Last week, Arizona became the 24th state to allow community colleges to provide four-year bachelor’s degree programs. The State Legislature overwhelmingly supported the bill, voting 24 to 6 to adopt the legislation. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed the bill into law on May 4^th, promoting the rule as a critical pathway to “reskill and upskill Arizona’s workforce” in the face of a recovering economy from the COVID-19 pandemic.

District Boards within each county will determine if including these programs adequately reflect workforce need and student demand within their jurisdiction. The proposed programs also must prove that they are not duplicative of public universities within the same county. Within the first four years, community colleges in counties with more than 750,000 in population must cap their degrees at the baccalaureate level at 5 percent of all their offered programs. After those four years, they can offer up to 10 percent.

To keep prices down, baccalaureate-level courses at community colleges cannot be more than 150 percent higher than courses for two-year degree programs. Students will begin to enroll in these new four-year programs at local community colleges across the state by Fall 2023.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment in the U.S was at a 50-year low; in the midst of the pandemic, unemployment hit 14.7% in 2020, the highest since World War II. As companies begin to reopen and bring workers back into the office, it has become apparent that the labor market will forever be altered. The pandemic saw an increase in replacing workers with technology to maximize profits. This will only increase competition for jobs, regardless of the industry.

While education cannot guarantee a job, it has long been the unspoken first-step requirement for many industries. Arizona’s shift makes a four-year bachelor’s degree more accessible and affordable for both traditional or nontraditional college students and low-income students, especially if they’ve already at a community college. Taking away the requirement to switch to a more expensive four-year university helps to bring education to students.

In 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that not only does a higher degree increase an individual’s median usual weekly earnings, but it also decreases the overall unemployment rate of individuals with similar degrees. Individuals who earned a bachelor’s degree earned roughly $1,137 per week compared to those with an associate’s degree who earned $798 per week. Those holding an associate degree were more likely to be unemployed, with a 3.8% unemployment rate, compared to those with a bachelor’s degree, with a 2.8% unemployment rate.

Opponents of the bill, such as the Arizona Board of Regents which is the governing body of state public universities in the state, argued that the measure diminishes the traditional role of public universities and erodes the existing partnerships that exist between two-year and four-year institutions. They urged the status quo for students to follow more traditional ways to obtain a bachelor’s degree. In March, the Board questioned whether community colleges are the most effective way to increase and expand access to higher education.

Additionally, public universities have thirty days to respond to a community college’s proposed expanded courses, but the law “does not allow a public university to prevent a community college from offering a baccalaureate degree,” disabling any chance of veto power by the public universities. The legislation also does not mandate the two institutions to correspond with each other on these new community college programs, as long as the financial analysis completed by the district shows that there is demand and no exact duplication of courses.

Public universities across the nation have been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of them could recoup some of their lost income through virtual learning, many of their highest-paying students were shut out due to visa restrictions. International Students often have to pay the year’s full tuition up front, rather than in installments or through federal grants and scholarships. COVID-19 restrictions made it impossible for many prospective students to obtain the non-immigrant J-visa required for studying in the United States.

This setback has made international students either delay their studies or choose to pursue their higher education elsewhere altogether. The Institute of International Education found that the COVID-19 restrictions reduced international student enrollment in U.S. higher education institutions for the 2020 school year by 16% totally, and by 43% for all new international students

Arizona is not the first to pursue this expansion of four-year programs. Twenty-three other states across the nation have adopted this policy as far back as the early 1990s. The interim chancellor of the Maricopa Community College District applauds the legislation saying that if “everyone has an opportunity to pursue a four-year baccalaureate through an open-door institution” it should be celebrated across the nation.