Boosting Community College Services Is Goal

Idaho’s higher education system will put more emphasis on expanding community college services and use of technology under goals adopted Friday by the state Board of Education.

The system also will change from being driven primarily by the needs of education providers to those of students and other beneficiaries under priorities that will be incorporated in the board’s statewide strategic plan.

Board members, meeting Friday in Boise, heard recommendations from the presidents of Idaho’s colleges and universities on implementing a consultant’s report analyzing the roles and missions of their institutions.

Lewis-Clark State College President James Hottois, chairman of the Presidents’ Council, said the presidents agreed that themes cited in the consultant’s study boil down to providing Idaho residents with access to the educational services they need by putting greater emphasis on the community college function and through innovative use of instructional technology.

How to do that remains to be determined. But the presidents said it should involve additional state funding, or more likely reallocation of existing funds, and providing the colleges and universities with incentives to meet the new priorities.

Hottois said community college services are those at any school intended “to meet the post-secondary education needs of a well-defined, small geographic area.”

For four-year schools like the University of Idaho, that might mean admitting even students not considered likely to stay in school for a baccalaureate degree and providing for their vocational-technical or other educational needs.

But board members Jerry Hess of Nampa and Thomas Dillon of Caldwell suggested a geographic definition of community college might be too limiting, and might lead to regionalizing higher education decisions.