More than just taking over the world (or at least Phoenix) with a New American University plan or even UA shaking up uniform admissions standards, is a proposal that may change the way Arizonans pursue higher education. Only, it may not be for the betterment of things.
The Arizona Board of Regents is currently looking at a proposal to offer four-year degrees at community colleges, an issue and suggestion not new to Arizona's higher-education debate.
The reasoning behind it is, honestly, quite noble: to meet increasing demands for higher education across Arizona.
Yet, most of ABOR, and even Michael Crow, seem to be against it. Perhaps that's because, while appearing like a solution, the plan creates a host of problems possibly worse than the one they're trying to solve.
There's a very valid fear of further complicating the issue of educational stratification. While it might help reduce the achievement gap in higher education, it would create the tiering system Crow is trying to avoid with the ASU campuses. Only, in this case, it would be a statewide tiered system of education.
Let's be honest. Community colleges are wonderful for many reasons. Aside from providing higher education opportunities at a more affordable price, they often provide smaller class sizes and more one-on-one, professor/student relationships. They're great for students looking toward a flexible, geographically close alternative, as an economical stepping-stone to a four-year degree.
But community college courses are no consolation for a university education. Courses are harder at a university, as many who have taken courses at both would testify. There's also that intangible quality of a university's educational atmosphere that helps transform a little freshman into that analytical, problem-solving graduate, ready to succeed.
If the proposal to offer four-year degrees at community colleges is put into action, people just may start to think that enrolling in a community college four-year degree is the equivalent of a university education. And the people who enroll are going to be those to whom financial considerations matter. It wouldn't fair to them, dangling the false promise of a comparable education (that really isn't) for a cheaper price.
And it might mean more funding would go to the development of a lower-quality four-year degree rather than to making a university education more affordable for everyone.
That in itself might be a harder problem to fix than the one we face now.
