California Master Plan, and Why it should be revised

In 1960, the Plan was a recognized achievement in higher education policy. Most states and many nations copied it to some degree. It is still a required reading in higher education history and policy courses. It created three large public education systems with distinct missions: Community Colleges, the CSU, and the UC. The plan performed remarkably well, giving broad access while forcing the three systems to stay focused on their respective missions. Community colleges – for all programs below BA, CSU for bachelors’ and masters’ degrees, and UC for everything, including PhD level programming.

The plan has been changing gradually. Some community colleges were authorized to offer a limited number of bachelor’s degrees. CSU’s can now offer four doctoral degrees for practitioners (Ed D in Ed Leadership, DNP in Nursing, DPT Physical Therapy, and AUD in Audiology). Right now, 68 doctoral programs are offered by the CSU, including many joint programs with UC campuses. These recent shifts recognize the realities of the new knowledge-based economy. While in 1960, a tiny minority of workforce had doctoral degrees. In California now, almost half a million people have doctorate degrees. But per capita, the state lags behind 11 other states, including New Mexico and Rhode Island. Within CA, counties vary greatly by the percent of their doctorate-educated populations, From Modoc at .12% to Yolo at 5.12%.

I am not suggesting we need to churn out more and more doctoral graduates regardless of their employment prospects. It is easy to enter the race to the bottom if regulations are completely abandoned. Unfortunately, we know that free market competition does not work in education. If you deregulate higher ed, the Akerlof’s Lemon Law kicks in. At the same time, CSU should continue to expand its degree offerings for fields that we know are short of workers with advanced degrees, and therefore are guaranteed employment. I imagine some of the hard sciences and computer sciences are among them. I know for sure that mental health practitioners and their supervisors are on that list.  While UC had built am impressive range of research-focused PHD programs, those are not going to feed the labor market for practitioners with advanced degrees. It is time we recognize the trend at the State level, and make actual revisions to the Master plan, rather than keep authorizing one degree at a time. An amendment could be simple: CSU is authorized to offer doctoral degrees other than PHD. There is already a robust approval process all the way to the chancellors’ office to approve new degrees, including labor market analysis. I am just not sure it should take a new legislative action every time we do that.