UDC Is a School to Retool

Because of this lack of scale and focus, UDC can't be cost-effective. With an operating budget of about $125 million this year -- including $64 million in taxpayer funds -- and the equivalent of 3,300 full-time students, that works out to more than $37,000 per student. At that price, the District would be better off paying Maryland and Virginia to educate its college-ready students rather than doing it itself.

This is not to say there aren't some effective teachers and lots of hardworking students doing some great things at UDC. There are. But that's not the issue. The issue is: What is the best use of $125 million a year to upgrade the skills of the greatest number of District residents in a way that improves their economic condition while providing the skilled employees needed by the regional economy?

This is about to become a topic of active discussion in the city. Although he is busy enough with reform of the public schools, Mayor Adrian Fenty is interested in moving UDC in a new direction, as is the UDC board of trustees, which is in the process of negotiating a new contract with the faculty and picking yet another president. Alice Rivlin and her colleagues at the Brookings Institution are about to publish a paper laying out three options for creating a community college in the District. And Southeastern University -- arguably the city's leading private community college -- is considering whether to merge with another institution.

In the end, I suspect UDC may wind up as the administrative and political umbrella for a collection of programs aimed at training workers for specific industries -- a teachers college, a school of nursing and health sciences, a technology campus and so forth. Each would have its own campus, its own faculty and its own advisory board drawn from local employers. Programs would be designed as much around internships, apprenticeships and computer-based learning as around traditional classroom instruction.

They'll still call it a university, and it may confer some bachelor's degrees. But it will be the community college the District has always needed.

Steven Pearlstein will host a Web discussion today at 11 a.m. athttp://washingtonpost.com. He can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com.