image: Education professor Debra Bragg says that the applied baccalaureate degree is becoming a more popular option for students, especially for career-changing adult learners and first-generation college students, as states look for novel ways to improve access to higher education. view more
Credit: L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Applied baccalaureate degree programs at community colleges not only offer a path for non-traditional students to earn a bachelor's degree, but they also help state and local governments address shortages in the workforce, according to a University of Illinois expert who studies how first-generation college students use community colleges as a bridge to higher education.
Debra Bragg, a professor of educational organization and leadership and the director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at Illinois, says that the applied baccalaureate degree is becoming a more popular option for students, especially for career-changing adult learners and first-generation college students, as states look for novel ways to improve access to higher education.
"Applied baccalaureate degree programs at community colleges can be used by students looking for a career that is emerging, or for adults who have earned college credits in the past and are looking to re-enter college, often to advance their careers to a supervisory level," Bragg said.
An applied baccalaureate degree is a four-year bachelor's degree that's earned at both four- and two-year institutions of higher education such as a community or technical college; it counts technical and associate degree-level courses as credits toward a degree, something not all four-year universities do.
The subject matter of the degree usually focuses on applied academics or applied sciences and technologies in order to meet projected workforce needs in regions where workers are displaced by a crumbling manufacturing base, or by jobs that have been off-shored or outsourced.
Since 2000, the number of states awarding applied baccalaureate degrees has nearly doubled; today, 39 states offer the degree.
The most controversial aspect of applied baccalaureate degrees, according to Bragg, is that some are awarded by a community college. So far, only 10 states – Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia, New York and Hawaii – have community colleges that are authorized to pilot or award applied baccalaureate degrees, but Bragg anticipates that number will grow.
Earning an applied baccalaureate degree may provide a lifeline to underserved learners, including first-generation college students both young and old, and downsized workers who don't hold a college degree but may have an associate's degree, a technical certification, or a high school diploma, Bragg said.
"An applied baccalaureate degree represents a viable pathway for someone who previously hadn't thought about earning a bachelor's degree, but now sees it as a necessary step to getting and keeping a good job with benefits," she said. "In the industrial era, course work in technical fields was thought to be sufficient to enable graduates to secure lifetime employment, so the programs lacked content required for earning a traditional bachelor's degree. That's not the case, anymore. An applied baccalaureate represents a capstone to programs originally labeled terminal at the two-year level."
Even with the emergence of the applied baccalaureate degree programs nationally and the importance placed on re-training laid-off workers through community colleges in the Bush and Obama administrations, enrollment is still modest. And that's a troubling trend, according to Bragg, because it puts the long-term economic viability of the U.S. at risk.
"There's a very large pool of adults in the U.S. who don't have any college education, who haven't completed high school, or adults who have some college credit but have not earned any credentials," Bragg said. "Those adults are out in the workforce but they're not able to enter a high-paying career path, nor are they able to move up the ladder in their current jobs. In order to have an economic recovery, create more high-paying jobs and maintain our standard of living, we need a better-educated country. Better funding of our community colleges and increasing the number of applied baccalaureate programs can help to address our nation's critical workforce needs."
Bragg says the programs also suffer from a lack of funding.
"Whether you're a two-year or four-year institution, there's just not enough money at the state and federal level for higher education to go around," she said.
Insufficient funding for education is a familiar refrain, but Bragg says access to higher education is important not only during times of economic crisis, but also to prepare for the void left behind by the mass retirements of the baby boomer generation.
"With the impending exodus of the baby boomer generation from the workforce, there's going to be a tremendous brain-drain in both the private sector and at public institutions," Bragg said. "There are simply not enough adults with bachelor's degrees to replace that generation of workers."
Bragg and co-authors Barbara K. Townsend and Collin M. Ruud are the authors of "The Adult Learner and Applied Baccalaureate: Emerging Lessons for State and Local Implementation," a project funded by the Lumina Foundation for Education and part of ongoing research by the Office of Community College Research and Leadership at Illinois. Bragg is the director of the office.