In the northwest suburbs, there’s a storm brewing in higher education, with no less than the identity of the state’s community colleges at stake.

Officials at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, together with business leaders and some area politicians, are petitioning the state for a chance to meet a community demand for accessible, affordable four-year degrees.

And if the Harper College community gets its way, the school could begin offering two baccalaureate degrees on its campus in a matter of two years.

It’s a proposal that is now pitting the state’s colleges and universities against each other in a lightning-hot debate over funding, philosophy and function.

“Trends around country are leading community college to offer vocational bachelor’s degree programs,” said Phil Burdick, assistant vice president for legislative relations at Harper College. “Other states are starting to do this and having a lot of success.”

In fact, 12 other states have approved such measures in the past decade, many citing reasons of teacher shortages, nursing shortages and rural inaccessibility to four-year programs.

Harper argues that the need in its community college district is a workforce issue, and that a changing community could signal the need for changing the rules for a community college.

“The mission hasn’t changed. We’re still filling a workforce need,” said Burdick. “I mean, McDonald’s now offers chicken, but they still sell a heck of a lot of hamburgers.”

But other area educators say Harper’s claim of inaccessibility is flawed, that the Chicago area offers a wide array of collegiate choices—public and private—to serve the needs of those seeking four-year degrees. Community colleges, they say, should remain as they are, offering workforce development and two-year degrees as well as preparing students for transfer to four-year institutions.

The history

The Harper College request, House Bill 1434, got its start more than three years ago, when Harper officials conducted a survey in their district. The results showed that the community had need of accessible degrees in three areas—nursing, emergency management and technology management—according to Burdick.

But state law says community colleges in Illinois can only offer two-year degrees, so in order to fill the need, Harper began to look for partnering schools to offer the four-year completion programs on the Harper campus. Northern Illinois University stepped in and has begun to offer a bachelor of science in nursing in Palatine, filling that niche.

“It’s the best way to handle it,” said Burdick, adding that the universities can offer already accredited programs at the Harper campus with a quicker turnaround. “After the bill passed the House higher education committee, Northern said yes to nursing. If universities come in and meet our need, we don’t need to do it. There would be no reason.”

But despite NIU’s partnership for nursing, the other two remained unsupported.

“We asked nearby four-year universities if they could bring the programs onto our campuses...they said no,” said Burdick. “These are small niche programs. They are expensive to run and there are only a small amount of students. State universities simply don’t have the financial ability to meet the tiny workforce needs. We understand that. But it doesn’t solve the problem.”

So Harper officials decided to ask for an exception to the state’s community college parameters. They are seeking a pilot program of two bachelor degrees, so the state can “ease into it and feel it out,” said Burdick.

To date, Harper has received support from a variety of community members, police and firefighters, area hospitals and a lot of northwest suburban business leaders. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Mt. Prospect) but faces fierce opposition from nearly every four-year college in the state as well as from the Illinois Community College Board.

“The higher education system in Illinois is an intricate and delicate fabric,” said Benedictine University President Bill Carroll, who opposes Harper’s bill. “There’s a place for everybody. Community colleges have a wonderful niche. But if a two-year becomes a four year, then they are all going to go that way.

“Once this starts, no one is going to take a backseat. Somewhere down the road we will ask, “What happened to the community colleges?”

But Burdick contends that it’s not so much about niche, as it is about need.

“Most of our resistance has to do with turf rather than serving changing need. That’s been the frustration. But we’re not stealing any market,” he added. “These people aren’t going to any college, because the choices are inaccessible.

“The point is, there is unmet need in the marketplace,” said Burdick. “Somebody needs to step up and meet that need. The quickest, easiest and most efficient way is to have our four-year universities come here to our campus. But they are saying ‘No, we will not meet your need, but you can’t meet it either.’”

College of DuPage officials agree with Harper’s argument, and voted in April to support the Harper bill, despite opposition from their counterparts.

“We should be responding to community need,” said Chris Picard, vice president for academic affairs at COD. “I’m not sure that limiting us is responsive to the evolving community need. But it is what it is.”

Picard adds that while he supports the Harper College effort, that is not to say he wants drastic change in community colleges.

“I believe in the mission of the community college. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool community college advocate,” he said. “To start thinking of offering baccalaureate degrees of any kind, you would completely upset the balance at the community college. It would consume enormous amounts of resources, primarily from those people who no other college serves.

“Having said that, I do believe that we are well prepared to offer a baccalaureate degree in disciplines of career and technical education,” he said. “Where those career areas are starting to demand a baccalaureate, we are well prepared to offer them. It would be in our benefit to do that.”

Bill 1434 passed in the House last spring and is now in the Senate, with the next hearing this month.

“We’re just trying to get our community leaders to ask for support of local legislators,” said Burdick.

Emergency management/homeland security

The Harper degree program sought in emergency management would be aimed at police, fire and other emergency personnel. It would afford them the opportunity to complete a bachelor’s degree at a place and price that fit their schedule and salary.

“They have increased their requirements to need a bachelor degree. They were turning away applicants, and there were working firefighters who couldn’t be promoted,” Burdick said.

Further, he said, the greater Chicago area is not accessible to the Harper College community, at least not to those firefighters and police officers seeking a four-year degree.

“It’s not so much distance, but traffic. Because of the demands of their jobs, they don’t have the choices that others have. It’s just too difficult to drive an hour and a half each way to Chicago or Lisle to get their bachelor’s degree,” said Burdick.

“The other problem with the private institutions is that they would be priced out of the range of working adult students,” he said. “They can’t afford $20,000-30,000 tuition. We need a price of about $7,000-10,000.”

Those arguments have their troubles, said Carroll. He cites a homeland security program already in the works at Loyola University in Chicago. There’s also Benedictine’s own First Responders program, which offers emergency personnel a bachelor’s degree program onsite at local firehouses in Kane, Kendall and DuPage counties. It’s a program that could easily be adapted to the Palatine community, said Carroll, and tuition is free to boot.

“I offered to take the First Responders program to Harper,” said Carroll. “I did it through the legislature, but I got no response.”

However, he admits that a direct conversation would be a better approach than the Senate, and urged Burdick to consider it as well.

“There’s no conversation about the local opportunities,” said Carroll. “Maybe someone should call a meeting of all the area public and private presidents and figure this out.”

Burdick said he was unaware of Carroll’s offer to provide the First Responders program in Palatine, but worried about the longevity of a program supported by grant dollars, like Benedictine’s.

“It has to be an ongoing program, not one you cut from year to year because the numbers are down,” Burdick said. “You can’t have a sustainable program if it’s not offered every year.”

Technology management

On the side of technology management, the basis for need gets less specific. Burdick says the Harper survey and conversations within the business community showed a great need for professionals with technology management degrees to fill positions at medium and large companies currently within the district boundaries.

“Our property tax base is made up of homes and businesses, and its part of our mission to make sure our businesses remain competitive and stay in our area,” Burdick said. “We have to meet the business workforce needs. This need came out of the medium to larger businesses in our area—our biggest employers. For them, access to a highly trained workforce is key for them to stay in the community.”

COD’s Picard agreed. “Outreach to the employer and the business community is a part of our nature,” he said. “It’s a part of the air that we breathe.”

But throughout the northwest suburbs and down the I-88 corridor, technology programs abound. DeVry, IIT, National-Louis, Westwood College and many others offer programs in technology management, systems management, and similar offerings on main and satellite campuses across the suburban landscape.

Even NIU offers four-year degrees in technology and the management of technology, just 10 miles from Harper on its satellite campus in Hoffman Estates.

“I could understand if we were in Arizona and there was a mountain or a desert dividing us,” said Ann Kaplan, vice president for administration and university outreach. “But when the state university charged with taking care of this region offers the same program, where’s the need?”

In fact the program is offered on all the NIU campuses, in conjunction with nine area community colleges.

“That’s the reason we put them there, the reason the campuses were opened, to meet a great need across the suburban market,” she said.

The online option

Another player in the higher education game rarely mentioned in this debate is the online degree program. Giving people the option to complete degrees at home, in their free time, from colleges and universities across the country, online degrees dramatically increase the array of “accessible” programs.

Adult learners, the target of Harper’s initiative, represent the fastest growing population of online learners. Working parents, those in the military, business travelers and those with physical disabilities have all benefited from online degree options.

According to a report on online education in the Midwest by the Sloan Consortium, an association of online providers and educators, the region’s online students are predominantly undergraduates, many already students of associate-degree, or community colleges.

And degree programs in homeland security, emergency management and the management of technology are readily available not only from state schools and private universities, but also from online institutions such as DeVry, National Louis, Westwood College, Kaplan, Capella and even the American Military University.

Burdick said online education is tricky with the working class market.

“Working adults don’t do well online. They are not good online learners, typically.”

But NIU’s Kaplan couldn’t disagree more.

“Everything we have indicates that the ability to learn from home outside the classroom environment fits the needs of working adults,” she said. “In fact, for many, it is the classroom experience itself that becomes intimidating.”

An ongoing dilemma

There is no doubt that an ever-changing workplace will continue to put community colleges, four-year universities and even virtual colleges at odds with each other. But Burdick said it should always remain an issue of accessibility, and not ego.

“We have Ph.D. faculty. We have the facility. We should be able to meet this need ourselves,” Burdick said. “We simply want the latitude to meet the local needs. It’s local taxes that pay for community college programs. Ninety-four percent is tuition and local taxes. And who knows best how to meet the needs of the community?”

What the future holds for Harper is unclear. Hearings are scheduled for May and if approved, programs could begin in as few as 18 months. Other community colleges are waiting to see what happens.

“Whether or not Harper prevails, I believe there will be further pressure on community colleges to offer these degrees,” said COD’s Picard, who cited construction management as another degree on the horizon.

“In construction management, if you really want to move up, you’re not going to do that without a B.S., and right now the only one is at Illinois State.”

COD is working to build a partnership with ISU to offer those classes on its Glen Ellyn campus.

“We’re fortunate, but I can’t guarantee that will happen in the future,” Picard said. “There has to be a sense of mutual need if we are going to be truly responsive.”