BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2137|
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CONSENT
Bill No: AB 2137
Author: Santiago (D)
Amended: 5/27/16 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 9-0, 6/29/16
AYES: Liu, Block, Hancock, Huff, Leyva, Mendoza, Monning, Pan,
Vidak
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 6/1/16 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Postsecondary education: University of California:
student transfers
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requests the University of California (UC)
Regents to annually report from 2017-2022, as specified, on
California Community Colleges (CCC) transfer students admitted
to the UC.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Declares the Legislature's intent that the California State
University (CSU) and the UC, for purposes of enrollment
planning and admission priority practice at the undergraduate
level, prioritize CCC transfer students in an approved
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transfer agreement program, among others. (Education Code §
66202)
2)Requires the Board of Governors of the CCC, the UC Regents,
and the Trustees of the CSU, in consultation with their
respective Academic Senates, to jointly develop, maintain and
disseminate a common core curriculum in general education
course for the purposes of transfer, and establishes a variety
of related requirements. The UC is specifically requested to
establish articulation of major preparation courses, transfer
agreements, and transfer pathways. (EC § 66720-66722.5)
3)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
prerequisites and establishes a number of related reporting
and other requirements. (EC § 66740, et seq.)
4)Establishes the Student Transfer Achievement Reform (STAR) Act
under which CCC districts are required 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. In addition, the CSU is required to guarantee
admission with junior status to any community college 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 CSU prior to the fall term of the 2012-13 academic
year. (EC § 66745-66749.5)
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This bill:
1)Requires the Regents of the UC to annually report on CCC
transfer students admitted to the UC, as specified, beginning
no later than March 2017 and until March 2022. Specifically,
this bill:
a) Requires reporting on students who indicate on their
admission application that they received an Associate
Degree for Transfer (ADT) and who were admitted, broken
down by the UC campus. It requires that the UC report:
i) The number of these students along with their
average community college grade point average.
ii) The admissions and yield rate for these students.
iii) The number of these students who enrolled along
with their average community college grade point
average.
iv) The number of these students who graduated from
the UC within two or three years for the cohort
graduating in the year of each report.
b) Requires reporting on students who used the transfer
admission guarantee (TAG) and were granted admission to the
UC, broken down by UC campus. It requires that the UC
report:
i) The number of these students along with their
average community college grade point average.
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ii) The admissions and yield rate for these students.
iii) The number of these students who enrolled along with
their average community college grade point average.
iv) The number of these students who graduated from the
UC within two or three years for the cohort graduating in
the year of each report.
c) Requests, no later than March 1, 2019, that these annual
reports include information students who used a UC Transfer
Pathway and were granted admission to the UC, broken down
by UC campus. It requires that the UC report:
i) The number of these students along with their
average community college grade point average.
ii) The admissions and yield rate for these students.
iii) The number of these students who enrolled along with
their average community college grade point average.
iv) The number of these students who graduated from the
UC within two or three years for the cohort graduating in
the year of each report.
2)Requests, to the extent the information is available, that the
UC report each category outlined broken down by student
ethnicity.
3)Repeals these provisions on January 1, 2024.
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Comments
1)Need for the bill. According to the author, while good
progress on transfer has been made, the Legislature must
continue to monitor the UC to ensure a straightforward
transfer process is available to all students. This bill will
result in more information to help the Legislature track the
UC's efforts to strengthen and simplify transfer.
2)Clarification. This bill requires reporting on three distinct
pathways for admission to the UC as a transfer student. These
include the ADT, the Transfer Admissions Guarantee, and the UC
Transfer Pathways. The bill requires that the UC separately
report, for each of these, the number of students admitted and
enrolled, and their average GPAs, as well as the admission and
yield rates and the two or three years graduation rates for
each of these distinct transfer alternatives.
3)Related activity. In December 2013, the President of the UC
convened the Transfer Action Team (TAT) to review and
recommend strategies to strengthen and streamline transfer
between the CCCs and the UC. In May 2014, the TAT issued its
report, "Preparing California For Its Future: Enhancing
Community College Student Transfer to UC," which included
several recommendations, including, the need to streamline and
strengthen the UC transfer preparation process, the need for
UC to commit to working with CCC and CSU to jointly engage in
statewide strategic planning to improve the transfer pathway,
present a united voice for higher education in Sacramento and
with the California public, and increase the capacity of the
segments to accommodate students.
4)Transfer options.
a) Associate Degree for Transfer. SB 1440 (Padilla,
Chapter 428, Statutes of 2010) creates the STAR Act, which
requires community colleges to create two-year 60 unit ADTs
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that are fully transferable to CSU. Students who earn such
a degree are automatically eligible to transfer to the CSU
system as an upper-division student in a bachelor's degree
program. Though these students are not guaranteed
admission to a particular CSU campus or into a particular
degree program, the legislation gives them priority
admission to a CSU program that is "similar" to the
student's CCC major or area of emphasis, as determined by
the CSU campus to which the student is admitted. Once
admitted, these students need only complete two additional
years (an additional 60 units) of coursework to earn a
bachelor's degree.
AB 2302 (Fong, Chapter 427, Statutes of 2010) authorized
any community college student who met all the requirements
for transfer established by SB 1440 to request that the UC
guarantee admission with junior status and to request the
granting of priority admission to a program or major
similar to his or her community college major or area of
emphasis.
SB 440 (Padilla, Chapter 720, Statutes of 2013) expanded
the provisions of the STAR Act to require that CCCs create
ADTs in every major, and in areas of emphasis, and to
require that the CSU accept these degrees, and develop an
admissions redirection process for students who complete
these degrees but are denied admission to the CSU campus to
which they have applied. It also required the CCC and the
CSU to establish a student-centered communication and
marketing strategy to increase the visibility of the ADT
pathway, as specified.
b) UC Transfer Pathways. In July 2015, the UC announced
its Transfer Pathways which outlined a single set of
community college courses that prospective transfer
students can take to prepare for 10 different majors at any
of UC's nine undergraduate campuses. UC recently announced
that an additional 11 Transfer Pathways were finalized
providing academic roadmaps for the 21 most popular majors
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for transfer students. The Transfer Pathways cover
two-thirds of all transfer admissions applications UC
receives.
According to the UC, the Transfer Pathways are very similar
to the ADT. Both provide lists of courses that prepare
students for a major at UC or CSU. In general, the courses
expected in the ADTs and the UC pathways for the same major
are similar. In the sciences, however, the UC may require
more preparation than the ADTs.
c) Transfer admission guarantee. Six UC campuses (Davis,
Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz)
offer the TAG program for CCC students who meet specific
requirements. Students participating in TAG will receive
early review of their academic records, early admission
notification, and specific guidance about major preparation
and general education coursework.
5)Related report. The Campaign for College Opportunity recently
published a report, "Keeping the Promise: Going the Distance
in Transfer Reform" examining the implementation of the ADT
legislation. The report notes that of the approximately 2.3
million students enrolled in the CCCs system, only four
percent (96,000 students) transferred to a four-year
university in 2013-14. The report also noted the following:
a) Latinos are better represented in the ADT earner
population than they are in the general CSU transfer
population.
b) Ninety two percent of ADT earners in the CSU system
graduated or were still enrolled within two years after
enrolling.
c) ADT pathways are still not the primary transfer pathway
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in California, with only about eight percent of all CSU
transfer students holding an ADT in 2014-15.
d) Only 37 percent of ADT earners transferred to a CSU on
the guaranteed pathway.
e) Four CSU campuses enrolled 66 percent of all ADT
students.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified8/1/16)
Campaign for College Opportunity
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/1/16)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 6/1/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines,
Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson,
Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey,
Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes,
McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte,
O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
AB 2137
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Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting,
Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Cooper
Prepared by: Kathleen Chavira / ED. / (916) 651-4105
8/3/16 19:36:04
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