Q&A

This is a business leadership degree for the AI era. It prepares students to lead, manage, and implement artificial intelligence within organizations, focusing on how people and AI systems work together to improve business performance, decision-making, and innovation.

Unlike traditional AI programs centered on model development, this degree is about applying AI in real organizations to run them better.

Graduates are prepared for high-demand business roles increasingly requiring AI fluency, including:

• Management Analyst
• Project Management Specialist
• Operations Manager
• Business intelligence or strategy roles
• AI implementation and change management roles

Labor market data show strong demand, with tens of thousands of annual openings statewide and employer preference for bachelor’s-level candidates.

This is an applied, business-focused degree designed around AI-enabled workforce roles. Students learn to use AI tools, interpret and apply data, design AI-supported workflows, evaluate ethical and business risks, and lead teams through AI adoption.

The program aligns directly with workforce demand for AI-capable business professionals who can bridge business and technology.

Most jobs using AI are not engineering jobs. AI skill demand is rapidly growing in marketing, operations, finance, management, and professional services. These roles require people who can translate AI into business value.

This degree fills the gap between AI system builders and traditional business graduates by preparing AI-enabled business leaders.

Employer data clearly show that 88% of relevant job postings with education requirements request a bachelor’s degree. These roles often involve decision-making, strategy, cross-functional leadership, business analysis, and implementation responsibility.

Employers increasingly expect both business knowledge and AI capability. This is the kind of above middle-skill workforce gap the CCCCO BDP framework is designed to address.

Many AI degrees focus on programming, machine learning, and model development and are housed in Computer Science or Engineering. This program focuses on business application, leadership, implementation, human-AI collaboration, ethics, and organizational impact.

This is a management plus AI degree: applied AI for business leadership.

AI adoption is accelerating, but organizations are still learning how to integrate it into operations, decision-making, and strategy. The biggest barrier is often talent: people who understand AI tools, can apply them to real business problems, and can lead change across organizations.

This degree directly addresses that gap by preparing graduates for AI-enabled decision-making and implementation in real organizations.

This degree is ideal for business majors who want future-ready skills, working professionals looking to upskill into AI-enabled roles, students interested in leadership, strategy, or entrepreneurship, and individuals who want to work with AI in organizations.

The junior and senior years at Fullerton College cost an estimated $6,280 in enrollment fees. For the same two years, CSU tuition is about $13,676 ($6,838 a year at 2026-2027 rates, before campus fees, housing, and parking), and UC systemwide charges are about $31,176 before housing. Students also stay close to home, keep their jobs, and continue with the same campus and counselors. See the full cost breakdown.

No. AI belongs in every discipline. This degree focuses on leading AI adoption in organizations; other disciplines can build their own AI programs, such as an AI studio animation program, as long as they do not duplicate this one. Fullerton College already offers a bachelor’s degree in Drone and Autonomous Systems, and this would be its second.

It is an applied business degree led by Business Management faculty, with partner courses taught across disciplines: Mathematics (MATH 320 F and MATH 321 F), Computer Information Systems (CIS 370 F), English (ENGL 301 F), and Philosophy (PHIL 361 F). All upper-division faculty meet master’s-level minimum qualifications.

Each upper-division course runs once a year for one cohort of up to 35 students. Once the junior and senior cohorts overlap, that is about 14 upper-division sections a year.

The courses are taught by faculty in the disciplines that own them (Business Management, Mathematics, Computer Information Systems, English, and Philosophy) through each department’s normal scheduling. Upper-division courses require a master’s degree in the discipline, so qualified full-time and part-time faculty can both teach them. No new full-time positions are planned at launch. As cohorts grow, departments may add part-time faculty for the new sections.

No changes to the course outline are needed. ENGL 301 F Technical Writing was written for any baccalaureate student: its prerequisite is admission into a baccalaureate degree program, and its content (audience analysis, reports, proposals, memos, ethics, and electronic documents) fits this degree as well as it fits the Drone and Autonomous Systems BS. The plan is to use the outline exactly as approved.

The ask is one section of ENGL 301 F a year for a cohort of up to 35 students, starting in Fall 2029, the first cohort’s senior year on the current pathway map. In the early years, when both programs are small, the English department may choose to combine Drone and Human-AI students in one section. Instructors can draw examples from business and AI settings as a teaching choice, without an outline change.

Not at first. Like the Drone and Autonomous Systems BS, the program will start small, so upper-division courses follow the program map: each course is offered in the term the cohort needs it, not every semester. Wider scheduling may follow as cohorts grow, which could take three to four years.

A central one. Counselors are often the first people to help a student see that a bachelor’s degree is possible, and this program depends on that guidance from the very first semester.

• Planning four years from day one. Counselors can build a single education plan that runs from the AI in Business AS through the bachelor’s degree, so students take the right general education and major courses with no lost units.
• One more option, not a replacement for transfer. Counselors help each student compare staying at Fullerton College with transferring to a CSU, UC, or private university, and choose the path that fits their goals, finances, and family.
• Continuity. Students keep the same campus and can keep working with counselors who already know them, which matters especially for first-generation students and working adults.
• Upper-division readiness. Counselors help students meet the lower-division requirements and milestones for admission to the upper division, and connect them with Financial Aid, the Career Center, and other support along the way.
• Career direction. Career counseling helps students connect the degree to roles such as management analyst, project manager, and operations manager, and to the capstone employer partnership.

The program will work with the Counseling department to shape the advising model, including whether a counseling liaison for the program would help, and Counseling’s input is welcome at every step.

Two. CSU systemwide tuition for 2026-2027 is $6,838 a year, which matches the $6,000 to $7,000 range often seen in CSU financial aid packages. Because the comparison is with the junior and senior years at Fullerton College (about $6,280 for both years), the site uses two years of CSU tuition: about $13,676. Campus fees, housing, and parking are additional. See the full cost breakdown.

Graduates learn to use AI while keeping human judgment, ethics, and accountability at the center of decisions. The curriculum teaches the California Community Colleges’ HUMANS principles for responsible AI as required content, not as a citation.

The Chancellor’s Office granted provisional approval on October 2, 2026, after faculty design, advisory board review, the Center of Excellence labor market endorsement, partner letters, and the Orange County Regional Consortium recommendation. Local review by the Curriculum Committee, Faculty Senate, and NOCCCD Board of Trustees comes next, with the first cohort planned for Fall 2028. See the timeline.

Fullerton College is already a leader in AI applied to business education and is one of the only colleges offering an AI Business associate degree. The proposed bachelor’s degree builds directly on that foundation and creates a complete associate-to-baccalaureate pathway, a key expectation in the BDP framework.

The college is also located in a region with strong AI investment, business activity, and workforce demand.

The program supports regional workforce needs for AI-enabled business talent, state goals for economic growth and workforce development, and employer demand for bachelor’s-level professionals in management, analytics, operations, and implementation roles.

The BDP application requires evidence of workforce demand, employer preference for bachelor’s degrees, higher wage outcomes, and student interest. This program is designed around those criteria.

The degree connects Vision 2030's goals for equity in access, success, and support with all three strategic directions: equitable baccalaureate attainment, equitable workforce and economic development, and generative AI and the future of learning.

More specifically, it can contribute to Vision 2030 Outcomes 1, 2, 3b, 4, and 5 covering access, completion, community college baccalaureate attainment, living-wage employment, and financial-aid support. It also directly aligns with Actions 6, 7, and 12 concerning baccalaureate expansion, workforce mobility, and GenAI literacy.

View the complete Vision 2030 crosswalk.

The May 2026 Orange County Center of Excellence assessment identified 15,835 annual openings across Los Angeles and Orange counties in the three target occupations: General and Operations Managers, Project Management Specialists, and Management Analysts.

The analysis also found 4,770 aligned California job postings. Among postings that listed an education requirement, 88% requested a bachelor's degree. Entry-level wages for the target occupations exceeded the single-adult living-wage benchmarks in both Orange and Los Angeles counties.

That quantitative evidence is reinforced by employer input, workforce-board support, and the Orange County Regional Consortium's recommendation. Review the labor market findings.

Most programs teach students how to build AI. This program teaches students how to lead with AI. That distinction is where the workforce gap exists.

Fullerton College submitted the complete Cycle 9 application in August 2026. On October 2, 2026, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office granted the degree provisional approval after it passed the program compliance and quality review.

The proposal is now in intersegmental consultation, where CSU, UC, and AICCU review it for duplication (October 2 – November 30). Full approval also requires ACCJC substantive change approval and Board of Governors approval. See the full timeline.

The application instructions warn against embedded links to external documents. Supporting evidence should be attached separately, generally as PDFs or the specified Word/PDF narrative files.

The submitted application includes employer and education-partner input, support letters, and joint support from the Anaheim, Orange County, and Santa Ana workforce boards. The Orange County Regional Consortium recommended the program on June 16, 2026.

Employer feedback and advisory participation remain welcome during review and implementation planning. Visit the Partners page.

The application includes a May-July 2026 survey of 25 current students and alumni. Among respondents, 76% were very or somewhat interested in the proposed degree, 56% said they would definitely or likely enroll, and 80% rated AI skills as important or extremely important to their careers.

The application projects an initial cohort of 25-35 students and 20-30 annual completers at full implementation. Review the student-interest findings.