Dive Brief:
- More community colleges are offering four-year degrees, and universities aren’t delighted with the trend.
- Community colleges in 21 states now have the authority to offer bachelor’s degrees, according to the Hechinger report.
- The good: Community colleges are cheaper and more convenient. The bad, according to universities: Quality concerns, mission creep, and duplication.
Dive Insight:
This trend will inevitably continue, if the community colleges can afford to keep adding bachelor-degree programs. Universities have been lobbying state legislatures against allowing community colleges onto their four-year turf, and their motivation appears to come down to the competition for funding. California is currently considering such a proposal, which has failed to pass three times in the last five years. The cost difference is significant. An example: St. Petersburg College in Florida offers a bachelor degree program at $118.70 per credit hour, compared to $211.19 at the University of South Florida. At Florida schools overall, tuition and fees for a bachelor’s degree are $3,541 per year at a community college; $6,069 at a public university. In Florida, 25 of the 28 community colleges now offer bachelor degree programs, with 30,000 students enrolled — a four-fold increase from five years ago, according to the Hechinger Report.