Community-college students California will be able to fulfill some of their associate-degree requirements by taking single online courses from Kaplan University under an agreement announced today. Local community colleges will determine which online Kaplan courses meet their requirements. The state’s 110 community colleges have been hurt by steep cuts in state support, and they have been unable to accommodate the huge demand for college courses generated by the recession. For-profit colleges have stepped in to fill in some of the gaps.
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This is good news, in general. But .. the CA CC’s have a budget in the order of $4+B. It makes no sense why, with that kind of money to spend, that they don’t do all of the course development themselves, so that there is no excuse for not having the courses available to students when those course might be needed–no matter on what on-site/off-site campus students might be in need of such courses.The CA CC’s could, with intelligent management, downsize their teaching staff, and their need for capital improvements, but a significant amount–through distance learning delivery to the states CC students.
A 4 Billion dollar budget comes out to funding at approximately $127.06 per credit taught (based on total FTE of the system in 08-09). At between $60 and $80 per credit charged to the student, the CC system is essentially operating everything (facilities, teaching, admin, etc.) on $200 per semester unit taught. There isn’t a lot of money available to “develop their own courses”
another consideration is the benefit for rural community colleges. while CA has a 110 community colleges, not all located in major metropolitan areas thus the need for other creative teaching/learning options.