Top Takeaways
- Community colleges in San Diego and Ventura counties recently received approval to offer bachelor’s degrees in fields such as cyberdefense and physical therapy.
- The programs faced opposition from California State University, but community college officials took the rare step of approving them anyway.
- With some proposed degrees delayed for years, community college supporters are considering a 2028 ballot measure to make it easier to get degrees approved.
Moorpark College in Ventura County will offer a program in cyberdefense. At San Diego Mesa College, students will be able to get a degree as a physical therapy assistant. And at Southwestern College in San Diego County, students can study urban planning in the CaliBaja region and earn a degree in transborder environmental design.Those are among the newly approved bachelor’s degree programs at California community colleges — despite objections from California State University to all three degrees.
It’s the latest development in an ongoing clash between the state’s two largest higher education systems over what kinds of bachelor’s degrees should be offered across the 116 community colleges.
State law allows community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in fields with a labor market need as long as they don’t duplicate what’s offered at CSU and other four-year universities. About 60 degrees have been approved, most of them without much debate. But disagreement over what counts as duplication has left more than a dozen proposed degrees stuck in limbo, in some cases for years…