Daily Herald opinion: Meeting a local jobs need: Select four-year degrees could be win-win for employers, students

Are Illinois’ 39 community colleges hiding in the bushes hoping to jump out and snag students who would otherwise attend one of the state’s 12 public universities?

Not likely.

But it is true that giving community colleges the ability to offer four-year baccalaureate degrees in limited, rigidly defined subject areas could provide the opportunity for more students to get them — and thereby help to fill needed labor roles in their communities.

For that reason, legislation languishing in the state House Rules Committee deserves more attention and serious consideration by Illinois lawmakers.

A bill proposed by Northbrook Democrat Tracy Katz Muhl and cosponsored by more than 50 legislators from both parties would allow community colleges to offer baccalaureate-degree programs in certain subject areas if they show “unmet workforce needs” in their region, meet certain tuition limits and demonstrate “the expertise, resources, and student interest” to warrant them.

Community colleges would have to show that their programs do not duplicate offerings at four-year universities in their region and would have to provide the state Board of Higher Education regular updates on the progress of any approved program.

“This is not an attempt for community colleges to become four-year institutions and offer psychology or humanities bachelor’s degrees,” Harper College President Avis Proctor told our editorial board in a recent interview. “This is really tied to workforce needs, such as nursing, manufacturing and early child education.”

Proctor has long been an advocate for strategic baccalaureate degrees for community colleges. She oversaw such a program in Florida before taking the reins at Harper, and points to success there and in 23 other states. Her interest is shared by Gov. JB Pritzker, who praised the idea in his February State of the State address as “a consumer driven, student-centered proposal that will help fill the needs of regional employers in high-need sectors and create a pathway to stable, quality jobs for more Illinoisans.”

Illinois’ four-year institutions are not convinced, and Katz Muhl’s bill stalled in March when it couldn’t get a vote in the House Higher Education Committee. But hope remains their reservations can be addressed — and even they acknowledge that they are not closed to the idea.

“We are encouraged by negotiations and remain committed to working collaboratively to build a higher education ecosystem that serves all of our students and employers,” read a statement issued by a coalition of presidents from several public and private universities.

Harper Trustee Bill Kelley, who has been a leading advocate for community college baccalaureate degrees since he joined the board in 2003, emphasized their value under the right circumstances.

“There’s so many of our students who need to stay in their community, cannot afford to go elsewhere, and oftentimes their only real opportunity is to go to proprietary institutions at a significantly greater cost and run up a significant amount of student loan debt,” he told us.

He and Proctor cited a Florida study showing that public universities did not lose students to community colleges with four-year degrees but for-profit colleges did. Such indications both validate the need for such programs and bolster the opportunities to make locally needed degrees more accessible and affordable.

Various lawmakers and the governor’s office, too, have said the legislation still could be revived before the session adjourns at the end of this month. We hope it is.