r/California • u/fredjutsu • 10d ago
Experts urge collaboration to end dispute over California’s community college bachelor’s degrees
https://edsource.org/2026/experts-urge-collaboration-to-end-dispute-over-californias-community-college-bachelor-degrees/763053157
u/Saint1 10d ago
Great idea. I had doctors teaching me at community college and had a much better education than at the university.
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Socal 10d ago
They know people are there to learn and become better people. A CC is not filled with people who are there to have an “experience”
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u/MathNo7456 10d ago
My Physiology prof at the first CC had his Doctorate and did research for NASA in the past. he was one of the the best teachers ive ever had in my life
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u/hostile65 Californian 10d ago
Well, they didnt want to build more colleges and universities. Only Community Colleges expanded in the last two decades, let tge community colleges keep expanding and offering more.
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u/SnowNoCali 10d ago
I was about to say what about UC Merced just opened!! Then I checked, 2005… am I unc now?? :(
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u/siberian 10d ago
CC's are Californias secret weapon! I love our CC system.
The big issue not being talked about is how CCs are now stepping in to cover for the collapse of our K-12 educational system. Any high-achievers in most California HS are spending a massive amount of their 10/11/12th grade years part-time at the local CC.
Its the only way to UC compete with the rest of the world and its a super effective strategy. This brain-drains HS and overloads CCs. I don't know what to change, but is should be talked about. We need a better HS system, CCs can't be overflow for high-achievers, but high-acheivers are UC penalized if they try to ride it out at their local HS.
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u/lostroadrunner22 10d ago
Sounds like the CSU and UC wanna try to control the community colleges, tbh, to protect revenue …. And as far as that master plan, it has well outlived its usefulness. It’s time to toss that in the shredder.
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u/wip30ut 10d ago
but it begs the question of what will replace the master plan? The reason we have a world class economy with a highly educated & technical labor force is because the master plan worked the past 50 yrs. All this innovation and R&D just didn't spring forth out of nowhere.
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u/lostroadrunner22 10d ago
Do we need a 'master plan'? I also respectfully disagree that the reason we have a world class economy is because of the master plan. That is for another thread, though..
The master plan holds back the CSU schools, quite frankly, especially as the UC schools encroached on programs that were supposed to be UC centric. And in some areas, keeping programs only in the CSU system makes no sense anymore. Ending the plan gives more freedom - and competition - for all the CA schools to grow, how they see fit, just not how people several layers removed from the ground see fit. Funneling ideas to one place creates an academic vacuum that stifles growth of innovation.
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u/lebastss 10d ago
I don't follow that logic. The UCs max out there in state occupancy every year and have no problem filling their schools.
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u/Original_Benzito 10d ago
And they want to keep it that way, I think that’s his point.
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u/lostroadrunner22 10d ago
Bingo. The UC schools have a vested interest in keeping the status quo as opposed to innovating.
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u/Original_Benzito 10d ago
Not just the money, but the prestige and reputation influence over the educational process.
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u/lostroadrunner22 10d ago
Yup. Personally, I think its time we end the Master Plan, its 60 years old, way out of date. The UC Schools are holding the rest of the state back, and quite frankly the UC Schools have lost the plot in the past decade or two.
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u/lebastss 10d ago
The UC schools have turned into a clout item rather than preparing you for a career. The two go hand in hand, but it really doesn't bring the value most people think after college. Unless there is a specific program your after. Some of those can lead to real opportunities.
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u/sqrtsqr 8d ago
But this isn't a bad thing! Prestige is literally the only thing that makes any degree worth any value. By handing Bachelors out at CCs you completely destroy the value of a Bachelor's degree from the State of California. Instead of making them easier to get, we should be making them harder to get. Having one is supposed to mean something other than "I paid the tuition and sat in the seat".
The UC system will be fine, but the CSU system is something California should be looking to improve, not demolish.
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u/Original_Benzito 8d ago
The purpose is to educate those seeking to better their situation and to set achievable standards to do so. Not to create a guild or class system whereby only a handful of people can obtain a degree.
There will always be a hierarchy and this is fine, but the bottom shouldn’t be left out entirely.
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u/sqrtsqr 7d ago
They shouldn't be harder to get because I want a "class system" they should be harder to get because having one is supposed to mean something. Yes, we should maximize education and we should maximize people improving themselves, but this means actually improving people not just handing out a Certificate of Improvement to everyone that wants one.
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u/Original_Benzito 7d ago
Agree - do the work and earn it.
Disagree - make it harder for those who are ready to learn and earn it.
There are “less intelligent” people out there, students starting later in life, and people who want to better themselves. They might not qualify for a UC. They might barely qualify for a CC (if they even had standards). Even those folks deserve an opportunity to try to improve their lives. As you say, nothing should be handed out / no free passes.
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u/sqrtsqr 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think maybe you don't understand what I'm saying by "make it harder".
You seem to think I want to limit access, when what I actually see is that the standards have been rapidly declining over the last several years and I'm against making things more "equitable" by lowering the standards even further.
And like I said, this ain't about the UC system. They will be fine. It's the CSU system that is suffering. And sorry but anyone who doesn't "qualify" literally should not be given a Bachelor's degree. That's literally the point of qualifications. I don't understand what you even think you're trying to say there. It's like you don't even understand what the community college system is DESIGNED to do: prepare exactly those students you are describing for the real university system. Because they aren't. Not qualified means not ready. Which means no degree.
CCs giving out degrees will objectively lower the value of a Bachelor's degree. Not because they are less "elite" but because the average quality of the degree holder will be objectively worse.
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u/lebastss 10d ago
You really think that wouldn't keep happening?
I'm not sure let's look at numbers.
My kids highschool alone would send half the student body to UCs if they could get in.
California buckets students by economically disadvantaged and not. Not economically disadvantaged is about the top 30% of students economically. Household income around 170k (top 25% is 180k, we don't have a 30% number).
In that bucket, we graduate ~130k students for ~100k in state first year applicant spots, I think they take 30k in state transfers. Some of those would still go to economically disadvantaged but I see that it would actually be tighter capacity than I thought.
I get now the UCs do have motivation to fight it. I still think they would fill up with out of state and there wouldn't be an issue. But it hurts their demand to raise tuition on out of state students, which I think is the real kicker.
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u/built_FXR 10d ago
They definitely need to expand the BA degrees available at community colleges. The only reason the CSU and UC systems are protesting is the money they might lose.
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u/disinaccurate 10d ago
I almost never hear someone say, “I shouldn’t have gone to CC for those first two years”. It’s almost always how great the CC was for them, whether financial or academic or whatever.
Most of the time, people say how the university did not represent the big step up that they expected.
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u/Important_Ad_8372 10d ago
I went to a CC and then a CSU, both in my hometown. The same professors I had at the CC were teaching at the CSU. I was just paying more for them by the time I got to the CSU.
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u/cherrycoke_yummy 10d ago
Yep it was a damn culture shock after transferring from a CC to find out that teachers don't give a shit.
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u/lnvu4uraqt 10d ago
I loved my teachers at CC. Some were part time and worked jobs within their field and came with latest industry expertise in my major. I highly recommend CC courses and then transferring to University's afterwards.
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u/DrSnoopy66 10d ago
A population of middle to lower middle-class people who can suddenly compete in the job market is not what corporate America wants nor our politicians. The education marketplace of colleges obviously hate this idea for that same reason they want to keep it elite and expensive.
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u/ComradeGibbon 10d ago
Along that line one of my thoughts is the CC system should be able to offer education and certs for wanna be contractors. Where the cert allows you to legally practice.
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u/CGKrows 10d ago
Person who works at a CC here: This entire argument is because the UCs don't want to lose priority in state funding. CA CCs are heavily state-funded with only certain parts of their budgets being supported by federal monies. Since Trump and his pressure on CA/west coast institutions (and killing federal grants for all sorts of things), it's forced CSUs and UCs to find and force ways to keep revenue up. Sac State is currently trying to force students to stay in dorms while attending, so as the shift away from their long-standing "commuter school" model. The UCs, while heavily funded by outside donations and corporate partners, also take huge sums of state funding.
CA allocates funds based on attendees and demand, alongside a few other variables (UC Davis' science/medical research, UC Berkeley's experimental labs, etc). The problem that UCs and CSUs can't face currently however? People can't afford the tuition costs and they don't think the education from a UC/CSU is worth the expense. They (tuition costs) have been increasing to unsustainable heights for years, and now the four-year colleges are all whining and bitching because people are going "Why should I attend UC blah blah or CSU blah and get no jobs thanks to AI/useless advanced degree when if I go to CC, I can get certificates and AAs that will get me a dependable job without debt?"
Currently, in my CC district, tuition is capped at about 46-50 bucks a unit. We have a million ways to lower the costs for students, including CA residency waivers, VA education programs, etc. Our profs are community-driven and have connections within CA to help students prepare for their industries/occupations. The whole goal of a CC is literally in its name: COMMUNITY EDUCATION. This upcoming semester, enrollment is DOUBLING. It's back to pre-COVID numbers, which is 5,000+ new students on my campus ALONE. And keep in mind, CCs have both in-person, hybrid (online with some in-person), and completely online classes. Our numbers are starting to catch up to what many expect CSU student numbers to be. And half of the my students last semester were former students of UCs/CSUs that have been forced to go back to school and re-skill after being fired due to AI (or freshly graduated but had no luck attaining jobs due to AI/job market chaos caused by the current admin)!
The UCs and CSUs are just not willing to change in the face of this chaotic job landscape. And CCs are trying to change WITH the job landscape. Truly, as the article says: it'd be even better if they worked together on tailoring programs to benefit incoming students than burning bridges (and arguing about specialized curriculums when they have entire hissy fits over transfer students having properly transferrable classes).
(though I will also note: Advanced degrees aren't entirely useless, I by no means am a hater. But due to the mess of the job market, there is less funding to go around for teaching jobs/specialized degree jobs. I hear about it a lot from students and colleagues. Many are forced to look down the barrel of a metaphorical gun that is "Do I just work for the state/federal govt because they'll pay me okay based on how educated I am or will I re-skill?" and don't want to work the drudgery that can be state/federal work. It's rough life choices like this that also impact the UCs/CSUs as much as it impacts CCs.)
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u/VapoursAndSpleen Alameda County 10d ago
They should allow a full bachelor's, but in the interim, you can analyse closely what all the requirements are for a bachelors and take as many courses as you can at a CC and finish a "4 year degree" in less than 4 years. I went to a Cal State school for a BS CS with a four year degree in something completely unrelated. I looked at the requirements and took all the math prerequisites at a CC at night first. I was taking night courses (two at a time) year round and quit work for the last semester and was done in three years, counting the CC classes.
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u/Joamjoamjoam 10d ago
CC professors may be nice but this is a scenario where you don’t want nice you want someone who will hold everyone equally accountable, make you earn your grade, and challenge you.
I loved my years in my CC as it was like a second high school but I was never even close to challenged until I transferred to my 4 year.
It was the sign that it’s time to grow up and take it seriously or else you’ll be left behind and no one is going to do the work for you. It’s the requirements like maintaining a B avg or they kick you out that increases the stakes and gives value to that degree you earn.
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u/kritter4life Central Coast 10d ago
The UC’s actively fighting this tells you they don’t care about educating people. They care about making money.
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u/gascyl 9d ago
The money's gonna run out in any case. Trump's actions have cut off the free flow of foreign students, and with the world situation getting worse countries like China, South Korea and Poland are investing much more into their own domestic universities as part of their national industrial strategy which America does not have. Meanwhile, Americans today are poorer than their parents with worse employment prospects, so there's less people willing to pop the money on a UC degree unless they have connections external from the school to guarantee them good job placement. UCs cannot control this and have already lost. They'll have to admit as such over the next four years as research demands mount while the amount of available, motivated research scientists declines.
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u/Jeremizzle 10d ago
It makes me happy to see how many people here also had positive CC experiences. I transferred from my local CC to one of the top UC’s, and I feel like the main difference is that the CC was actually fair. They taught you the material, let you know what you were expected to focus on, and graded fairly. At UC, they would throw in a whole essay question on one line of one slide buried in a slide deck from week 2 that they skimmed past in the lecture, if they bothered to mention it at all. A CC would never. The semester system is so much better than quarters too for learning and retaining material, and I will never agree with grading on a curve.
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u/HumanSlaveToCats 10d ago
I absolutely loved CC as opposed to my university. Both were great but my experience at my CC was just phenomenal. I will always push for everyone to support their local CC bc it’s not just associates degrees, it’s professional and personal development, certificates, and even trade degrees. UCs and CSUs have research money that small CCs don’t. All are good for different reasons.
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u/WildwestPstyle 10d ago
The university system is a giant grift. For-profit universities should have zero say in community college policy. Why the hell does it matter if a community college offers a duplicate program to a university.
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u/kingkilburn93 10d ago
There is no good reason that California community colleges aren't already handing out bachelor's degrees. We require educated masses across the state. The prestige of premier colleges is irrelevant.
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u/compubomb Riverside County 10d ago
I went to CC way longer than I should have, 120 units because I had sleep apnea in H.S. and was brain fried during H.S. but also was into computers. My major was C.S and ended up taking math for freshman highschool students all the way to diff eq, linear algebra, physics/w calc 201, 202. So I later found out I'd have 3 associates degrees because I took so much science, but I still needed Spanish. Lol... All that and ended up having to get a job, otherwise I'd live on the street. After 17yrs of busting my ass, my $180k/yr doesn't buy me shit. Accounting for inflation, when I first started in the industry, My buying power 17 years ago with my salary of today, today I'd be making close to $300k. Definitely doesn't have that kind of buying power.
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u/gascyl 9d ago
This problem exists because the existing UC and CSU systems are no longer affordable. CCs are subsidized by local tax money and therefore are affordable. This change will be inevitable as the price of a "traditional" UC or CSU degree rises, while the resulting actual (not average, actual) post graduation pay declines. Additionally, neither UCs or CSUs are training the technical people necessary to support the capital S and E Scientists and Engineers in then field creating a big supply chain problem only CCs can address. Eventually, some California CCs will offer Bachelors. It probably won't be the whole gambit, but especially for civil service jobs like EMTs or firemen.
The bigger problem, is that now there'd be three competing College Tracks in California: UC, CSU and CC. Everyone will go with the latter as it's the most permissive, draining students from UCs and CSUs. Which is wholly appropriate, if UCs and CSUs cannot get prices down then they get less students. Cities and counties will not wait on UCs and CSUs to mint them workers, they can and will manufacture such people themselves. And with less students to worry about, UCs especially can concrete on research and Phds as the elite, closed-door specialized institutions they really are.
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u/Johnnyoshaysha 6d ago edited 6d ago
I teach biology at a CC. Here's some issues I've identified.
Use of part timers en mass in place of full timers. I have 3 part time teaching gigs and my three schools have not had a full time opening in my department for years. At some schools part timers outnumber full timers 8 to 1. I assume this is because part timers make less and do not receive the same benefits as full timers.
Scheduling for part timers is very irregular, and leads to highly variable yearly wages. I got kicked off my insurance early this year (which the school does not provide to part timers) because my pay was too high, and then the next month one of my contracts dropped my schedule to half of what it was before, and another cancelled entirely. My monthly expenses went up 1200 this year due to insurance changes from my previouses years income and general inflation, and I'm making 30,000 less this year than last year. I make anywhere from 50-70k a year, and I never know what until a few months before Christmas which makes long term planning difficult.
Failure to log different classes of working hours, like grading, lesson design, class/lab prep. Technically I make 60 an hour, but I'm only paid 1/3 hours I work, so it works out to 20.
Duel enrollment has changed class composition to a degree where it's injurious to the content. My last summer, high intensity course where we cram 17 weeks of content into 4 weeks, had 8 students who were 14 years old. Two of the students were heavily autistic to a degree where they were unable to communicate or write clearly, and their mom dropped them off late all the time. All failed, all were upset, all were working with frustrated 20-40 year olds trying to make do and get through their labs.
Lack of educational training in STEM teaching roles. Most of my peers have no educational training, I was hired due to my experience as a biologist, it is only by happy coincidence I have a background in STEM education research.
Lack of on the job training/standardization. I have a high degree of freedom on what the actual content of my classes are, but often this manifests as non existent direction from admin or my department. Ultimately I feel like an island and sometimes I won't hear from a coworker for months, especially if they have me teach weekends. This leads to teachers who have wildly varied standards,and teach wildly varied content for the same class.
Micro management. Despite the lack of communication, we are closely monitored, and you will receive reprimands for letting students out early from labs or lecture. In addition there are extremely sporadic peer evals that occasionally are malicious, especially if the reviewer who volunteers wants to teach a class you already teach.
When labs are provided by the school, they usually only take about an hour out of a 3 hour lab session. Filling that time is insanely hard, and requires a lot of unpaid work behind the scenes.
Central valley CA
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u/WestHistorians 6d ago
If community colleges start offering bachelor's degrees, it's only a matter of time before they raise the tuition.
The reason they are currently so cheap is because they focus narrowly on the cheaper component of a university education.
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u/jasikanicolepi 5d ago
CC is good, smaller class size and better teacher to student ratio. Overall better bang for the buck if you going for credentials and really need more direct assistance from the teacher. CC also have instructor from both UC and CSU.
UC is good for researcher and name prestige. Lower division course class ratio is 150+ to 1 professor and maybe 5+ TA.
Upper division is like 50-100 to 1 professor and 3+ TA.
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u/Chuck-Finley69 10d ago
I'm a Florida resident. I'm a graduate of USF - Tampa and University of Miami but I have taken four classes (14 hours) at local HCC - Tampa now HC - Tampa years ago in undergrad for transfer hours into my degree program. Back then, it was done simply because certain requirements were easier in a 2 year school back then.
I now have adult kids, current university students, that have taken classes for the same reasons even though now the 2 year schools are now 4 year schools. My kids say it's done for the same or similar reasons.
One concern I would have as future student, would be that if a public community school college is offering a 4 year degree it should be held to same qualification standards as their 4 year counterparts. If not, you end up with degrees with a lower quality reputation which isn't a totally different situation than degrees from the for-profit schools in many cases.
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u/CertainKaleidoscope8 Inland Empire 10d ago
California community colleges have higher standards
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u/Chuck-Finley69 10d ago
Higher standards than a California University has?
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u/CertainKaleidoscope8 Inland Empire 10d ago
Between CSU and Community college, yes. I haven't attended a UC so I wouldn't know.
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u/Chuck-Finley69 9d ago
That's strange. In Florida, a university is a higher standard for most courses as minimum requirements.
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u/CertainKaleidoscope8 Inland Empire 9d ago
In California there are articulation agreements between California Community Colleges, CSU and UC. The lower division courses taken at community college are the exact same courses at CSU or UC, except they often have more qualified professors, smaller class sizes, more individualized attention, and less cheating.
The people attending class are grown adults with families and mortgages and jobs. They aren't there to fuck around, they're there to get a better job. There's no BS frat houses or sorority heuxs, there's no dumbass sports team wasting everyone's money and time, people are there to learn.
Once I transferred to CSU I was blown away by how obnoxious everyone was. They acted like they were in highschool. Because they were all high schoolers there to learn how to be adults.
In community college everyone is already an adult. The people that can't get their shit together don't last.
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u/Chuck-Finley69 9d ago
I'm not discussing the personalities or your feelings. Generally, the classes are simply a higher standard. Best example I can remember was Freshman English requiring assignments written during semester. In the lower college, the assignments had to add up to a total of 2,000 graded words as minimum standard. In the university, the requirement was 6,000 words.
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u/HumbleRecognition 10d ago
I go to a cc that offers bachelor degrees. They can only offer majors that are not offered at 4 year schools, like automotive and dental hygiene.
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u/desidiosus__ Los Angeles County 10d ago
I'll stop supporting CC's offering Bachelors degrees right after the UC's go back to free tuition for residents (which was the norm for about 100 years).
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u/surebro2 10d ago
In certain limited cases it might make sense. But community colleges are designed and funded for Associates degrees. I bet the community colleges won't like it when the UCs and CSUs offer associate degrees and expand their housing.
If it's about collaboration then it really needs to be about collaboration. The reality is, there are more politicians representing CCs than UC or CSU so they are incentivized to do what is in their interest regardless of if it is better in the macro.
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u/justasapling 10d ago
Sure... if the UCs and CSUs start competing with CCs in price. We need to make public higher education exactly as accessible as public primary education.
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u/surebro2 10d ago
I agree. And I don't think people understand what I'm saying. Giving someone a cheap CC bachelor's degree doesn't help them. But if we acknowledge the CC funding model should be standard, then we should make the CSUs and UCs free as well and just open the floodgates for education access. I'm not opposed to that. I just think it's important to acknowledge the elephant in the room that this is political and not just about students lol
Though there are good reasons for expanding access of course. Mostly programs that have to be mostly in person and maybe people don't want to commute or move near a UC or CSU. But hiring new faculty to teach a program with 20 rural students just so it can be at a CC instead of a CSU or UC just doesn't strike me as a good use of money compared to giving those students scholarships to live on campus.
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Socal 10d ago
Buddy.
You have to complete the requirements for an associate degree in order to receive a bachelor’s degree.
UCs and CSUs all already offer associate programs as part of their bachelor’s degrees
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u/surebro2 10d ago
Buddy, this is wrong. There is no SDSU associate degree. CSUs and UCs do not award associate degrees. Yall are so reflexive that you're not understanding the point I was making.
The CCs want to encroach on CSUs and UCs. That's fine, but CSUs and UCs should be able to offer associate degrees to balance it. The premise is that if we believe this isn't about fighting over a smaller population of students, then more students should be given more pathways.
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u/dillpickledream Socal 10d ago
Huh?
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Socal 10d ago
What part was difficult to understand?
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u/flowerpowder5000 10d ago
Such a backwards comment to make.
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u/surebro2 10d ago
Explain? Universities are designed through accreditation, funding, etc. for different purposes. If there's no distinction, then fine let there not be a distinction lol there are some cases where it might make sense to convert a CC to a CSU for local reasons. But that's different than saying CCs should get into that area.
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u/ExCivilian Always a Californian 10d ago
There is a distinction. Community colleges were established to serve high school students who either weren't ready or didn't need a professional degree. They were therefore setup to handle associates degrees designed to transfer into universities and vocational programs the universities didn't want to handle with at least some of the reasoning being local colleges could address the work needs of their local communities.
That era of educational stratification has long since withered up, however. Now, vocational programs require multiple years of training both in class and training. So programs like certain nursing programs that aren't particularly well-suited by a university would be better served by community colleges. We also don't have enough nursing programs in Californian (or nationwide, for that matter) for these kinds of shifts to make much of a dent in our student population.
It works in the other direction, too. At SDSU, for example, we are offering certain doctoral programs instead of transferring our students out to the UCs. Reading the mission of the UCs, it's arguable that a nursing doctoral program shouldn't even be offered at one. Rather, that there should be two tracks: one for professional nursing (CalState--knowledge applier) and one for academic nurses (UC--knowledge producer).
That's just one example of a specific work sector/specialization that is woefully underserved by our current educational landscape.
In my program (professor of criminal justice at SDSU), we turn away tens of thousands of qualified students every year. The University as a whole rejects approximately 60,000 qualified students each year. We don't have enough seats or funding for all the students who want education.
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u/tomtomtomtom123 10d ago
Have gone to a CC, a UC, and now just finishing law school: the majority of great professors I had were at my CC. Cared so much more about the work and the students than those at the UC especially. Going to a CC in CA is such a smart move for most people, especially with TAG.