BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 1450
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|Author: |Glazer |
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|Version: |April 12, 2016 Hearing |
| |Date: April 20, 2016 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Kathleen Chavira |
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Subject: The California Promise
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California State University Board of
Trustees and the Community College Board of Governors to develop
and implement a program that authorizes a campus to enter into a
pledge with qualifying students, as defined, to support
completion of an associate degree within two years and a
baccalaureate degree within four years, and outlines the
requirements which may be included in such a program.
BACKGROUND
Current law established the Student Success Act, which applies
to all community college students, for the purpose of increasing
student access and success by providing effective core
matriculation services, including orientation, assessment and
placement, counseling and other education planning services and
academic interventions. Community colleges have the
responsibility to provide student services and support,
including orientation, assessment, counseling and education
planning, referral to specialized support services, and
evaluation of each student's progress and referral to
appropriate interventions. Students have the responsibility to
identify an academic and career goal, declare a specific course
of study, be diligent in class attendance and completion of
assigned coursework, and complete courses and maintain academic
progress toward an educational goal. (Education Code §
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78210-78219; 5 California Code of Regulations § 55500-55534)
Current law requires the California State University (CSU) and
each California Community College (CCC) district, and requests
the University of California (UC) to give priority for
registration for enrollment to any member or former member of
the Armed Forces, as defined, who is a resident of California
and who has received an honorable discharge, a general
discharge, or an other than honorable discharge for any academic
term attended at one of these institutions within four years of
leaving state or federal active duty, if the institution already
administers a priority enrollment system. Current law further
requires that the veteran use this benefit within 15 years of
leaving state or federal active duty and requires that these
students comply with student responsibilities established by the
Student Success Act of 2012. (Education Code § 66025.8)
Current law also requires the CSU and each CCC district, and
requests of the UC to grant priority enrollment, if the
institution already administers a priority enrollment system for
registration, to any current or former foster youth, and repeals
these provisions on January 1, 2017. (EC § 66025.9)
Existing law establishes the Community College Extended
Opportunity Program & Services (EOPS) to extend opportunities
for community college education to all who may profit regardless
of economic, social and educational status, and to encourage
local community colleges to identify students affected by
economic, language, and social disadvantages and encourage their
enrollment and achievement of their educational objectives and
goals. Existing law also authorizes local community college
governing boards to provide services that may include loans or
grants for living costs, student fees, and transportation costs
and also scholarships, work-experience and job placement
programs. (EC § 69640 - § 69656)
Current law requires each California Community College (CCC)
district that administers a priority enrollment system for
registration to grant priority registration for enrollment to
students in the EOPS program and to disabled students, as
specified, and repeals these provisions on January 1, 2017. (EC
§ 66025.91)
ANALYSIS
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This bill requires the California State University (CSU)
Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors (BOG) to develop and
implement a California Promise program at one or more of their
respective campuses and to authorize campuses to participate in
the program subject to compliance with the bill's provisions.
Specifically it:
1) Requires authorization of a campus to enter a pledge with a
"qualifying student" to support the student in obtaining an
associate degree within two academic years and a
baccalaureate degree within four academic years, as
specified, and outlines the following elements of the
program:
a) Requires a qualifying student to be a
California resident for purposes of in-state tuition
eligibility and to complete at least 30 semester units
per academic year, including summer term units, as
specified.
b) Authorizes the participating campus to
provide qualifying students with priority registration
in coursework and academic advising that includes
monitoring the student's academic progress.
c) Requires the Trustees and the BOG to
develop application criteria, administrative
guidelines and additional requirements for purposes of
implementing and administering the program and
specifically authorizes the inclusion of a requirement
that the student maintain a campus determined minimum
grade point average.
2) Establishes various requirements regarding systemwide fees
for California Promise students at the CSU. Specifically
it:
a) Prohibits a participating CSU student
from being charged systemwide tuition in excess of the
tuition charged to the student as an entering freshman
at the CSU.
b) Prohibits a participating transfer
student who successfully received an associate degree
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within two academic years at the CCC from being
charged systemwide tuition in excess of the tuition
that would have been charged to the student at the
California State University (CSU) at the time the
student began the two year associate degree program.
c) Requires all other participating
community college transfer students from being charged
systemwide tuition in excess of the tuition charged to
the student when admitted to the CSU as a transfer
student.
d) Declares the Legislature's intent to
appropriate money from the General Fund to the
Trustees for the purpose of compensating the CSU for
the systemwide tuition not charged to these students.
3) Requires that the CSU and the California Community College
(CCC) waive systemwide tuition or fees for a participating
student unable to complete their associate degree or their
baccalaureate degree, as applicable, within the required
time because courses for the degree program are not offered
or are full at the campus, once the course or a substitute
course becomes available.
4) Requires that the trustees and board of governors make
every effort to close the achievement gap and encourage
broad participation that reflects a participating campus'
demographics.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill. According to the author, this bill is
intended to address the CSU overall four-year graduation
rate, which is well below the national rate among similar
public institutions. The provisions of the bill are based
on existing programs at CSU campuses which the author
asserts are effective in improving four-year graduation
rates. This bill establishes a program which, in exchange
for a promise to complete 30 units per year and maintain a
grade point average standard, would provide priority
enrollment, enhanced academic advising, and tuition
freezes. In addition, this bill would grant tuition
waivers if students were unable to complete a degree within
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the required time frame due to unavailability of courses.
The bill would impose these same requirements on the
community colleges as well.
2) Student Success at the Community Colleges. Pursuant to
Senate Bill 1143 (Liu, Chapter 409, Statutes of 2010), the
Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges
created the Student Success Task Force (SSTF); 20
individuals (community college chief executive officers,
faculty, students, researchers, staff and external stake
holders) who spent a year researching, studying and
debating the best methods to improve student outcomes at
the community colleges.
According to the SSTF report, which was unanimously adopted
by the Board of Governors in January 2012, it was their
goal to identify best practices for promoting student
success and to develop statewide strategies to take these
approaches to scale while ensuring that educational
opportunity for historically underrepresented students
would not just be maintained, but bolstered.
The Student Success Task Force (SSTF efforts resulted in 22
specific recommendations focused on the following eight
areas:
a) Increasing college and career readiness.
b) Strengthening support for entering students.
c) Incentivizing successful student behaviors.
d) Aligning course offerings to meet student needs.
e) Improving education of basic skills students.
f) Revitalizing and re-envisioning professional
development.
g) Enabling efficient statewide leadership and
increase coordination among colleges.
h) Aligning resources with student success
recommendations.
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Implementation of these recommendations is being
accomplished by the Chancellor's Office of the California
Community Colleges via the "Student Success Initiative"
through regulatory changes, system-wide administrative
policies, local best practices and legislation. These
implementation efforts include the following:
a) SB 1456 (Lowenthal, Chapter 624, Statutes of
2013) recast the Seymour-Campbell Matriculation Act of
1986 in order to target funding to services such as
orientation, assessment, and counseling and advising
to assist students with the development of education
plans. It also required that students define goals,
required that students declare a course of study and
mandated student participation in assessment,
orientation and education planning.
b) At a regulatory level, the Board of Governors
approved regulations that provide enrollment priority
to students who have participated in assessment,
orientation, and who have developed an education plan.
In addition, statutory priority enrollment extended
to veterans, foster youth, Extended Opportunity
Program & Services students, and disabled students
requires participation in these Student Success
Services and programs. Students are now required to
complete core services as well as to declare a course
of study. In addition, districts are now required to
notify students that accumulating 100 degree
applicable units or being on academic or progress
probation for two consecutive terms will result in the
loss of enrollment priority.
c) Since 2012, the State has increased ongoing
funding for community college student success and
support by nearly $600 Million. These funds have been
designated to support the Student Services Support
Program (SSSP) established by SB 1456 (Lowenthal) to
provide targeted services such as orientation,
assessment, and counseling and advising to assist
students with the development of education plans. In
addition these funds support the creation of Student
Equity Plans to improve access and outcomes for
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disadvantaged groups, as well as a number of
Chancellor's Office Initiatives to provide related
support to districts.
In February 2016, this Committee held an informational
hearing, California's Community Colleges: Implementation of
Student Success where the committee received an update on
the use of these funds, the progress made in implementing
student success strategies both systemwide and at the
campus level, and heard preliminary reports on student
outcomes.
This bill would layer a new program of priority enrollment
and tuition freezes unrelated to the extensive efforts and
funding that have been provided to support the 6-year
effort to develop and fund statewide strategies to improve
completion at the community colleges and incentivize
successful student behaviors.
Staff recommends the bill be amended to eliminate the
community colleges from the provisions of the bill.
3) Is there a problem? In its March 2016 report on State
Performance Measures for the 2014-15 academic year, the
California State University (CSU) reports a cumulative
four-year graduation rate for all students of 19.1 percent
in 2011. According to the 2015-16 Budget Analysis by the
Legislative Analyst's Office, CSU graduation rates have
been increasing, but while 6-year graduation rates are
similar to those of other large public masters
institutions, four-year rates are significantly lower, and
only 48 percent of first year students are on track to
graduate on time.
Aside from benefitting the state through increased access and
more efficient movement of students through the CSU system,
accelerating degree completion also reduces the overall cost of
higher education for students and families. In The Real Cost of
College: Time and Credits to Degree in California, the Campaign
for College Opportunity reports that every additional year of
enrollment in college increases the total cost by more than
$26,000 in tuition, fees, books, and living expenses, as well as
more than $22,000 in lost lifetime wages. A CSU student who
takes six years to earn a bachelor's degree will spend an
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additional $58,000 more on tuition, fees, books and other
expenses, and will earn $52,900 less, over his/her lifetime,
than someone who graduated in four years. As a result of these
additional two years, this student would incur $110,900 in extra
expenses and lost wages.
4) Existing CSU goals/strategies. In October 2014, the CSU
initiated "Graduation Initiative 2025", setting the
following completion goals:
a) Increasing the 6-year graduation rate for
first-time freshmen to 60 percent.
b) Increasing the four-year graduation rate for
first-time freshmen to 24 percent.
c) Increasing the four-year graduation rate for
transfer students to 76 percent.
d) Increasing the two-year graduation rate for
transfer students to 35 percent.
e) Closing the achievement gap for historically
underrepresented students to seven percent and to five
percent for low-income students
The strategies employed by the Chancellor's Office and
campuses to achieve these goals include the following:
a) Reducing the number of units required to earn
a BA/BS degree (94 percent of BA/BS programs now
require only 120 units).
b) Expanding high impact practices including
undergraduate research, service learning, internships
and study abroad.
c) Redesigning courses to incorporate technology
to improve content retention.
d) Expanding the Associate Degree for Transfer
program.
e) Expanding cohort-based learning communities.
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f) Expanding Summer Bridge and other transitional
programs.
g) Expanding the use of electronic academic
advising tools to establish clear pathways to degrees
and data analysis to improve student outcomes.
h) Hiring more tenure track faculty and academic
advisors.
i) Expanding the number of CourseMatch course
offerings to increase degree completion rates
(CourseMatch allows access to online courses offered
at other California State University (CSU) campuses).
j) Building relationships with community and
business partners, community colleges and K-12 school
districts to ensure students are prepared for college.
1) Existing programs? According to the CSU, four of its
campuses currently have pledge programs (Fresno, San
Bernardino, Fullerton and Cal Poly Pomona) that are
generally consistent with what is proposed in the bill.
While the four-year graduation rates for program
participants are much higher than the undergraduate student
populations that do not participate in the programs,
attrition rates are also high (often times 50 percent or
more). The Cal State Fullerton's Finish in Four Scholars
Program has had five cohorts of students that graduated
with four-year graduation rates that range from 30.4
percent to 45.5 percent. The numbers of students in these
programs tend to be small. For example, California State
University (CSU) San Bernardino has one of the larger
programs with 620 participants, but that number represents
less than 4 percent of the undergraduate student
population.
The CSU reports that several campuses have discontinued
similar types of programs because of low student
participation. The CSU also noted that many students are
unable to participate in or continue with these programs
because they do no enter the CSU academically prepared, are
unable to maintain grade point average requirements, or
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change their major.
None of the existing programs offer a tuition freeze. Only
Cal State San Bernardino waives fees for students who were
unable to graduate within four years due to class
availability.
2) Non-need based financial aid. This bill imposes tuition
freezes for California Promise program participants, as
specified. Since the Cal Grant and State University Grants
would cover any increase in CSU systemwide fees for a
student that meets income and asset requirements, tuition
freezes would primarily benefit students ineligible for
these tuition aid programs.
Traditionally, this Committee has supported need-based
financial aid. Aside from the complexity of administering
tuition freezes across multiple program years, this bill
could result in subsidizing tuition costs for students
regardless of their financial need. Absent funding from
other sources, it could result in even greater increases in
tuition costs for students with greater financial need who
are unable to meet the requirements of the program due to
work requirements, academic preparedness issues, or other
mitigating circumstances.
Staff recommends the tuition freeze provisions be deleted
from the bill.
3) Unintended consequences? This bill was recently amended
to require the governing bodies of the two systems to make
every effort to close the achievement gap and encourage
broad participation in the program that reflects a
participating campus' demographics.
According to the CSU, 59 percent of entering freshmen in
Fall 2015 needed remediation. Only 50 percent of
Hispanic/Latino admits entered academically prepared and 22
percent of these students needed additional preparation in
both English and Math. For Black/African American
students, only 42 percent were prepared in math and
English, while 29 percent required additional preparation
in both. For white students, 82 percent of students
entered prepared in both subjects and only 5 percent of
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these students required additional preparation in English
and math.
This bill requires a California Promise program student to
complete 30 units per academic year and maintain minimum
grade point average requirements. In exchange the campus
would provide priority registration and enhanced academic
advising.
The Committee may wish to consider:
Could the large population of ethnically
diverse students needing remediation successfully
participate in such a program?
Could this bill result in the redirection of
advising and support services away from the students
who arguably need it most?
Notwithstanding the intent, could this bill
have the unintended effect of exacerbating the
achievement gap between academically prepared students
and underrepresented students?
1) Backfill? This bill declares the intent of the Legislature
to appropriate monies from the General Fund to compensate
for systemwide tuition not charged to students in the
program created by the bill's provisions. Current law
provides for a number of mandatory fee waivers, including,
fee waivers for dependent survivors of law enforcement or
fire suppression officers killed in the line of duty,
dependents of deceased or disabled veteran, survivors of
persons killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
and certain non-resident fees are waived for AB 540
students, students who are victims of trafficking, or other
serious crimes, and certain veterans. The Legislature does
not currently appropriate monies to compensate the
California State University (CSU) for the loss of fee
revenue from any of these waivers. According to the CSU's
most recent report on institutional financial aid awarded
(2016), the aggregate cost of these fee waivers was more
than $68 million.
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Is backfilling the loss of tuition revenue for the program
proposed by this bill a higher priority than backfilling
for other tuition waiver programs? Would backfilling for
this program create pressure to backfill for revenue loss
from other waiver programs? What would be the cumulative
fiscal effect?
2) Similar legislation. This bill is intended to incentivize
completion of a degree program within four years. Similar
legislation to improve completion has been considered by
this Committee, including:
SB 15 (Block), among other things, establishes a Graduation
Incentive Grant
(GIG) program for CSU undergraduate students to incentivize
timely degree completion. The GIG would provide up to
$4,500 in grant award for students who meet annual unit
completion requirements and demonstrate financial need, as
specified, as they move to complete their degree programs
within four years. SB 15 was heard and unanimously passed
by this Committee in May 2015, and is currently awaiting
action in the Assembly Higher Education Committee.
SB 1417 (Galgiani) requires the CSU, and requests the
University of California, to develop and implement a $2500
loan forgiveness grant for students who are California
residents, and for students eligible for resident tuition
under the provisions of AB 540, if they complete their
degree within four years. SB 1417 was heard and passed in
this Committee by a vote of 6-1, and is currently awaiting
action in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
SUPPORT
African American Farmers of California
California Citrus Mutual
California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association
California Dairies, Inc.
California Fresh Fruit Association
California Rice Commission
California Tomato Growers Association
Nisei Farmers League
Western Agricultural Processors Association
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Western Plant Health Association
OPPOSITION
None received on this version.
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