for a given school, some higher-education officials warn, community colleges should be wary of expanding too quickly into four-year degrees, lest they lose their identity, and ultimately that of the whole two-year college movement.

Boggs worries about a trend he has noticed: community colleges morphing into four-year institutions. Recently, while phoning AACC member institutions who hadn't paid their membership dues, Boggs found some that weren't paying because they had become four-year institutions. Utah State Valley College, for example, was a community college until 1993, when it became a four-year institution. While Boggs said the trend is catching on more quickly in certain parts of the country, such as Florida and Utah, he's keeping close track of the movement everywhere.

Perez agreed that colleges independently offering bachelor's degrees could easily be lured onto the exclusively four-year path. But she said there is a simple way to make sure two-year colleges hold onto their identities: make them partner up with four-year schools if they want to offer baccalaureates. Such initiatives, she said, tackle two problems at once: preserving the two-year mission of the community college while answering the call for more access to bachelor's degrees.

"Why would I want to run a bachelor's degree program? That's not my business. I feel my duty is working with K-12, work-force mining, certificate programs--not just universities. I want to stay in a community college while also helping bring access to a four-year degree. That's our business. That's what we do best," Perez says.

RELATED ARTICLE: Taking a Stand on the Movement.

some in HBCU Community Oppose Bachelor Degree Programs at Community Colleges, Others Say Wait and See

As president of Jackson State University, Mississippi's largest four-year historically Black university, Dr. Ronald Mason has a clear position on the prospect of the state's community colleges offering four-year degree programs. While state officials struggle with fiscal issues, it "doesn't make a great deal of sense" for two-year colleges to do the job of four-year schools, he says.

"It's argued by the community colleges that they can provide four-year teacher education programs. There are alternate routes for teacher certification," Mason says about the current discussions by Mississippi officials to have the state's junior colleges develop bachelor-degree teacher education programs.

"It's better for the state to invest in (the senior colleges) to do a better job than to start new programs in two-year schools," he says.