BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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Date of Hearing: June 21, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Jose Medina, Chair
ACR 158
(Holden) - As Introduced March 29, 2016
SUBJECT: Postsecondary education: transfers.
SUMMARY: Encourages the Academic Senates of the University of
California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and the
California Community Colleges (CCC) to expedite their current
efforts to streamline the transfer process and ensure that all
general education credits can transfer between the UC, CSU, and
the CCC systems. Specifically, this bill:
1)Makes numerous declarations and findings, including, among
others:
a) All students deserve the right to choose an educational
institution that best fits their needs;
b) Students should be able to transfer as their
circumstances change throughout their educational
experience;
c) Students should be given clear and concise information
on how to transfer and how their credits will transfer;
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d) The UC and the CSU educational systems should have
articulation agreements with each other so students
transferring from campus to campus or across the systems
should not incur additional expenses or time to retake
classes previously taken at another UC or CSU campus;
e) Special attention should be given to ensure Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classes
transfer across California's public postsecondary
educational institutions; and,
f) Transferring within the University of California and the
California State University educational systems should be
seamless for students and not require students to retake
courses.
2)Recognizes the necessity for a more cohesive, robust, and fair
articulation process across the UC, CSU, and CCC educational
systems so students are not unduly burdened while trying to
transfer and are able to graduate in a timely manner.
3)Encourages the Academic Senates of the UC, CSU and CCC to
accelerate their current efforts to streamline the transfer
process and ensure that all general education credits can
transfer between the UC, CSU, and CCC educational systems.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires each department school and major of the UC and CSU to
establish discipline specific articulation and transfer
program agreements for majors with lower division
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prerequisites and establishes a number of related reporting
and other requirements (Education Code (EC) Sections 66740,
66741, 66742).
2)Requires a CCC district to develop and grant a transfer
associate degree that deems the student eligible for transfer
into the CSU, when the student meets specified course
requirements (EC Section 66746).
3)Requires the CSU to guarantee admission with junior status to
any CCC student who meets specified requirements, but provides
that the student is not guaranteed admission for specific
majors or campuses. However, the CSU is required to grant a
student priority admission to his or her local CSU campus and
to a program or major that is similar to his or her community
college major or area of emphasis, as determined by the CSU
campus to which the student is admitted. Students that
utilize the associate transfer degree process are required to
receive priority over all other community college transfer
students, except for community college students who have
entered into a transfer agreement between a community college
and the California State University prior to the fall term of
the 2012-13 academic year (EC Section 66747).
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: Background. A constituent of the author, after
completing three semesters at one CSU decided to change majors
and sought to transfer to another CSU campus that offers the new
major. During the transfer process, only three of the
constituent's classes transferred. The constituent had to
enroll in a CCC, which accepted his credits from the initial CSU
campus, and continues to seek ways as to how to allow all of the
credits to be accepted at the new CSU.
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According to the CSU, the constituent's case will soon have an
appeal hearing. At this time, no additional information is
available.
Purpose for this measure. According to the author, "This
resolution is seeking to streamline the student credit transfer
process from and across University of California campuses and
California State Universities. AB 2303 from 2010 Requires UC,
CSU, and CCC to develop an intersegmental common core transfer
curriculum in major preparation courses in which the major
preparation common core curriculum shall be the same for all
transfer students, regardless of the public four-year
institution or the campus to which the student transfers, yet in
2016 this still is not happening. It appears that the Community
Colleges hold most of the articulation agreements and therefore
students need to go to a CCC in order to take advantage of
transferring credits in the most effective way. Community
Colleges are measured on their transfer rates of students who go
to UC and Cal States. California State Universities and
University of California do not have the same incentive to help
students transfer across or within their two systems."
UC and CSU transfer process. According to the UC Academic
Senate Regulation, Chapter 6, any student may be transferred
from one college or school of the UC to another upon approve of
the dean or other responsible officer or committee of the
college or school to which admission is sought. Additionally,
all UC course credit earned on a main campus is transferable to
a sister campus.
According to the CSU, courses that are considered
university-level at one CSU main campus will transfer that way
to any CSU campus. That is to say, if the course is not a
remedial course (mathematics or English), then the course will
transfer to the other CSU campus at the very least as general,
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transferable units. To note, if the courses taken were approved
general education courses at the CSU where they were taken, then
they will be counted as general education courses at the other
CSU campuses (via reciprocity agreements). However, if there is
formal articulation between two campuses for the exact courses a
student took at the first CSU campus, then the courses will
transfer to the second CSU campus as specific courses.
Additionally, according to the CSU, there may not be a large
number of articulated courses between CSU campuses due to the
articulation workload being focused on the 113 community
colleges and CCC students being the majority of transfer
students.
Committee consideration. The Legislature made improving the
transfer pathways for CCC students to the UC and CSU a
legislative priority when it passed key pieces of legislation in
order to streamline the process and enable greater ability for
CCC students to transfer (see "Existing Law" section of this
analysis). The Committee may wish to consider whether or not it
is feasible or a legislative priority to encourage the UC and
CSU to now have to expedite creating articulation agreements for
students seeking to transfer from campus to campus within the UC
and CSU while they are still working to continue to improve and
create more articulation agreements for CCC students.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file.
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Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960