BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1425
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 24, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Das Williams, Chair
SB 1425 (Block) - As Amended: May 27, 2014
SENATE VOTE : 37-0
SUBJECT : Community colleges: retroactive awarding of degrees.
SUMMARY : Requires that the California Community Colleges (CCC)
Chancellor develop or identify a commercially available utility
to conduct systemwide automatic degree audits and requires all
112 CCC to award degrees and certificates, as specified,
retroactively to students who have been identified, as
specified, as eligible to receive a degree or certificate.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the CCC Board of Governors (BOG) to require all
community colleges to award degrees retroactively, as
specified.
2)Requires that prior to the beginning of the spring term of the
academic year (AY), and commencing with the 2015-16 AY for the
first 28 campuses, each community college district shall
perform a one-time inquiry as the automatic degree audit, as
specified, is put in place at each campus in order to identify
students who have completed the semester or quarter units
required to receive a degree or certificate, or who have
completed the California State University (CSU) or the
Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC)
transfer requirements in up to 12 of the highest demand
majors, as determined by each community college district,
during the previous two AYs.
3)Requires that a CCC campus shall notify students eligible to
receive a degree or certificate that they are eligible to
receive the degree or certificate; and, specifies that said
students shall have a choice to opt out or to receive the
degree or certificate.
4)Requires the CCC Chancellor shall identify a commercially
available utility to conduct systemwide automatic degree
audits, as specified, and procure that utility. Specifies
that once the utility is procured, the CCC Office of the
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Chancellor (CCCCO) shall oversee the implementation of this
measure in accordance with the following timetable:
a) At least 28 CCC campuses shall have the automatic degree
audit system in place by December 31, 2015;
b) At least 56 CCC campuses shall have the automatic degree
audit system in place by December 31, 2016; and,
c) All 112 CCC campuses shall have the automatic degree
audit system in place by December 31, 2017.
5)Specifies that the automatic degree audit system procured by
the CCC Chancellor, shall satisfy all of the following
conditions:
a) Comply with all pertinent privacy and security
considerations and requirements;
b) Be centrally purchased by the CCCCO in order to reduce
costs through a bulk procurement process;
c) Be managed by each community college district for use
among the campuses within each respective district;
d) Enable CCC counselors, advisors, and other student
services staff to monitor student progress toward
completing a degree or certificate program, or achieving
the minimum requirements for CSU or IGETC transfer; and,
e) Be accessible to CCC personnel and students through an
Internet Web portal that provides a degree progress
profile, generated for each student upon request, that
includes all information regarding credits earned that is
available in the college's data.
6)Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to submit a
report to the Governor and the Legislature on the progress and
implementation of the retroactive degree awarding and online
degree audit system on or before December 31, 2017, and on or
before December 31 every three years thereafter.
7)Specifies that the metrics to be determined and reported by
the LAO shall include, but not necessarily be limited to all
of the following:
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a) The number and percentage of community college students
who were identified, and were awarded associate degrees or
certificates, or who were determined to have completed the
CSU or IGETC transfer requirements because of the degree
audit system;
b) The estimated economic benefits for the college and the
labor market of the degree audit system; and,
c) Other relevant indicators of student success resulting
from having a degree audit system in place.
8)Specifies that this measure shall not be operative until the
BOG certifies that sufficient funds have been received from
state, federal, or private sources to implement the online
degree audit system; and, requires the BOG to prominently post
this certification promptly on its Internet Website.
9)Makes several legislative declaration and findings, including,
but not limited to the following:
a) California is falling behind in producing the necessary
postsecondary education to ensure our state's prosperity
and opportunities; b) The CCC system is the state's largest
workforce provider, offering associate degrees and
short-term job training certificates in more than 175
different fields; c) In California, less than one-fifth of
the community colleges have online degree audit systems
that can be used to inform their students about their
progress, leaving the remainder of the state's 112
community colleges without a mechanism to identify already
earned degrees; d) Earning a degree or certificate from a
CCC, on average, nearly doubles an individual's earnings
within three years; and, e) The Legislature will establish
a central auditing system at the CCC that enables
individual community colleges to audit student records,
identify the students who are eligible for a certificate or
degree, and notify these students of their ability to
receive a degree or certificate based on all prior work
they completed.
EXISTING LAW establishes the mission and function of the CCC as
offering academic and vocational instruction at the lower
division level and authorizes the community colleges to grant
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the associate in arts and the associate in science degree
(Education Code � 66010.4).
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, the following cost factors are associated with this
measure:
1)Degree audits (commercial utility): Approximately $12 million
from the General Fund (GF) to purchase a commercial utility
that meets this bill's requirements, for each of the
approximately 90 campuses that do not currently have one;
2)Mandate: Degree audits (workload) - Setting up the degree
audit software, maintaining the system, and updating the data,
and conducting annual degree audits for the community college
districts that do not have a system, will likely require two
dedicated classified employees at each community college
district. Annual costs could total $10 million from the GF
across those districts, once the program is fully implemented.
Costs will vary at the approximately 65 community college
districts for which an existing system will need to be
maintained, the data updated, and degree audits conducted each
year (but would not need to be set up). Even if those
districts required only employ one classified staff person
each, annual costs will exceed $2 million from the GF;
3)Mandate: Retroactive degrees - Potentially substantial
reimbursable state mandate, likely in the low millions of
dollars, to require each CCC to conduct retroactive degree
audits for each student enrolled in the past two years;
4)Mandate: Notifications - Potentially substantial reimbursable
mandate, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, to establish
notification procedures and to notify students of their degree
status once the audit is completed each year; and,
5)Report: Potentially significant costs to the CCCCO to
complete the required implementation report.
COMMENTS : Background . According to the Institute for Higher
Education Policy's (IHEP) examination of the U.S. Department of
Education datasets, approximately 15% of traditional-age
students in any cohort had completed more than 60 units yet held
no degree and were no longer enrolled anywhere; if applied to
the 2.4 million students currently enrolled at the CCC, this
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statistic represents hundreds of thousands of students who may
have completed their degrees or are very close to doing so.
Need for the bill . According to the author, while the
Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012 requires community
colleges to provide orientation, advising and educational
planning tools to all students, current law does not require the
institution to monitor and notify students of their progress
toward their defined educational goals.
The author contends that California's community colleges play a
vital role in meeting our current and future workforce needs;
however, according to the CCC Student Success Scorecard, fewer
than half of CCC students earn a degree, certificate, or
transfer to a four-year postsecondary institution after six
years. The author states, "SB 1425 will help more students
cross the finish line and enter California's workforce with
increased opportunity by making a degree tracking system
available that will keep current and future students on track to
successfully reach their college goals. The bill will also
require community colleges to award degrees to former students
who have earned a degree or certificate."
Project Win-Win . Project Win-Win is a national initiative
undertaken in partnership by IHEP and the State Higher Education
Executive Officers and funded principally by Lumina Foundation
for Education that has proven in nine states and over 60
institutions of higher education, that degree tracking and
retroactive degree awarding are higher effective approaches to
improving student success. These institutions identify former
students whose records qualify them for an associate's degree,
and the institutions award the degrees retroactively. The
institutions also identify students who were near completion of
an associate's degree and seek to bring them back to complete
the degree.
According to IHEP, as of August 2011, 24 institutions had
identified over 44,000 students in the initial "universe of
interest" and 15 institutions had completed degree audits on
12,000 students (with 2,800 deemed eligible for associate's
awards, and 6,200 potential completers). The initiative
projects these numbers nationally and estimates a potential 15%
to 16% increase in the number of associate's degrees awarded.
It is unclear how many of these students were actually awarded
or completed degrees.
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Degree audit programs . According to a research memo prepared
for the CCCCO by WestEd in January 2012, a survey of the
California Association of Community College Registrars and
Admissions Officers found that 21 of the 112 CCC had degree
audit systems in place, with seven more planning implementation
within the year. It was noted that the initial process for
establishing the audit system is labor intensive and requires
annual updating to address changes in curriculum.
CCCCO concerns . According to the CCCCO, they have just begun
work on the Education Planning Initiative (EPI), which will help
provide colleges with integrated tools for education planning
and degree audit in order to support students. The CCCCO notes
that the EPI is in its beginning stages.
According to the CCCCO, the EPI was given $6 million in the
2013-2014 budget. The Request for Applications went out in
October 2013 and in December 2014 the project was awarded to
Butte Glen Community College District Technology Center to
coordinate. The EPI Steering Committee has been assembled and
is meeting. A list of 10-12 colleges who wish to participate
in the pilot is being finalized. The next step is the Request
for Information, which is basically a request for information
from vendors to see what is technologically possible and/or
available. The next implementation phase of the EPI will entail
the CCCCO sending out Request for Proposals - to note this phase
will not begin to be developed until sometime in July.
The CCCCO has a goal that by June 2016 the 10-12 pilot colleges
have a system of education planning and degree audit that can
begin to communicate across campuses in order to provide a model
for the entire system to eventually use.
It is unclear as to the length of time it will take before the
EPI is fully online and being implemented in all 112 colleges of
the system.
Committee considerations . The CCCCO (as noted in the "CCCCO
concerns" section of this analysis) has indicated that it is
currently implementing the EPI that appears to have similar
goals as brought forth in this bill. Committee staff notes that
the Community College League of California and several community
college districts have expressed concerns regarding the
feasibility of implementing this measure and the cost pressures
the districts will face should the measure be chaptered.
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The CCCCO and the community college districts are in the process
of implementing the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of
2012. If potential funds for the necessary software for degree
audits and the likes in order to confer degrees to former CCC
students take away from potential dollars that could be
otherwise used for student success related activities for
current CCC students, the Committee may wish to consider what
the cost benefit of this measure entails.
To address some of the fiscal concerns, the author may wish to
consider amending this bill to become a pilot program - aligned
with the current work of the CCCCO's EPI.
Previous legislation . AB 868 (V. Manuel P�rez) of 2010, which
the author cancelled the hearing in the Senate Education
Committee, would have required every community college district
to develop and implement an online degree audit system.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Access College Foundation
Alliance College-Ready Public Schools
ALL Management Corporation
Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor
Bresee Youth Center
Bright Prospect
California Communities United Institute
California Competes
Campaign for College Opportunity
Center for Student Opportunity
Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Ind�gena Oaxaque�o
Children Youth and Family Collaborative
College Match
College Summit
Community Partners
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Department of Sociology - California State University, Fresno
Determined To Succeed
Fulfillment Fund
Girls Incorporated of Orange County
GLOW Foundation
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Gradguru
Heart of Los Angeles
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities
i.am College Track
InnerCity Struggle
Institute for Higher Education Policy
Japanese Community Youth Council
Kid City Hope Place
LA Coalition of Essential Schools
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Los Angeles Education Partnership
Los Angeles United Methodist Urban Foundation
Los Angeles Urban League
Latino Coalition for a Healthy California
Mar Vista Family Center
META Foundation
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
North Bay Leadership Council
One Voice
Parent Institute for Quality Education
Project GRAD Los Angeles
San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce
South Central Scholars
Southern California College Access Network
Students Making a Change
Study Smart Tutors
The Institute for College Access & Success
Transformative Action Institute
United Friends of the Children
USC Pullias Center for Higher Education
Young Invincibles
Youth Alliance
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960