State education officials are considering ditching a decade- old policy of putting poorly attended state college programs on a “discontinuance” list because most of those programs are in science, math and engineering.
“The policy tends to surface things we really can’t seriously consider eliminating,” said David Skaggs, Department of Higher Education executive director.
Among those often on the list, for example, are master’s degree programs in math and physics.
“The state’s and the country’s competitiveness is going to be determined by how well we train our young people in these key areas, which are the drivers of new products and services,” Skaggs said.
The Higher Education Department, formerly known as the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, annually develops a list of state university degree programs that attract just one to 10 students.
The state rarely discontinues a program without university approval, Skaggs said.
Still state staffers spend time updating the discontinuance policy list and tracking a university’s response – which is often to update programs to attract more students.
“At this point, this process, it seems to me it’s not worth the trouble,” Skaggs said.
One of the last programs to be cut was the physics masters program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, in 2000.
CU-Colorado Springs dean Tom Christensen said the university was not happy about the decision at that time, but it’s true that the program attracted few students.
Steve Roderick, vice president for academic affairs at Fort Lewis College, said his schools’ math program was on the list for several years.
“We can’t do without a math major,” Roderick said. “There is such shortage of math majors and the country needs all it can get.”
“Most of our math majors end up getting a teaching license,” Roderick said. “We have a shortage of math teachers in both high school and junior high. Should we chop out some more of them?”
Fort Lewis used an exemption – each school gets five – to fight the discontinuance and kept its program, Roderick said.
The higher education commission will consider discontinuance at its August meeting, said spokesman John Karakoulakis.
