Free community college for everyone? We can all be Aric Hall!

[Christopher]

Our CC's did away with the traditional Liberal Arts degree. The Liberal Arts like you see at one of the big three. Our CC required 60 units of credit, all the GE's met, and something like 18 credits from various of areas but the list was VERY LIMITED on what classes you can take from those areas and the ones listed to take were in the 250 ranges like "Soc 290: Whatever it was" . It was intended to get an AA in Liberal Arts so you can transfer to a University to take a major and be right at the 300 level, or just stop and pick a major later. Now they did away with that. They have four different "General Studies" plans now. You can get an AA in General Studies in Social and Behavior Sciences or an AA in General Studies in Natural Sciences and two other ones. The class list of options is pretty much every class in that section and you can fill it up with just 100 level classes if you want. Since all four in some way cross each other, one can get three AA: GS degrees. It's kind of weird. I'm not sure I totally like it.

CC's are also great for people that aren't sure what they want or want to test a major first. I rather lose a $1,000 on a semester of classes at a CC and say "Frack, this Art History major sucks, I'm not going anywhere with it. I'm changing majors next semester" than to say "Frack, this Art History major sucks, I just wasted $15,000.00 of tuition at this University for nothing and stuck with this major now since I already blew $15k on it." CC is a great way to test the waters of a major. It's probably why our CC's have really no restriction on major changes. You can change your major six times in a semester if you like and they really dont care. At Cal State University I think its three times if you change it you're place on academic probation.

AA's make great companions to BA's. We look for it at the school district I work in. If we have an admin assistant job opening and we get sixteen people applying with "BA in Business Administration" and one with "BA: Business Administration, AA: Accounting" that the person with with the AA: Account has the best chance of getting hired because he/she has an added trait of taking specific accounting classes on top of his buisness admin courses, especially if it's the payroll department that's hiring.

I personally think CC should have a unique place in society, and their focus should be on what 4 year institutions don't do. CC should focus on educating future paralegals, dental assistants, master auto technicians, administrative assistants etc. The vast majority of the general requirements to graduate with an AA/AS should be the bare minimum standards to graduate HS, IMO. To be honest I'm not even convinced on the merits of an AA/AS degree outside of those types of specialized fields. Yes, we've all seen the numbers on the lifetime earning power between BA vs. AA vs HS Diploma, and AA/AS definitely beats out HS Diploma; but I can't really comprehend what a person with just an AA in History or Sociology (just to name a few) would do long term career wise.