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[aandsdean]

I would have liked to have responded to ideagirl, whom I respect greatly, but I just haven't had a chance.

Its not like a person in your current job is unusually busy this time of year or anything... - DvF

Nah, I'm a person of leisure.

[doctor_torrseal]

It's less than that, actually:

"Nearly 80 percent of America’s post-secondary students attend non-selective four-year and community colleges, and less than half of those students graduate."  Source: Bad Preparation Puts Community College Students at Risk. Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2005.

So, less than 50% of the 80% of students attending non-selective four-year schools graduate at all. 

No, that less than 50% includes students at community colleges - "non-selective four-year and community colleges" in the original quote.  The article goes on to say that "44% of undergrads in America attend community colleges."

So something like 20% of undergrads are at selective 4-years, about 36% are at non-selective 4-years, and 44% are at community colleges.  Less than 50% of the latter two categories combined graduate.  I would not be surprised if the 4-year graduation rate is higher than the CC grad rate, given the different populations of students, but I don't know.  Articles like this also often don't make clear if they're talking about full-time students or all students.

[finallyfullprof]

2. Setting up such a program would go a very long way towards diminishing institutional distinctiveness, for doing it on a large scale would essentially result in a universal core curriculum.

Why would it have such an effect? Schools recognize each other's BA/BS degrees, and that hasn't created anything like a core BA/BS curriculum. Community colleges all grant AA/AS degrees, and that hasn't created anything like a core curriculum. So why would such an effect materialize if four-year schools granted AA/AS degrees?

Again, this is going to vary by state, but several states DO have a standardized core curriculum for all intents and purposes.  Associate degrees intended to result in transfer to a four-year school are limited in the number of credits they can require because universities won't take more than a certain number in transfer. When my department designed its AA in English, we had grand ideas about requiring certain courses that we thought would be beneficial to those planning a four-year degree. The committee working on the project learned pretty quickly that they had extremely limited options in terms of specifying coursework because the core is set, as is the maximum number of hours. If four-year schools granted associate's degrees, they would essentially be duplicating the services of CCs in my state.

Now on the other hand, a new trend we are seeing is the addition of four-year BAAS degrees at the CC level.  This is an area most universities won't touch because they don't have the personnel to handle the curriculum.  My CC does not have one of these yet, but I think we are headed in that direction in our protective services department. One of our sister CCs in the district has put in an application to do one in either hospitality management or culinary services.