BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 386
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Date of Hearing: April 23, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Das Williams, Chair
AB 386 (Levine) - As Amended: April 15, 2013
SUBJECT : Public postsecondary education: cross-enrollment:
online education at the California State University.
SUMMARY : Expresses the intent of the Legislature that by the
beginning of the 2015-16 academic year, students enrolled at the
California State University (CSU) be provided an opportunity to
enroll in online courses available at other CSU campuses,
authorizes any CSU student enrolled at a CSU campus to enroll in
an online course provided by another CSU campus, and requires
the CSU Trustees, on or before January 1, 2015, to establish an
easily accessible online database of online courses available at
the CSU. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the CSU Trustees, on or before January, 1, 2015, to
establish the following:
a) An easily accessible online database of online courses
available at all CSU campuses in order to provide CSU
students with a streamlined process within the CSU system
to allow students to find and enroll in courses that will
earn them credit toward graduation, general education, and
major requirements; and,
b) Plans for an intrasystem cross-enrollment process to
expedite student learning that will be operational at the
beginning of the 2015-16 academic year.
2)Allows, by the beginning of the 2015-16 academic year, any
student enrolled in a CSU who meets the requirements of this
measure to enroll, without formal admission, and without
payment of additional tuition or fees, except specified, in a
course provided entirely online by another campus of the CSU
on a space-available basis.
3)Specifies that nonresident and international CSU students who
meet the conditions of this measure may also enroll in an
online course provided by another CSU campus and that they
shall pay their unit fees for the online course at the host
campus.
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4)Specifies that a student is qualified to participate in the
program established by this measure if he/she is enrolled in a
CSU campus and meets the following requirements:
a) The student has attained a grade point average of 2.0 on
a 4-point scale for work completed; and,
b) The student has paid appropriate tuition or fees, or
both, required by the home campus for full-time enrollment
for the academic term in which the student seeks to
cross-enroll and the student has no outstanding tuition or
fees owed to the home campus.
5)Specifies that the host campus may charge participating
students an administration fee and specific course-based fees,
not to exceed an amount sufficient for the campus to recover
administrative costs it incurs pursuant to this measure.
6)Requires the CSU Chancellor's Office to establish a convenient
online methodology so that students meeting the requirements
of this measure may do both of the following:
a) Be informed of the opportunity to access courses
provided entirely online by another CSU; and,
b) Simultaneously enroll in courses at their home campus
and enroll in courses provided entirely online at another
CSU campus, as provided for in this measure.
7)Stipulates that a matriculated CSU student will have priority
access to courses provided at his/her home campus, and a CSU
student, meeting the requirements of this measure, seeking to
enroll in courses provided entirely online by another CSU
campus shall be able to enroll.
8)Specifies that cross-enrollment students have an opportunity
to enroll in these online courses at any time after the
priority enrollment period for continuing students, as
determined by each host campus, and that the host campus
enrollment policy, to the extent possibly, shall encourage
cross-enrollment.
9)Stipulates that courses provided entirely online pursuant to
this measure shall be accepted for credit at the student's
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home campus on the same basis as it would be for a student
matriculated at the host campus.
10)Stipulates that the enrollment of a student at a host campus
pursuant to this measure may be counted in the calculation of
headcount or full-time equivalent student enrollment at the
host campus and that the home campus and the host campus at
which the student is cross-enrolled may count in the
calculation of headcount or full-time equivalent student
enrollment only those units for which the student is enrolled
at each respective campus.
11)Defines "Chancellor" to mean the Chancellor of the CSU; "CSU"
to mean the California State University; "Home campus" to mean
the CSU campus at which the student is matriculated; and,
"Host campus" to mean the campus to which the student seeks
access.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the California Distance Learning Policy, which
sets forth the guiding goals and principles for the
utilization of technology in California postsecondary
education (Education Code § 66940).
2)Establishes, until January 1, 2014, the California Virtual
Campus, under the stewardship of the CCC Board of Governors
and pursuant to annual Budget Act funding to, among other
things, enhance the awareness of, and access to, highly
engaging online courses of study, increase access to next
generation Internet services, 21st century workforce
development programs, and e-government services for students
and staff served or employed by education entities and
students served primarily online through partnerships with
public libraries and community-based organizations (EC §
78910.10).
3)Allows any student enrolled in any campus of the three public
segments who meet certain criteria, to enroll without formal
admission to any of the segments, with certain specified
conditions (EC § 66750 et seq.).
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : Background . According to the Legislative Analyst's
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Office (LAO) 2013-2014 Analysis of the Higher Education Budget,
distance learning offers numerous benefits. These include
providing greater access to educational and training
opportunities due to increased scheduling flexibility, as well
as allowing campuses to serve more students without needing
additional physical infrastructure.
According to the, LAO there is no common definition of distance
learning among California's public postsecondary institutions,
making it impossible for the Legislature and segments to measure
workload and track enrollment trends.
Governor Brown has encouraged the University of California (UC),
the CSU and the California Community Colleges (CCC) to expand
their online offerings. The 2013-2014 budget allocates $16.9
million to CCC and $10 million to both the UC and CSU systems
for online education.
Online education at the CSU . Launched in January 2013, CSU
Online is the newest platform of services that supports students
and faculty in teaching and learning through online programs.
CSU Online will host both graduate and undergraduate programs,
but has an initial focus on former students who have had to drop
out of the CSU and are looking to complete their degrees.
CSU at San Jose (SJSU) recently launched a joint pilot program,
partnering with Udacity (an independent online education company
and innovators of massive open online courses [MOOCs]) and EdX
(a nonprofit MOOCs provider). This joint pilot program creates
a major expansion of course offerings for students and plans to
expand its current enrollment of 300 students to 1,000. The
joint pilot program used three entry-level courses that
typically have high failure rates, intermediate algebra, college
algebra, and elementary statistics and currently has an 85%
retention rate.
Need for the bill . According to the author, while the CSU does
permit students to concurrently enroll in courses at campuses
other than their home campus, the option is severely
underutilized. According to the CSU, the average fall semester
enrollment in the last five years at the CSU system is 428,397
students (2007-2011). The fall of 2012 found that there were
less than 3,600 'transitory' students at the CSU. The
transitory definition includes, but is not limited to,
Intrasystem Concurrent Enrollment students.
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According to CSU Advocacy Office, each CSU campus currently
provides its students with an online registration portal that
allows students to easily enroll in courses provided at their
home campus, however, each portal currently operates as an
isolated entity and does not provide students the ability to
seek and enroll in online courses provided at other CSU
campuses.
The author states:
"This bill is addressing an issue with existing online
resources that the CSU has neglected to address.
Legislation is necessary to direct the CSU to take action
and establish an online accessibility point for students.
Additionally, absent a legislative change in statute, an
administrative change at the CSU could detract from the
CSU's current pace of developing online education; [my] AB
386 in conjunction with AB 387 will establish minimum
standards for online education at the CSU."
Suggested amendment . The measure states that the host campus
may charge participating students "an administration fee and
specific course based fees, not to exceed an amount sufficient
for the campus to recover administrative costs it incurs."
To ensure that students are not over charged an administration
fee, staff recommend the following amendment, The host campus
may charge participating students an a reasonable administration
fee and specific course-based fees, not to exceed an amount
sufficient for the campus to recover reasonable administrative
costs it incurs pursuant to this chapter.
Other measures to address online education . There are several
online education related measures pending Legislative action
this session:
1)AB 387 (Levine), which will be taken up today in the committee
hearing, would require the CSU to have a uniform definition of
online education, beginning January 1, 2017; would require the
CSU Trustees to report performance data about online education
to the Legislature every two years until 2021; would require,
in the development of new programs and instruction at each CSU
campus, that not less than 10% of new course offerings be
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online courses; and, would require the CSU Trustees, on or
before January 1, 2015, to report to the Legislature on the
feasibility of developing an accelerated bachelor's degree
completion program consisting of online courses, aimed at
students who started college, but never obtained a degree.
2)AB 895 (Rendon), which will be taken up today in the committee
hearing ,would establish the California Postsecondary Online
Education Task Force to evaluate and collect data on the
current status of postsecondary online education.
3)AB 944 (Nestande), which will be taken up today in the
committee hearing, would require the Trustees of the CSU and
the Board of Governors of CCC and request the Regents of the
UC, to report to the Legislature, by January 1, 2016, and
every two years thereafter, on workload and key performance
data on distance learning courses.
4)SB 520 (Steinberg), will be taken up on April 24, 2013, in the
Senate Education Committee, would, among other things, create
the California Online Student Access Platform under the joint
administration of the UC President, the Chancellor of the CSU,
and the CCC Chancellor, with the academic senates of the
respective segments, and would require the platform to provide
an efficient statewide mechanism for online course providers
to offer transferable courses for credit and to create a pool
of these online courses.
5)SB 547 (Block), which will be taken up on April 24, 2013, in
the Senate Education Committee, would, among other things,
require the academic senates of the UC, the CSU, and the CCC
to jointly develop and identify online courses that would be
made available to students of each of the three segments for
enrollment by the fall of 2014.
Prior legislation . AB 626 (Blumenfield, 2011), which remained
in this committee, would have established a definition for
"distance learning." AB 851 (Nestande, 2011), which was similar
in nature to AB 944 (as described above), failed passage in the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
AB 386
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Bay Area Council
California State Student Association
California State University
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960