LOS ANGELES — California would allow private, online education companies to offer courses for credit at state colleges and universities, under a bill introduced Wednesday in the state Legislature.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who authored the amended SB 520, said that, if approved, the law would be the first of its kind in the nation and promises to reshape higher education.
The bill is designed to address a problem that has increasingly cropped up in recent years at the University of California, California State University and community colleges systems due to severe state funding cuts that have caused reductions in courses, faculty and admissions.
Gov. Jerry Brown has said online courses could be a cost-effective way to increase offerings and has called on the institutions to do more with technology.
Many students now cannot get the basic courses that they must take in order to graduate, causing delays in graduation and fewer seats available for new students. In 2012-13, 85 percent of state community colleges reported wait lists for fall courses with an average of 7,000 students.
At the University of California and Cal State systems, only 60 percent and 16 percent of students, respectively, graduate in four years. Access to key courses was a major factor in the time lag, Steinberg’s office said.
“No college student should be denied a college education because they could not get a seat in the course they needed to graduate,” Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, said at an online news conference.
