Up the West Coast in Washington state, some students want a bachelor’s degree to enter careers like teaching and nursing but don’t have a local four-year university to attend. Fortunately for them, they have another option: getting that degree from a community college bachelor's degree program.

It’s an idea that California has taken steps to embrace, with the passage of a law three years ago allowing the state’s community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degrees annually, not just associate degrees and certificates. But some officials and advocates believe the colleges could be doing more if not for restrictions on what they can offer.

The key, they say, is making bachelor’s degrees available to place-bound students — those who can only attend college close to home, usually because of work or family commitments. That has become a reality in Washington state, where community colleges in rural areas can offer essentially any bachelor’s degree as long as they demonstrate there’s a regional workforce need and that students will enroll in the program.

“Just because they’re in an isolated community, that does not mean the community members should not have access to higher education,” said Constance Carroll, president of the California Community College Baccalaureate Association.

Implementing Community College Bachelor's Degree Programs

In California, community colleges can only offer four-year degrees in programs not offered by the state’s four-year universities. That takes away the option to create degrees in majors like education and nursing, even as those industries face worker shortages. Reversing that would require legislative change and would surely face pushback from California State University. The 23-campus CSU system, with unstable enrollment at several campuses, is loath to lose potential students to the community colleges.

The rules even apply to community colleges in remote and rural areas without a CSU or University of California campus. That’s particularly troublesome for advocates who argue that students in those regions are being left behind. Instead of traveling to another part of the state to attend a CSU or UC campus, in many cases they are not going to college at all, leading to low degree attainment and workforce shortages in those regions.

Read the full article about community college bachelor's degrees by Michael Burke at EdSource.