BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 1440
AUTHOR: Padilla
AMENDED: April 15, 2010
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 21, 2010
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act
KEY POLICY ISSUES
Should the state statutorily establish parameters for a
student to be eligible to transfer from the California
Community Colleges to the California State University?
What is necessary in a state mandated transfer framework to
ensure a clearer, transparent and more navigable transfer
process than what currently exists?
SUMMARY
This bill requires a California Community Colleges district
to grant an associate degree that deems the student
eligible for transfer into the California State University
(CSU), subject to specified requirements, requires the CSU
to guarantee admission with junior status to CCC students
meeting those requirements, and imposes specified
restrictions on CSU course requirements for these
"transfer" students.
BACKGROUND
Current law:
1) Requires the segments of higher education to develop
an intersegmental common core curriculum in general
education for the purpose of transfer. This common
core curriculum is known as the Intersegmental General
Education Transfer curriculum (IGETC). Any student
who completes the IGETC course pattern is deemed to
have completed the lower division coursework required
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for transfer to the University of California (UC) or
the CSU. (Education Code 66720)
2) Requests UC to identify commonalities and differences
in similar majors across all UC campuses and provide
CCC students with the information in at least the top
20 majors. (EC 66721.7)
3) Requires the Chancellor of CSU, in consultation with
the Academic Senate of the CSU, to establish specified
components necessary for a clear degree path for
transfer students, including specification of a
systemwide lower division transfer curriculum for each
high-demand baccalaureate major. (EC 66739.5)
4) Requires the CSU Chancellor's Office to implement
articulated nursing degree transfer pathways for
Associates Degree in Nursing (ADN) students at CCCs
seeking a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing (BSN) at CSU
prior to the 2012-13 academic year. (EC 89267.5)
5) Requires the governing board of each public
postsecondary education segment to be accountable for
the development and implementation of formal
systemwide articulation agreements and transfer
agreement programs, including those for general
education or a transfer core curriculum, and other
appropriate procedures to support and enhance the
transfer function. (EC 66738)
ANALYSIS
This bill establishes the Student Transfer Achievement
Reform Act. More specifically it:
1) Requires a community college district to grant an
associate degree to a student in his/her field of
study that deems the student eligible for transfer
into a CSU baccalaureate program. More specifically,
it:
a) Requires granting of this degree when a
student both:
i) Completes 60 semester
or 90 quarter units eligible for transfer to
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the CSU and that includes the CSU General
Education Breadth program or Intersegmental
General Education Transfer Curriculum, and a
minimum of 18 semester or 27 quarter units
in a major or area of emphasis, as
determined by the district.
ii) Obtains a minimum grade point
average of 2.0, except that a district may
require a higher grade point average and the
completion of specific prerequisite courses
for impacted programs or campuses.
b) Prohibits a CCC district from
imposing any additional requirements for a
student to be eligible for the associate degree
and subsequent admission to the CSU.
c) Prohibits the provisions of the
bill from precluding students assessed at below
collegiate level from acquiring remedial
noncollegiate level coursework in preparation for
obtaining the associate degree.
d) Prohibits remedial noncollegiate
level coursework from being counted as part of
the transferable units.
2) Requires the CSU to guarantee admission with junior
status to any community college student who meets the
CCC requirements for transfer as established by this
bill. Additionally it:
a) Prohibits the CSU from
guaranteeing these transfer students admission
for specific majors or campuses.
b) Requires the CSU to grant these
transfer students priority admission to a program
or major similar to their community college major
or area of emphasis.
c) Authorizes the CSU to require
these transfer students to take additional
courses except that they cannot be required to
take greater than 60 additional semester or 90
additional quarter units at the CSU for majors
requiring 120 semester or 180 quarter units.
d) Prohibits the CSU from requiring
these transfer students to repeat courses similar
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to those taken and counted towards their
associate degree.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to a recent report by the
Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy,
Crafting a Student-Centered Transfer Process in
California: Lessons from Other States, the
decentralized, segmental structure of California
higher education and the tradition of local faculty
autonomy have resulted in campus to campus rather than
system-wide course transferability agreements. The
report noted that in spite of existing and ongoing
efforts to improve the process transfer rates remain
low, students continue to take more units than are
needed at both the community college and university
level, and there is a lack of consistency in
lower-division major prerequisites and general
education patterns. Additionally, the potential
cost-efficiencies of completing lower division courses
in the lower-cost community college system are lost
when students transfer without completing a transfer
curriculum.
2) Author's amendments . Staff recommends the committee
adopt the following clarifying and correcting
amendments.
On page 5, delete "A" on line 19 and delete
lines 20-22 authorizing the CCC to impose higher
GPAs and course requirements.
On page 6 line 8, after the period insert
"Specified high unit majors shall be exempt from
this section upon agreement by the Chancellor's
of the California State University and the
California Community Colleges and the respective
academic senates" in order to ensure recognition
of enhanced requirements for impacted CSU
programs, but maintain the goal that course
requirements be consistent across CSU campuses.
Add an implementation date of fall academic
year 2011.
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1) Degree in statute ? Typically, degree content and
approval is governed by the Academic Senates. This
bill statutorily prescribes the content of a community
college degree that meets transfer eligibility
requirements. Placing degree content in statute would
inhibit the flexibility to modify these requirements,
as well as establish a precedent for superseding the
traditional role of faculty in this regard. Is this
appropriate? Should the bill instead prescribe the
maximum number of units for transfer purposes but
allow the degree content decisions to remain in the
hands of the faculty?
2) Existing articulation and transfer initiatives. In
addition to the statutory provisions noted in the
background of this analysis, there are currently
several existing and ongoing efforts to improve the
transfer process. These include:
In March 2009, the Chancellors of the three
segments of public postsecondary education
established the Community College Transfer Task
Force to improve transfer between the CCC and CSU
or UC and have made several recommendations to
improve the overall transfer function.
The Articulation System Stimulating
Interinstitutional Student Transfer (ASSIST) is
an online student transfer information system
that shows how course credits earned at one
public college or university can be applied when
transferred to another.
The CSU developed the Lower Division
Transfer Pattern (LDTP), which is intended to
provide community college students with a direct
path to a baccalaureate degree by identifying the
courses that will be accepted by all CSU campuses
offering the major for which the student is
preparing.
The California Articulation Number System
(CAN) is a "supplemental" common course numbering
system to help students and faculty identify
courses that are accepted for credit toward
fulfilling major preparation requirements at the
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CSU. CAN only applies to major requirements and
does not apply to general education requirements.
The Course Identification Numbering
System (C-ID), currently under development,
assigns a number to "significant" transfer
courses. Each number identifies a
lower-division, transferable course commonly
articulated between the CCC, CSU and UC. The
goal is to provide guidelines to students and
faculty who must identify which community college
courses best meet the expectations transfer
partners have for courses.
The Intersegmental Major Preparation
Articulated Curriculum (IMPAC) brought faculty in
certain disciplines from each segment together
regionally to discuss the lower division major
preparation course requirements for transfer.
1) Some lack of clarity . As noted in staff comment #4,
there are a number of agreements and efforts already
in place to facilitate transfer. What happens to
these and to any existing articulation agreements
between campuses? Are they superseded by this bill's
provisions? If not, have we relieved confusion or
simply added another layer?
While there is certainly a reason to offer terminal or
applied associate degrees that have no relationship to
transfer, does the degree authorized by this bill
replace, or co-exist with the academic associate
degree programs that would currently fulfill transfer
requirements? If they co-exist, what is the rationale
for offering, for example, an associate degree in
political science that meets only transfer
requirements and one that meets transfer and any
locally adopted requirements?
2) Who meets the 120/180 unit cap ? This bill applies its
provisions to CSU majors requiring 120 semester units
(equivalent to 180 quarter units). According to the
CSU, of its 1,043 baccalaureate degree programs, 79
percent require 120 units or less. The 21 percent that
exceed 120 units are in fields such as engineering,
computing, clinical sciences, journalism and the arts,
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as well as teacher preparation programs that integrate
both subject matter and professional preparation. CSU
Pomona and CSU San Luis Obispo each offer about 20
programs that exceed the unit cap, while CSU Fresno,
CSU Los Angeles, and CSU Northridge offer 10-15
programs that exceed the cap. The CSU also reports
that, whereas regulations previously mandated higher
units for certain programs, as of 2000-01, new
programs in these fields are subject to 120 unit
minimum and must justify any unit requirements above
120.
3) When is a guarantee not a guarantee ? This bill
requires that the CSU guarantee systemwide admission
with junior status to any community college student
meeting the requirements specified. It does not
guarantee the ability to transfer into a specific
major or campus. The committee may wish to consider
the following:
As a regional institution serving
non-traditional students who may not have the
flexibility to relocate, is admission for a San
Diego area student to a northern CSU campus a
real option? Why not guarantee admission or
priority for admission to the local CSU campus?
As amended per staff comment #2, high unit
majors can be excluded from the guarantee subject
to specified agreements. Given that flexibility,
why not guarantee admission to specific majors if
a student has completed the prerequisite
community college courses within the defined
transfer curriculum?
What constitutes "similar" majors and
coursework? Who will decide whether courses
completed at the CCC are "similar" to CSU course
requirements, what majors students can be
admitted to, and what additional coursework the
CSU can require?
Is the additional coursework that can be
added at the CSU authorized beyond the 120 total
units or within? Are all 60 units completed at
the CCC counted towards the 120 units required by
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the CSU? How do we ensure that the completion of
prerequisites to gain access to specific majors
or campuses is not ultimately shifted from the
CCC to the higher cost CSU?
1) Why only the CSU ? This bill establishes a framework
applicable only to transfer between the community
colleges and the CSU. Staff notes:
The CCC report that 99,583 students
transferred to four-year institutions (public,
private, in-state, and out-of-state) in 2008-09.
The CSU system enrolled 49,770 (50
percent) of these students.
The UC system enrolled 14,059 (14
percent) of these students.
According to the CSU, of the almost
58,000 undergraduate transfer students enrolled
in 2008-09, 86 percent came from the CCC.
While the bill's provisions do not apply to the UC
they do impact the vast majority of students
participating in the transfer process within
California's public postsecondary segments. However,
notwithstanding UC's constitutional autonomy, if the
transfer framework proposed in this bill is
successful, why shouldn't it apply to both our public
4-year systems?
1) Review and report . Staff recommends the bill be
amended to require the Legislative Analyst's Office to
review and report on outcomes as a result of the
implementation of the bill's provisions, to include,
but not be limited to, the effect on transfer rates,
units completed and time-to-degree, student
progression and completion, and other indicators of
success, within four years of its implementation. In
addition, the report should include recommendations
for statutory changes necessary to facilitate the goal
of a clear and transparent transfer process.
2) Similar legislation . AB 2302 (Fong, 2010) requires
the CCC and CSU chancellors and the UC President to
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jointly develop and implement a strategy for
increasing the number of students who successfully
transfer from a CCC to a CSU or UC campus, and
requires the strategy to include the development and
implementation of a transfer degree with specified
characteristics. AB 2302 is awaiting action in the
Assembly Higher Education Committee.
SUPPORT
Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges
California State University
California Teachers Association
Campaign for College Opportunity
Community College League of California
EdVoice
Hispanas Organized for Political Equality
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities
OPPOSITION
None received on this version.