Policy Alignment

Next, policymakers should ensure that the four-year degree at the community college is integrated and aligned with other higher education policies, which will help support the success and appropriate scale of these programs. Integration with policies like transfer, student success innovations, data, and financial aid can help or hinder the implementation of high-quality programs.

State transfer policies will need to facilitate not only students’ movement from community colleges to universities, but also between community colleges. For example, several Washington community and technical colleges offer an associate of applied science transfer degree, which is designed to prepare students to enter applied baccalaureate programs at their current campus or at any number of other two-year and four-year colleges that confer bachelor’s degrees. As in Washington, students in other states who complete transfer associate degrees should be able to connect to baccalaureate programs across the state. Furthermore, state policy should ensure that transfer policies related to things like a general education core and common course numbering applies to bachelor’s degrees at community colleges. Clarity on progression from the associate to baccalaureate level across institutions will only support more students in being able to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Clear and effective transfer policies should also support entry into bachelor’s programs at universities. Florida provides an example of how community college and university bachelor’s programs can coexist, increasing state capacity to provide bachelor’s degrees without dampening enrollment in either sector.¹ Transfer rates from community colleges to state universities have remained strong and even grown after the introduction of community college bachelor’s programs. In 2010, just over 40 percent of upper-division bachelor’s students in the state university system held an associate degree from a Florida community college.² While transfer pathways remain strong in the state, the number of students earning bachelor’s degrees from community colleges continues to grow each year. Healthy state transfer policy supports both pathways to the baccalaureate.

Many states are undertaking innovative reforms in degree design and structure, particularly in their community colleges. Reforms like guided pathways, remedial education reform, and contextualized basic education set community colleges apart as places designed to support traditionally marginalized students, particularly adults. For instance, in guided pathways reforms, community colleges reorganize their course and degree offerings to effectively guide student choice to and through their major.³ Adding the last two years of a bachelor's degree is a logical extension of this reform, particularly for applied associate degrees that are not easily transferable to four-year colleges. In fact, this kind of curricular innovation builds out the career pathway to the next level of education. For instance, a networking program at Seminole State College in Florida and a computer science program at Renton Technical Institute in Washington create pathways to bachelor’s degrees for students in their certificate and associate programs. State policymakers should consider how these reforms can strengthen and redefine the baccalaureate degree at community colleges, making it more achievable for students from different backgrounds. These initiatives could even teach the state’s four-year colleges about innovative degree design.

Community colleges with four-year programs should monitor graduates’ outcomes to ensure the program is meeting its goals. Colleges can survey graduates, but response rates make it difficult or sometimes impossible to get a clear and unbiased picture of graduate outcomes. Getting data from the state unemployment insurance system, while it will miss some categories of workers, is useful to gauge program performance. However, these data have proven difficult for colleges to access.

State policy should allow colleges to tap into longitudinal data on employment and wages in fields with active community college bachelor's degrees to ensure programs are in tune with the local labor market and graduates are faring well. Furthermore, community colleges should be able to compare their four-year graduates’ employment and wage data with that of associate degree graduates and comparable university bachelor’s degree graduates to contextualize the outcomes. Agencies managing education and workforce data should be empowered to partner with colleges to conduct these analyses. More generally, state agencies should monitor and report on these outcomes to ensure programs are meeting the state’s goals and to inform policy around community college bachelor’s degrees.

State policy should be clear that eligible students who enter baccalaureate programs at community colleges can receive state aid, even if they have already earned an associate degree prior to enrollment. Students should be eligible for both higher education and workforce-focused financial aid until they earn a bachelor’s degree, rather than limiting aid to their first degree. Particularly on the workforce side, tuition support resources may not have been developed with applied baccalaureate degrees in mind. Existing and future financial aid policy should recognize that sometimes bachelor’s degrees are not standalone programs, but rather a sequence of two degrees, each valuable and each meriting financial aid resources for students with demonstrated need.