Illustration by Holly Randall

Please get your priorities straight

A few weeks ago, it was environmentalists; now it's university administrators. It seems like everywhere you look, someone's too focused on his or her own little piece of the system to see the necessity of compromise and its benefit to the greater good.

On March 10, the Wildcat reported that there was a bill in the Arizona House of Representatives that would allow community colleges to issue four-year bachelor's degrees in fire science, law enforcement, nursing and teaching. The idea is to provide greater access to higher education for rural and low-income residents.

In a disappointing move, several universities, including the UA, have come out in opposition to the bill. They say it will not be cost-effective and that it changes the role of community colleges from offering career training to that of full universities.

Apparently, these people are spending too much time on their campuses. In the last few decades, a growing number of careers that previously required little or no higher education now have a bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement. How many times were you told as a kid that you need a college degree to have a good job? The fact is that the modern workplace has evolved to a point where a bachelor's degree is just as much career training as a high school diploma was 30 years ago.

Tim Belshe Columnist

The reason for the universities' opposition is pretty obvious. The bill will force them to compete for a relatively large block of students they previously had a monopoly over. Like Bill Gates trying to fend off an antitrust suit, they're worried that competition with the community colleges will further deplete their finances, making a bad fiscal situation worse.

That is the really disappointing part. The universities aren't opposing the bill because they think it's bad for the student or because they're concerned about the level of instruction the community colleges are able to provide. They're opposing it for no reason other than self-preservation.

Up until now, I've been able to keep a positive image of the powers that be around here. I know they're raising tuition and cutting programs, but at least I could tell myself that they probably had the students' best interests at heart. That is obviously no longer the case.

If the universities were really interested in improving the instruction they give students, they would be embracing this bill. Competition in a market always forces the supplier to be more efficient and provide its goods and services at a fair price. Up until now, we've trusted the Arizona Board of Regents to tell us what a fair price for a college education is. If this bill passes, we won't have to trust them; the market will tell us instead.

Obviously, we shouldn't leave something like education purely to the forces of a free market. But some of that influence will initiate a very productive, and enlightening, process for Arizona's universities.

Besides, this bill wouldn't let the community colleges give four-year degrees in everything, only the four previously mentioned subjects. The UA doesn't even offer a degree in fire science, so we'd only be competing with Pima Community College in three subjects. Considering that the UA offers more than 150 undergraduate degrees, the limited competition should have a relatively low impact on the university's finances.

As employees of the state's educational system, the universities' administrators should be making their decision based on what is best for the students of Arizona. This bill will make it possible for those who either cannot afford the cost of a university or live in rural areas to get the same education as others. That should be the first thought in the minds of all administrators in this state, whether at a university or a community college. University administrators need to figure out what their priorities are. Either they're more interested in the best interests of Arizonans or the prominence of their particular institutions.

Tim Belshe is a systems engineering junior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.