CSUN Gives Working Students a Break : Finally, a special business degree program bolsters night and weekend class offerings

Two years ago, officials at Cal State Northridge believed that about 80% of their students held jobs and that many of them worked at least 40 hours a week. Some students were even holding down two jobs. For the students, that meant grand headaches in scheduling courses and negotiating crowded freeways to get to them.

At the time, officials felt that CSUN’s abysmal graduation rate was related to their students’ outside activities. Universities have to conform to students’ needs, and we suggested that far more could be done to make CSUN more friendly, convenient and accessible to older working students.

We suggested that CSUN hone its mission by finding a need--by finding a niche and filling it. Now, some two years and one major earthquake later, we’re starting to hear that kind of welcome news. Although this has been a long time coming.

THE NEED:

Community college students, having completed their associate business degree programs, faced serious sticker shock when it came to obtaining a four-year degree. Private colleges were the obvious option, at a price ranging from $6,000 to $18,000 a year. For too many junior college graduates, that was too far off the financial radar screen.

THE NICHE:

Was CSUN a cost-effective alternative? Of course not. Sure, it offered night business courses for the working student. But the scheduling was unpredictable, according to Times reporter John Chandler. And folks could not gain entrance to the courses they required. In short, CSUN night business offerings hardly met the needs of the students it could have been serving.

FILLING IT:

William Roberts, associate dean of CSUN’s School of Business Administration and Economics, says that his campus will offer a special business degree program this spring geared specifically toward graduating community college students.

Roberts says the program will allow working adults to complete the offering with the nighttime and Saturday classes they are accustomed to. In the Valley, Pierce College students and Mission College students are expected to be the main participants in the new program.

“One of the directions we want to move in is serving the population of full-time working students,” Roberts said. We trust that a few others on campus are doing the same thing for other fields of study.