Boggs worries about a trend he has noticed: community colleges morphing into four-year institutions. Recently, while phoning AACC member institutions who hadn't paid their membership dues, Boggs found some that weren't paying because they had become four-year institutions. Utah State Valley College, for example, was a community college until 1993, when it became a four-year institution. While Boggs said the trend is catching on more quickly in certain parts of the country, such as Florida and Utah, he's keeping close track of the movement everywhere.
Perez agreed that colleges independently offering bachelor's degrees could easily be lured onto the exclusively four-year path. But she said there is a simple way to make sure two-year colleges hold onto their identities: make them partner up with four-year schools if they want to offer baccalaureates. Such initiatives, she said, tackle two problems at once: preserving the two-year mission of the community college while answering the call for more access to bachelor's degrees.
"Why would I want to run a bachelor's degree program? That's not my business. I feel my duty is working with K-12, work-force training, certificate programs — not just universities. I want to stay in a community college while also helping bring access to a four-year degree. That's our business. That's what we do best," Perez says.
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