Kaskaskia College President George Evans says the college has no immediate plans to offer four-year degrees under a new program unveiled by the Governor in his budget message last week.
Evans says at this point they would rather work with the four-year institutions where they have strong articulation agreements.
“We believe that we have strong enough relationships with our university partners that we can possibly work through some of those issues where individuals may not have to travel as much to a university and can potentially take some classes at KC, or hybrid online environments where we can transition them to a four-year degree with limited expense for travel and setting foot on those campuses.”
Evans notes with 80-percent of the KC student body working, travel to universities is a hurdle.
However, he’s not personally against the idea.
“As a member of the Illinois Community College Board, and also as an officer of the Executive Committee for Presidents, I support my peers in their pursuit in trying to realize this for some of their students,” Evans said. “Obviously there are some institutions that have indicated, with data to support them, that there is a need for this, and I will support them in that endeavor. Right now, I think KC is going to be in cheerleader mode.”
Evans was pleased to see the Governor not make any cuts to the Higher Education Budget with a large budget deficit looming. However, he feels in the future community colleges deserve a better allocation of funds due to the percentage of students they are serving.
