Throughout my business career, during my time as the community outreach director in the office of Arizona’s attorney general, and in my continued work in the nonprofit sector, I have had the honor and good fortune to be able to serve some of our state’s most vulnerable populations. I have learned that people in difficult situations often feel confined by what they see as a lack of options to better their circumstances. For many, the idea of going to college – any college – never even crosses their mind.
But in my work with children in the foster care system and in my advocacy for victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, I have seen firsthand how community colleges can open doors that were previously closed.
It made me an advocate for community colleges, and it’s one of the reasons I chose to seek a seat, and am now proud to serve, on the governing board of Maricopa Community Colleges. Our system, and the community college systems run by our dedicated and talented colleagues around the state, offers students access to education that leads to a whole world of choices they might not have believed possible.
It is also why I am concerned – personally and not speaking for the governing board – about a bill that is advancing through the Arizona legislature that would allow community colleges to offer four-year degrees in Arizona with no new funding, a lack of oversight and zero specificity of how this new era of higher education in our state would unfold.
There is little doubt that Arizona and Arizonans would benefit from a higher percentage of high school graduates attending and graduating from college. A recent report by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found a nearly 14% rate of return on the cost of college in the increase in earnings available to people with bachelor’s degrees, far better than a roughly 7% return on stocks and a 3% return on bonds. And a study by College Success Arizona estimates that increasing the state’s college attainment rate to 60% would pump $3.5 billion in personal income and tax revenue into the economy.
So, what’s wrong with creating more opportunities for Arizona’s students to get a four-year degree?
Nothing in theory. This legislation has been introduced with the best of intentions. But the devil, as always, is in the details, and the bill does not provide any.
There’s no reliable information on how much this will cost, and what kinds of financial mandates will be created for the state or the community college systems.
There’s also no evidence that allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees will be cheaper for students. Proponents of the legislation argue that because community college tuition costs about a quarter of tuition at one of Arizona’s three research universities, getting a four-year degree at community college will be a significant savings. But that analysis suggests nothing about the cost of adding upper level courses, which often require lab work, infrastructure and faculty the community colleges do not currently have. It’s not enough to hope that the current cost of a two-year education at community colleges will be the same when the systems start offering four-year degrees.
And there is no effort in the proposed legislation to tap the people most knowledgeable about higher education in our state — the leaders of our universities. Each of the three state universities has partnerships with community college systems in Arizona, resulting in thousands of four-year degrees granted to community college transfer students. Some relationships already offer four-year degrees on community college campuses, like Arizona State University’s alliance with Eastern Arizona College in Graham County, which offers ASU degrees in Thatcher, Arizona, at a reduced cost.
Unfortunately, this bill is simply not the right solution for the problems that we are facing. I think there is a better way.
I propose a more systematic approach to determining the right way to improve our educational outcomes in Arizona. We need a blue-ribbon commission to study increasing access to education for the most people at the most affordable cost. This should be done analytically, with an emphasis on expanding upon what is already working well for so many of our students.
The panel should seek guidance from a whole host of experts in our state, including representatives from Arizona’s business community, who are looking to hire more college graduates; representatives of the community colleges themselves; and experts at our universities, which have had such success improving student outcomes.
Arizona’s community colleges are excellent institutions and provide many of our citizens a much-needed pathway to improved outcomes in their lives. It’s not just the vulnerable populations I continue to serve – it’s everyone who has had the chance to benefit from our robust system of education. Before we create unintended consequences, let’s be thoughtful about our proposed solutions to provide quality education and determine what would actually be best for Arizona’s students.