DETROIT
Michigan community colleges are challenging four-year universities for the right to offer bachelor’s degrees, and if they succeed, would join more than a dozen states across the country that already allow such degrees.
The move is being opposed by Michigan’s 15 public universities, which says it’s a clear case of the colleges overstepping their missions. The bill expected to get a hearing this fall would let community colleges offer some four-year degrees.
“They see it as an invasion of their turf,” said Michael Hansen, president of the 28-member Michigan Community College Association. “We’re not about taking fish out of their net. We’re about growing the net.”
President Barack Obama put community colleges front-and-center in his July 14 higher education policy speech at Macomb Community College in Warren, not far from America’s struggling auto capital. Macomb County is Michigan’s most populous county without a state university.
Obama announced a $12 billion proposal to increase community college graduates by 5 million by 2020. Community colleges now graduate about 1 million students a year. The president said the nation’s economic future depends on building a skilled work force.
