UCAT seeks real degrees, will this sink UVSC trades?

Once again top administrators at the Utah College of Applied Technology (UCAT) are asking the state legislature's higher ed committee to consider giveing them the ability to grant credit-bearing trades degrees, and thus be able to offer more applied associate degrees.

UCAT campuses seek degrees with credit
Higher-ed official says that would create overlap with what is already being offered (Slat Lake Tribune, May 20 2008)

Last summer the state's Board of Regents rejected a UCAT proposal to grant such degrees citing the fact that the system's eight campuses don't offer transferable credits. Now UCAT is asking the Higher Education and Applied Technology Governance Committee to circumvent the Regents decision.

This of course does not sit well with interim Regent chief David Buhler, who fears that a credit-bearing UCAT would compete with the state's traditional schools. Of course UVSC would be at the top of that list. For the past several years UVSC has lost market share as more and more Utah County trades students have chosen to get training at Mountainlands Applied Technology Center (MATC) located just across the street. If MATC started offering the same degree programs it would not be long before trades at UVSC would go the way of the Dodo.