Ready for ‘mission creep’—let the Community Colleges offer Applied Science Bachelor degrees
Commentary — By Paul Tyahla on January 10, 2011 at 11:46 AMby Mark ‘Jay’ Williams
In at least 17 states, legislatures have initiated a type of mission creep that New Jersey should consider – allowing community colleges to offer applied (or occupational) bachelor’s degrees.
In the last ten years, our community colleges have played a growing and vital role in the education and training of county citizens, and have established very close relationships with government, industry, non-profits, and the K-12 schools. In that time, the nation and state have realized the emerging need for highly-educated specialists that do not require the traditional course requirements found in our state colleges and universities.
Applied Science degree programs are a necessary component of a skilled technical workforce that will keep our state highly competitive in the areas of manufacturing, customer service and the application of technology. The Applied Science degree programs place major emphasis on the career block, and typically courses after the Associates level focus on project management, decision-making, workplace and environmental safety, leadership, and continuous improvement.
The New Jersey Commission on Higher Education reports that in 2010, the nineteen public community colleges enrolled 177,000 students vs. 134,000 students in the 12 state colleges and universities; the community colleges provided 52% of all public credit hours attempted through Bachelors degree; and accomplished these numbers with 17,000 full- and part-time employees vs. 43,000 for the state colleges and universities. The community colleges are the workhorse of the state’s higher education system, and the expectations for the future are even higher.
And the most amazing statistic is that New Jersey community colleges charge an average of about $4,000 annually for tuition and fees, compared to the state college average of $11,000.
New Jersey’s community colleges typically offer three degrees: the Associate in Arts (AA), Associate in Science (AS), and the Associate in Applied Science (AAS). The AA and AS degrees are designed to follow a course of study that corresponds to applicable requirements of most four-year colleges and universities, while the AAS degree emphasizes training needed to enter a chosen field of employment after two years. In New Jersey, many community college students are enrolled in the AAS program, and their options after graduation are very limited if they wish to complete a four-year applied, or occupational bachelors degree, especially close to home.
In 2009, New Jersey community colleges graduated 16,000 students, of which less than 6,000 transferred to a New Jersey state college or university, according to the 2009 Transfer of Credit Annual Report to Governor & Legislature. This is troubling given that the Lumina Foundation identified New Jersey’s alarming need for more Bachelor degree graduates.
There is a viable option to accelerate occupational A.A.S.-to- B.S.A.S.T. (Bachelors of Science in Applied Science and Technology) degree completion by allowing the community colleges the opportunity to manage an existing comprehensive Bachelors degree completion program. A recent Common Sense Institute of New Jersey (CSI-NJ) report, Campus Green Part III, recommended that Thomas Edison State College be managed by the community college system.
Several months ago, the Governor suggested the merger of Thomas Edison State College (TESC) into Rutgers University, a plan that could limit TESC’s potential with the exponentially growing community college applied science graduates, and limit opportunities with the K-12 and corporate training sectors (with which the state colleges and universities have had limited success). The K-12 sector needs online college programs for advanced placement Seniors-to-Sophomore’s programs at low-cost.
What TESC does better than any college in New Jersey is degree completion - they have the courses, technology and human talent - but their infrastructure, scope, and scale are making the school less competitive in the degree-completion and online education marketplace. After almost 40 years in existence, the school enrolls only 5,000 mostly part-time New Jersey students. It does not offer programs for the K-12 sector, has limited corporate relationships, and has realized its greatest growth by using New Jersey taxpayer funds to subsidize TESC’s 9,000-student military education program.
It is time for New Jersey to think outside of the box to accelerate low-cost, high-quality applied science graduates in fields necessary for the 21st Century. Allowing the community college system to ‘manage’ TESC will accomplish several important higher education and taxpayer goals:
(1) Significantly reduce TESC’s non-academic overhead through consolidation and elimination of duplicative and unnecessary functions, targeting a $150 credit hour tuition level;
(2) Provide community colleges with a four-year program they can optimize to accelerate and grow AAS-to-BS/BSAST degree awards, targeting a tripling of BSAST annual graduates;
(3) Provide community colleges with an additional revenue stream to expand applied science courses and programs, targeting a tripling of TESC’s current $3 million annual ‘profit margin’ ;
(4) Provide the State and its taxpayers with a low-cost four-year degree completion program, eliminating excessive burden on parents and students for loans, targeting a 50% reduction in student costs over existing schedules;
(5) Allow the community college system full use of TESC’s $32 million in unrestricted reserve funds to provide institutional and student incentives for retention and degree completion, targeting a four-fold increase in performance;
(6) Increase competition for four-year applied science degrees at low cost, forcing other institutions to lower price levels, targeting a 5% annual state college tuition reduction and increased price access to more students.
The state can immediately provide an excellent degree completion program stripped of 2/3 of existing expenses, and accomplish much more than what the state colleges and TESC have been able to create on their own.
For many years, the community colleges have provided our citizens a phenomenal return on investment. They keep expenses, tuition and fees low, and they innovatively avoid costly capital debt. When we make the community colleges equal players in the four-year applied degree field, we will improve the entire higher education system in New Jersey through competitive measures.
The community colleges managing Thomas Edison State College is a win for the state, counties, students and New Jersey taxpayers.
About the Author
Mark Jay Williams is a Economics Fellow at the Common Sense Institute, New Jersey’s newest public policy think-tank that explores and advances public policy alternatives that foster individual liberty, personal responsibility and economic opportunity. Jay has served as a senior Director within a New Jersey K12 public school district and a public state college. He research interests converges his doctoral work in econometrics and operations research in designing solutions for socially complex problems.
(Note: Mark Jay Williams was the Director of Budget & Analysis at Thomas Edison State College from 1993-2007)
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