Lawmakers seek $2 million for diploma-and-degree program in Johnson County

Some Kansas lawmakers want $2 million for Johnson County Community College to create an accelerated degree program for high school students.

The two-year pilot program would allow high school students starting in their junior year to simultaneously earn their diplomas and college degrees in the high-demand fields of information technology and biosciences.

Those degree programs would be crafted with help from businesses to ensure that students can meet workplace demands.

The proposed Johnson County program was compared with the

Innovation Campus at the University of Central Missouri

. The program on the Warrensburg campus offers students accelerated degrees and internships in high-demand fields.

The goal of such programs is twofold: to better train students for the labor market and ensure good-paying jobs that will keep people from leaving the state.

“We think this has an opportunity to be a game changer in Kansas,” Joseph Sopcich, the president of Johnson County Community College, told the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Monday.

Sopcich there are 38,920 information technology jobs in Kansas City. About 1,100 of those jobs open yearly.

The $2 million — $500,000 this year and $1.5 million in 2015 — would fund the program for two years. No tuition would be charged for the program, although student fees could be assessed.

After two years, the private sector would pick up the tuition costs, lawmakers said.

While the legislation is intended to provide tuition for two- and four-year degrees, it was unclear Monday whether there would be any money after two years to pay for someone seeking a bachelor’s degree.

Many aspects of the program still need to be determined, such such as how students would be selected, what the curriculum would look like and the graduation requirements for the degree program.

Those details would be left up to a five-member advisory panel appointed by the JCCC president, superintendents from the participating school districts and the state Board of Regents. Two other members would come from the private sector.

Sen. Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, was one of the lawmakers who developed the legislation.

Denning said he thinks he has support to get the program passed and hopes it could be replicated for different high-demand fields in other parts of the state.

This story was originally published March 10, 2014 at 7:09 PM with the headline "Lawmakers seek $2 million for diploma-and-degree program in Johnson County."