Why We Need a New Master Plan

Clark Kerr hands Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown

The item below appeared in Inside Higher Ed last week:

Three California community colleges are fighting to start new baccalaureate programs, which their leaders insist would fill critical local workforce needs and help students who couldn’t otherwise afford to pursue a four-year degree. But their plans have faced repeated roadblocks from the California State University system. Cal State faculty members argue these programs, and future programs like them, shouldn’t proceed without their go-ahead.

The waylaid degree offerings are part of a first group of programs proposed by community colleges under Assembly Bill 927. The legislation, signed into law last October, made permanent a set of 15 pilot baccalaureate programs at community colleges and allows new four-year programs to be created at these institutions.

Under the law, California community colleges can apply to offer up to 30 new baccalaureate programs annually if the programs don’t duplicate existing programs at universities in the state. Whether programs meet those criteria is hashed out in a review process with representatives of the California State University system and the University of California system, followed by approval from the California Community College system chancellor’s office...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/12/05/cal-state-objects-proposed-four-year-programs-two-year-colleges.

Back in the late 1950s, the three segments of California higher education existed but exactly which should do what was unclear. The result was the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, developed under the leadership of then-UC president Clark Kerr, which created a division of labor. That original Plan expired in 1975, but is constantly referred to as if it were alive and well. Clearly, much has changed since 1960. And the division of labor that the original Plan proposed (or imposed), is eroding on an ad hoc basis. It seems clear that the state would benefit from a comprehensive review process such as Kerr headed. But instead something of a turf war has developed. The latest iteration seems to have developed out of the post-pandemic drop in community college enrollment, leading the community colleges to seek new lines of business.

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