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Community Colleges Shed Names, Turn From Original Mission

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 8, 2008

It's interesting to note that among the nine Florida community colleges which joined a pilot program to create a new state college system in which two-year institutions becomes ones granting four-year degrees, every school had dropped the word "community" from its name.

These are the same colleges created to offer open access to their communities with the promise of university admission to any student who earned a two-year associate's degree, but that is no longer reflected in their identities.

With the state dangling lucrative four-year programs before them, some community colleges are morphing into a new tier of public education without any strategic connection to the state's higher education system.

And get this. The state's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission wants voters in November to consider a proposal that would let communities raise the sales tax to support community and four-year colleges.

Tax Dollars Deserve More Care

No wonder Republicans are worried about the upcoming election. The Republicans in Tallahassee, including their appointees, have failed to maximize the taxpayer's investment in higher education. Instead of a conservative community-college system that keeps tuition low and pretense to a minimum, Republican leaders are allowing community colleges to shed their identities, change their missions and spend freely on nonessential facilities such as dormitories.

If state lawmakers want to expand the mission of the community colleges, they should find the fiscal fortitude to pay for it with the revenues they already have. Instead, they've cut the per-student appropriation from $3,793 in 2005-06 to $2,849 this year, a nine-year low.

And if community colleges don't like their name because they think it denotes low standards, then make the colleges better for the students they serve.

Without question, Florida needs more people with bachelor's degrees. Only about one in five Floridians has a college degree, and that lack of a highly educated workforce is hurting the state's economy.

But there is little evidence that turning community colleges into four-year institutions is the best way to solve that problem. Some argue that strengthening the partnership between community colleges and the state university system would be more effective and have less duplication.

In 2006, a highly regarded consultant's report suggested Florida create a tiered system of higher education where some institutions concentrated solely on producing bachelor's degrees and a small number of universities were allowed to focus on costly research and graduate programs. In that suggestion for a state college system, the Pappas Group recommended only the most capable community colleges join the ranks of universities in awarding bachelor's degrees, and do so under the auspices of the Florida Board of Governors.

A select group of community colleges - under the governance of the Florida Board of Education - has been offering bachelor's degrees in areas where Florida was suffering severe labor shortages, such as nursing, teaching and computer networking. In 2006-07, about 3,500 students were enrolled in those programs, and 569 degrees were awarded.

The Pappas report found that partnerships between the universities and the community colleges that allowed students with associates degrees to move on to a bachelor's was a far more efficient use of taxpayers' dollars than involving community colleges in baccalaureate degree programs.

Nonetheless, Gov. Charlie Crist signed legislation creating the new state college system with nine colleges, including St. Petersburg College, the state's first hybrid between community college and baccalaureate institution.

Planning In Reverse

It's becoming clear that Tallahassee did this project backwards.

The legislation creates a task force to study the transition of community colleges into four-year degree grant institutions, set the criteria for creating state colleges and recommend how this new system would be funded.

That seems like the kind of information lawmakers should have considered before creating a new system, not after.

Bear in mind this a system where less than half of those seeking an associate's degree either earn one or are still in college after five years. It seems only those institutions doing a good job at producing graduates after two years should be tasked with trying for four.

To its credit, Hillsborough Community College isn't a party to this legislation. Yet it suffers its own brand of mission creep.

In the quest to look more like a four-year university, Hillsborough Community College sidestepped a state law that specifically prohibits community colleges from building student housing - for good reason, it guards against the redirection of resources from traditional community college students - by using the college's foundation to pursue the dormitory deal. Now that scheme is being repeated at Daytona Beach College and Florida Keys Community College.

Some will say they think community colleges need to change their image, but as they morph into state colleges the communities they traditionally have served need to be on guard that they aren't being left by the wayside.

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