Community colleges will be able to grant more bachelor's degrees under law signed by Newsom

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Set us as preferred California community colleges will be able to offer bachelor’s degrees that duplicate programs at California State University and University of California schools, clearing the way for the biggest change in decades to degree-granting authority at the state’s public university systems, under legislation approved Friday by Gov.Gavin Newsom.The pair of bills scraps the state’s ban on community colleges offering any bachelor’s degree already available at CSU or UC, and replaces it with a system built around regional workforce needs and a district college’s performance.

They cleared the legislature earlier this month after CSU and UC withdrew objections.Newsom signed the bills without comment.The laws will take effect Jan.

1, 2028.Chancellor Sonya Christian, who leads the community college system, had come out against the two related bills in the final days of the session.She said the versions lawmakers passed — and Newsom has approved — could create “more barriers” than currently exist for community colleges moving to provide new degree programs.Christian explained her position in an Aug.

29 letter telling the author of SB 960, Sen.Christopher Cabaldon (D-West Sacramento), that last-minute amendments moved the measure away from what community colleges had originally backed.

The related bill, AB 2694, was written by Assemblymembers David A.Alvarez (D-San Diego) and Blanca Pacheco (D-Downey).

Christian singled out a detailed five-tier system that would set how many degrees a community college district can offer based on how its student outcomes compare with every other district in the state.A district could improve and still be capped, or see its eligibility shift “simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.Rural and single-college districts, she said, could be hit the wor...