When Community Colleges Offer Bachelor’s Degrees, Grads Get Leg up on the Future

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

The nation’s 12.4 million community college students, who include large percentages of adults, first-generation college-goers and veterans, should have a clear pathway to four-year degrees that lead to better career opportunities and increased earnings. But while nearly 8 in 10 community college students say they aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, only about a third actually transfer to a four-year college. Of those who do, fewer than half earn a bachelor’s within six years.

This is largely because the transfer process is inefficient and not designed for non-traditional students. Students who transfer after earning an associate degree often lose significant credits and must retake courses, which is a considerable barrier to earning a baccalaureate, or bachelor’s.

Community colleges could be a big part of the solution by expanding their capacity to offer bachelor’s degrees in fields that are in high demand in their regional labor market, and by doing more to help students transition to four-year colleges.

Today, over 200 community colleges in 24 states offer more than 736 baccalaureate programs and degrees. The vast majority focus on business, health care and nursing, education, information technology and other areas that address shortages in these and other fields. The bachelor’s degrees conferred by the community colleges typically cost about half the tuition charged by four-year public colleges. The programs help award four-year degrees to many underserved college students, keeping them close to home, putting them on pathways to good jobs and helping communities thrive.

At MiraCosta College in San Diego, for example, college leaders learned from biotech industry partners such as Pfizer and Abbott Labs that they needed more employees with a bachelor’s degree in biomanufacturing production. After coordinating with four-year college partners, MiraCosta created the first-ever community college biomanufacturing bachelor’s degree program conferred by a two-year college.

The program not only has significant employer buy-in and a 93% completion rate, but it also provides equitable opportunities to students. About two-thirds of MiraCosta’s biomanufacturing graduates are women (62%), two-thirds are non-white (64%) and 20% are the first in their family to attend college. The school is clearly meeting an industry need, employers are engaged, and together they have created a pathway to good-paying jobs in an expensive region of the country. Likewise, graduates of similar baccalaureate programs delivered by community colleges nationwide are 50% people of color and 64% female.  

In northeast Ohio, Lorain County Community College has offered 100 bachelor’s and master’s degrees on its campus for nearly 30 years as part of a voter-approved

University Partnership that includes 13 colleges and universities. The degrees — in everything from biology, human resources, nursing, public safety and respiratory care to computer science and supply chain management — save students an average of $74,000 and include the kind of personal attention, career guidance, tutoring, writing instruction and nonacademic assistance with child care, transportation and food that are more common at community colleges than at four-year institutions.

But state officials recognized that more community college baccalaureate degrees were needed to fill talent gaps in emerging fields in the state. Lorain County Community College was given permission to launch an applied bachelor’s degree in microelectronic manufacturing, to prepare workers in fields such as advanced manufacturing, automation, aerospace and biomedical technology.

In the first two years, students spend three days a week working in paid internships and two days in the classroom. They graduate with an associate degree and up to two years of real work experience, then enter the bachelor’s degree program already holding a full-time job, often by the company where they interned. 

The college also launched a bachelor’s degree program to prepare technicians and engineers who are helping companies digitize and automate their operations, integrating robotics, control systems, machine learning and cyber-physical systems into modern factories. More than 100 companies have offered internships, advised on curriculum and committed to hiring graduates. 

But making baccalaureate programs available where they are needed is only one aspect of what community colleges do. Achieving the Dream, the reform network of more than 300 community colleges, includes more than 50 that offer baccalaureate degrees. These colleges are making it easier to transfer to four-year degree programs by creating better advising and support so students can move seamlessly from adult learning programs that provide certificates but not degrees; dual enrollment programs in which high school students also earn college credits from community colleges; and associate degree programs that lead to four-year degrees. 

These community colleges are also working to connect their students and graduates to programs and careers that pay a family-sustaining wage. In focusing on areas from which people from similar demographics have previously been excluded, the schools are sparking upward mobility.

The debate over who and where bachelor’s degrees should be offered is too often driven by institutional priorities and policies set in the past. As jobs increasingly require a bachelor’s degree and employers continue to seek skilled workers, and as too many high school graduates and employees neither master new skills nor earn a living wage, it is time to shift the discussion from what type of institution offers a bachelor’s degree to their programs’ costs, benefits and value to students, employers and communities. 

Community colleges can play a central role in helping graduates achieve a bachelor’s degree. States and all colleges should support these low-cost, high-value degree pathways. 

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter