Now the state's eight UCAT campuses want a little credit, of the academic sort, in return.

UCAT has for years granted students noncredit certificate training and a few specialized associate of applied technology degrees in vocational trades. But it wasn't until UCAT's 2004 request for an additional associate of applied technology degree in apprenticeship trades was rejected by the Utah Board of Regents last summer that its quest for credit-bearing trade degrees gathered steam.

Regents said last summer that they declined to grant UCAT additional degree offerings because they carried no credit, could not be transferred out of state and doubted whether enough students were demanding them.

Frustrated with the Regents' response, UCAT Board of Trustees' chairman Don Ipson proposed last week to the legislative Higher Education and Applied Technology Governance Committee that UCAT have the power to authorize credit degrees to its regional campuses. UCAT officials felt the proposal would both placate Regents' concerns about approving non-credit degrees and help certain campuses meet employer demand for workers with specialized training. UCAT campuses at Ogden-Weber, Davis and Bridgerland have experienced the most employer demand for new degrees, Ipson said.

The proposal must meet legislative approval, and will be taken up again when the committee meets on May 27, but has already drawn disapproval from David Buhler, interim commissioner of Utah System of Higher Education. Buhler said the Legislature should study any move that would duplicate credit degrees already offered by community colleges in the state.

"This would have serious consequences," Buhler said. "It would be an enormous overlap of what is already available."

bfulton@sltrib.com