Employers in need of well-qualified college graduates or who are struggling to expand the diversity of their work forces should look to local community colleges, home of the new four-year degree.
Take Washington state.
Fifteen of the state’s 34 community and technical colleges now offer bachelor of applied science degrees. By 2017, that number will increase to 23 colleges. The goal? Help meet Washington’s ambitious goal for increasing the overall number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to 42,400 per year.
The rise of bachelor of applied science degrees, which blend general education with advanced, hands-on technical training, should catch the interest of Washington-based employers – from agile startups and established mid-sized companies, to globally-recognized corporations.
We’re talking about new, exceedingly diverse pipelines of local talent.
Green River College, for example, offers applied baccalaureate programs in software development, network administration and security, marketing and entrepreneurship, and aeronautical science, with forest resource management on the way, all of which target high-demand occupations in need of qualified college grads over the next 10 years.
Small class sizes, project-based learning opportunities, flexible day and evening schedules, user-friendly entry requirements, as well as an industry-low cost of attendance, make Green River a logical destination for diverse south end students.
And students are lining up.
Applied baccalaureate programs broaden access to four-year degrees. They don’t require students to relocate, uproot their families, or take on extravagant amounts of debt, and are therefore a magnet for the place-bound, for career changers, for low-income members of the community, for veterans, and under-represented minorities — the very same audiences, notably, that diversity initiatives from some of our region’s largest employers are aimed at.
In short, bachelor of applied science programs are where the diversity is.
Green River College is just one example. The reality is much, much bigger. Fifteen colleges offering applied baccalaureate degrees in 2015. Twenty-three colleges by 2017. With the goal of helping Washington state award 42,400 bachelor’s degrees per year.
And that’s just Washington. Twenty-one other states allow community colleges to award bachelor’s degrees and many administrators believe that number will grow. Thus, we’re experiencing a paradigm shift in higher education, with Washington’s community and technical colleges leading the way.
We’re creating the infrastructure needed to award more baccalaureates. Our programs produce well-rounded, job-ready graduates. And our students? They have diverse backgrounds, come from all walks of life, and aspire to build careers right here in Washington state.
With a decade of experience in higher education, Andy Orr serves as program manager for Green River College’s bachelor of applied science in software development. He writes on the intersection of education and technology, and can be reached at aorr@greenriver.edu.
