Gov. Rick Scott’s $10,000 degree challenge to community colleges continues to gather more steam, with 11 additional colleges (including Miami Dade College) announcing on Monday that they would offer bachelor’s degree programs to some students that are priced at $10,000 or less.

The additional schools means all 23 Florida community colleges that issue bachelor’s degrees are now participating in the program.

Scott first began the initiative, which is modeled after a similar program in Texas, in November. Like in Texas, the program has been praised for drawing attention to college affordability, but criticized for benefitting only a small sliver of Florida’s college students, and doing little to address the overall root causes of rising college costs.

At Broward College, for example, only a handful of majors, such as supervision and management, will qualify. At Miami Dade College, all bachelor’s degree majors will be included, but only for full-time MDC students entering with a high school GPA of 3.0 or better (and who need no remedial classes), which will exclude most entering students.

-- MICHAEL VASQUEZ