Ernest Calderon, the incoming president of the Arizona Board of Regents, unveiled a cost-effective plan for future college students at Friday’s meeting.

“We need to create immediate steps of affordability and accessibility,” Calderon said via a live Web feed.
The plan is loosely based on Regis College in Colorado and would cut the cost of a bachelor’s degree by an estimated 60 percent, Calderon said.

“The way it works is, first of all, the universities would identify four or five majors that they believe there is a high demand for,” he said.

The universities would create a four-year curriculum for those majors and go to juniors and seniors in high school and request that they be a part of the process, in which they would take six hours of math, science and English in their senior year for college credit, Calderon said.

“This is already going on in many high schools already, but it would be a prerequisite,” he said.

The students would apply at one of the three state universities, and then the university would assign them to a community college to attend, Calderon said.

“We would help that community college with their enrollments,” he said. “Many of them are facing enrollment challenges now.”

The student would then attend the community college and follow the curriculum that says they have to take certain courses, which would be at the community college price, Calderon said.

The second year, students would continue attending the community college and following the curriculum, although there wouldn’t be many electives, he said.

“Generally speaking, we’re talking about $2,200 a year in tuition, compared to our $6,800 a year,” Calderon said.

In the third year, the universities would be strictly responsible for the entire curriculum, although the community colleges will provide instruction as approved by the universities, he said.

“Year three will provide us with strict control, and if we weren’t satisfied with what the community colleges were doing, once again we would be able to step in and either teach the courses or have them buy those services from us,” Calderon said.

He said there could be the possibility of a reasonable surcharge so universities could have resources to follow the students’ progress.
During the fourth year, students would pay the University rate, would have no electives and would have pre-set courses, Calderon said.

“If they satisfy all of this, once again in five limited majors, they earn a bachelor’s degree at the end of that year at the University,” he said.

Calderon said this plan would cut into the revenue streams for the universities somewhat.

“But I don’t think Arizona residents are as concerned about our revenue streams as they are concerned about providing an affordable higher education to students,” he said.

Calderon said he thinks the plan could possibly happen by fall 2010.

“We can do this, in short order, and provide either a pilot program or other things to have several hundred students in this, perhaps as early as the fall of 2010,” he said.

He said he wants the university presidents to have something ready by the August meeting.

“This is a point of departure, and I challenge the presidents to come back with either support of this or a refinement of this in some way that we can hit the ground running this fall,” Calderon said.

In an e-mail, President Michael Crow said the plan to increase access is critical to Arizona's future success.

“We will work hard to build new options for access to quality higher education,” he said.

Reach the reporter at reweaver@asu.edu