Bachelor’s degrees at California community colleges? Lawmakers say yes, UC and CSU say slow down.

 By  Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters

In the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed three bills that would have allowed community colleges to award students more bachelor’s degrees. Unfazed, lawmakers are now backing a fourth bill that does much of the same.

The measure, Assembly Bill 664, cleared its first legislative tests by passing the Assembly Jan. 26, potentially setting up another collision course between state lawmakers and the governor. While Newsom supports more bachelor’s degrees for students, he’s repeatedly stated his opposition to adding more community college baccalaureate programs that go outside an agreed-upon process in a law that he and lawmakers approved in 2021.

That law said community colleges can develop up to 30 bachelor’s degrees per academic year, as long as the degrees do not duplicate the baccalaureate programs of the University of California and California State University.

But since then, community colleges and Cal State have disagreed on what counts as duplication, resulting in more than a dozen stalled community college bachelor’s programs because Cal State opposed them.

Both public university systems oppose the latest bill. They fear more community colleges will seek their own degrees that duplicate what the universities offer, unraveling the 2021 law.The universities see themselves as the traditional generators of bachelor’s degrees. Community colleges say the state is too big and spread out to limit public four-year degrees to just the Cal State and UC.

Students shouldn’t be forced to enroll in universities dozens or hundreds of miles from home when the community college a few miles away can offer a bachelor’s degree that employers in the area say more workers need, bill backers say. Those backers include its main author, Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista.

His bill would allow the community college in his district, Southwestern College, to create up to four additional bachelor’s programs in applied disciplines, such as teaching English to speakers of other languages and designing websites. Alvarez stresses that his bill isn’t creating more general bachelor’s degree programs popular at the universities, such as psychology. Rather, he’s seeking to develop programs employers seek in the south San Diego County area.

While his bill is limited to just his district, Alvarez told fellow lawmakers Jan. 13 to follow his lead in creating bachelor’s degree programs at their local community colleges if they have unmet labor market needs. “I would expect nothing less from each one of you to do what I’m trying to do here.”

The 2021 law limiting community college bachelor’s degree creation “has fallen short,” he said then.

In an interview, Alvarez doubled-down on the point that too many communities have adults eager to earn a bachelor’s degree but either cannot get into an over-enrolled public university or live too far away.

“California is about providing opportunity and access to students,” Alvarez said. “Are we actually doing that in the state? I would say the answer to that today is we are falling very, very short.”

But the former chancellor of the state’s community college system thinks Alvarez’s bill, however well intentioned, is the wrong approach.

“I have, from the beginning, been opposed to community colleges offering baccalaureate degrees,” said Eloy Ortiz Oakley. “I think it is a mistake.” He was system chancellor when the first community college bachelor’s degrees were underway. Now he thinks a better solution is to send professors at under-enrolled Cal State campuses to community colleges that want bachelor’s degrees, such as Southwestern.

Developing more bachelor’s programs means hiring additional full-time faculty and administrators. It’s an approach that adds costs to public systems of higher education at a time when the state government is projecting multi-billion dollar deficits. Creating new bachelor’s degrees also takes two to three years before they’re offered to students, he said. If there’s market demand now, colleges and universities should collaborate by merging academic staff now as well, Oakley said. He now leads the College Futures Foundation, which is a CalMatters funder.

Alvarez notes that his bill requires Southwestern College to collaborate with nearby universities to create smoother pathways for students to earn bachelor’s degrees — similar to Oakley’s recommendation. Alvarez notes that Southwestern is doing the work to bolster degree attainment; it’s launching bachelor’s degrees programs so that nearby university professors teach on the Southwestern campus. However, he maintains that the college needs a legal dispensation to offer the bachelor’s programs his community needs.

The emphasis on existing collaboration with the four-year campuses makes him think Newsom won’t veto his bill, he said. Lawmakers will have until Aug. 31 to send the bill to the governor.

Appeal of community college bachelor’s

Community college bachelor’s degrees are cheaper than the ones offered at UC and Cal State, at about $10,000 for all four years. That’s a win for students chasing affordability who may not qualify for the state’s tuition waivers to the public universities, though about 60% of California students at UC and Cal State do.

California’s community colleges are relative novices at awarding these degrees: The first ones debuted about a decade ago. Now, around 300 students earn bachelor’s degrees at community colleges annually, compared to around 160,000 at the UC and Cal State. As a result, economic data is limited on whether these community college degrees lead to the higher pay that bachelor’s degrees offered by the two public universities yield.

A recent academic study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research reviewed several other states and found that community college bachelor’s degrees lead to higher wages than associate degrees would but slightly lower earnings compared to bachelor’s degrees from traditional universities. Results varied by major.

Nor does the community college system publish public data on the graduation rates of students who pursue bachelor’s degrees. The UC and Cal State do — and must by state and federal law.

“We do not have this information packaged in a public-facing tool like CSU provides,” wrote Melissa Villarin, a spokesperson for the California Community Colleges, in an email.

Public universities oppose bill

Both the UC and Cal State say the latest bill circumvents the 2021 law that allows community colleges to develop bachelor’s programs annually as long as the degrees do not duplicate existing programs at the two university systems. Under the law, both systems get to weigh in on whether there’s duplication. But under Alvarez’s bill, UC and Cal State can’t appeal the programs Southwestern launches.

The law supercharged the creation of community college bachelor’s programs — more than 50 are now approved at around 40 colleges. Before the law, 15 community colleges each offered one bachelor’s degree.

Left unsaid by Cal State officials during a bill hearing Jan. 13 is the fear that more community college bachelor’s programs will pull students from Cal State. But a Cal State administrator made just that point when lawmakers in 2024 introduced two bills that would allow several community colleges to award bachelor’s degrees in nursing. Those nursing bills cleared the Legislature but Newsom vetoed both. Cal State professors also worried about revenue losses from community college bachelor’s degrees in 2022 after the 2021 law passed.

Several lawmakers are also on record in favor of more community colleges providing bachelor’s degrees to address local workforce needs and create a more affordable option for students who can’t leave their communities.

“Baccalaureate programs at community colleges are the answer. I hope there’s more encroachment,” said Assemblymember Patrick Ahrens, a Democrat from Cupertino, during a legislative hearing on the bill Jan. 13.

The bill cleared the Assembly 69-1.

Duplication has been a multi-year battle

In 2023, two leading lawmakers on higher education issues wrote to community colleges that they cannot duplicate existing UC and Cal State degrees, regardless of location. The letter came as one community college created a bachelor’s in fire management that resembled a bachelor’s degree — not yet in existence — that was slated to be offered at a Cal State nearly 300 miles away. Cal State opposed the community college degree, but the college launched it anyway.

The issue was an ongoing one — the community college system in 2022 suggested that how far a college is from a public university can be a factor in whether a degree is duplicative of the university’s. The 2023 legislative letter seemingly supersedes that 2022 belief.

Since the 2021 law through April of last year, the community colleges submitted 52 bachelor’s programs for approval, according to a document Cal State shared with CalMatters. Of those, 16 programs remain pending because of Cal State’s duplication concerns and seven had duplication concerns that the segments resolved. The other 28 programs were approved without any duplication concerns. The remaining degree, in fire management, is the only one Cal State labels as one the system opposed but that a community college created anyway.

Southwestern, which is near the U.S. border with Mexico, has sought a bachelor’s program in binational environmental architecture that has been disputed by Cal Poly Pomona for more than a year. That campus offers a similar program, without the binational emphasis.

Duplication hinges on whether the courses are similar, but the evaluation doesn’t consider whether the university with the existing degree has the capacity to enroll all the students who desire that workforce skill, said Southwestern College President Mark Sancez at the Jan. 13 hearing, in defense of Alvarez’s bill.

Southwestern College student Marilynn Palomino is in the process of earning an associate degree in criminal justice to work in a police crime lab doing forensic work. That position requires a bachelor’s degree, wrote Chris Jonsmyr, a spokesperson for Alvarez, in an email. But the only forensics bachelor’s at a public university in California is at San Jose State University, some 500 miles away, said Jonsmyr. Alvarez’s bill would lead to an applied forensics bachelor’s at Southwestern as one of the four programs it’s proposing, his staff said.

Palomino is a single mother with a son and daughter. “Transferring would require relocating hundreds of miles away with my children or leaving them behind,” she told lawmakers Jan. 13.

Community colleges far from public universities

Several data points are a driving force in bringing bachelor’s degrees to community colleges. One is that 29 of the state’s 116 community colleges are at least 25 miles from a public university, leaving many students “place-bound” or regionally stuck in the area their community colleges serve. About 150,000 students attend these colleges that are far from public universities.

Students at community colleges that are within 25 miles of a public university transfer to a four-year university at higher rates than those that are farther away.

Community colleges have low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, a state report said. This could be a sign of a broken transfer system that might be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s degrees. Or it could mean colleges aren’t ready to expand their services when they’ve struggled to graduate more students with degrees and certificates or transfer them at higher rates.

“Why would you create a new product when the bulk of your products are failing?” asked Oakley, the former community college system chancellor.

Enough students to go around

While Alvarez and Oakley disagree on whether bachelor’s degrees for community colleges is the solution to bring more students into bachelor’s programs, both say Cal State isn’t meeting the moment.

After steady enrollment growth throughout the 2010s, Cal State has struggled financially because roughly half of its campuses are contending with enrollment declines. Thirteen of the system’s 23 campuses had lower enrollments than their state targets last year.

That’s perplexing to Alvarez and Oakley, given that Cal State tuition is still relatively low, despite recent annual tuition hikes. Both also observe that other universities with higher tuition are attracting tens of thousands of students. There are about 113,000 California students at for-profit colleges that award bachelor’s degrees. Despite its affordability, Cal State is not winning over these students.

“In the CSU, they have failed to sort of re-create themselves in a way that’s relevant to what learners need today,” Oakley said.

Added Alvarez: “I’m surprised, really, that there’s so much indignation at the fact that we want to provide easier access to higher education for students when there’s plenty of students and plenty of need.”

Davis Jenkins, a research professor on community colleges at Columbia University, agrees. Even if community colleges increased the number of bachelor’s degrees they award 10-fold to 3,000, “which would take years,” he said, “I don’t think CSU has anything to worry about.”