MiraCosta College will be offering a four-year degree in biomanufacturing, one of fifteen community colleges across California that will be offering four-year Bachelor’s degrees in upcoming years for a tuition price of roughly $10,000. California is the 22nd state to offer four-year degrees at community colleges, and the new degrees will be beginning in fall of 2015 to fall of 2017 once details such as the application process are finalized.

Community colleges could only submit one degree for consideration, and Mira Costa chose biomanufacturing to take advantage of the numerous local jobs in the industry. “We have a lot of biotechnology companies in North County San Diego, and when we spoke to the local companies they said they really have a need for manufacturing technicians that have bachelor degrees, and no other college in the county is offering that,” said Cheryl Broom, MiraCosta’s marketing and communications director.

“It’s going prepare students for employment in the manufacturing section of the biotechnology industry, so it’s more of the technical side of biotechnology rather than the research and development,” said Broom.

The new degrees are required to be something that students can’t take at other local universities, and MiraCosta collaborated with surrounding colleges to make sure that there wasn’t any overlap, eventually settling on a bachelor of science in biomanufacturing.

Degrees that are being introduced at other colleges include dental hygiene, health information management, equine industry, mortuary science, and automotive technology. “They’re all different kind of work development degrees, so they’re linked to a specific career. They have a definite workforce slant, so you’d get a degree and you’d be able to get a job directly in that particular field,” Broom said.

“I think it’s going to be a huge advantage to come out of a college with a four year-degree. In a lot of these industries it is going to give a lot more flexibility to these graduates in terms of having an ultimate career path,” said Eric Neubauer, a teacher at MiraCosta and SDA. He believes that the new degrees may encourage more students to consider industrial degrees as well as this could allow more people who are currently working to be able to retrain.

“It’s another great way for students to get education in fields that will get them jobs, and it’s going to save students a lot of money,” said Broom. With the average cost of college at public and private universities continuing to rise, getting a full degree at a community college would save a substantial amount of money for students looking to complete their education.

“The cost is only going to be $10,000 to get a bachelor’s degree, and that cost can’t be beat,” Broom said.

The cost of a four-year degree at a UC school would be over $50,000, and over $20,000 at a California State University. The desire to give students an affordable degree of the same caliber was one of the motivations to offer four-year degrees at community colleges. “It’s just a great opportunity. As the Cal States and UC schools have gotten more expensive we’ve seen more students come to community college first, and I think offering bachelor degrees will just attract students even more,” Broom said.