Cutting through the transfer maze
The failure of the community colleges and state four-year universities to agree on common transfer requirements creates tremendous waste and confusion. It has become one more factor discouraging students from pursuing a four-year degree.
To their credit, California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott and California State University Chancellor Charles Reed have worked out an agreement that, should the Legislature approve it, will provide an important fix.
SB 1440, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, which the Senate Education Committee will take up on Wednesday, would guarantee an associate’s degree and admission to a CSU campus to any student who successfully completes a standard number of general education credits and courses in the student’s major.
This is monumental, because the transfer requirements to the 23 California State University campuses differ from school to school. The 110 community colleges have created individual articulation agreements with CSU campuses to which they feed the most students. Beyond that, it’s a maze to negotiate. Unsure where they’ll transfer to, community college students hedge their bets by taking more courses than they need. And once they’re admitted to a CSU school, community college grads learn they often have to take extra courses peculiar to that school’s requirements for a major.
According to the New America Foundation, which favors the bill, community college transfer students are graduating from CSUs with more than a full year of classes beyond what’s required for a BA degree. They’ve been taking half of these 40 extra semester credits at community colleges trying to anticipate different CSU requirements; they’ve been taking the other half at the CSUs, at an average cost of $20,000 to families and $160 million to the CSUs, when they discover some of their credits won’t match requirements for a major.
Under the bill, students with at least a 2.0 grade point average would be entitled to an associate’s degree and admission to a CSU (though not necessarily the campus of their choice) if they complete 60 transferable semester units that include the CSU general education requirements and 18 semester units in a major. There would be exceptions for intensive majors, such as engineering.
With tuitions rising and CSUs cutting back in enrollments, there’s no justification for extraneous demands. Reed is confident that CSC campuses will free up more space in classes and make room for more community college students by economizing course requirements.
If there is opposition to the bill – but not enough, I hope, to overcome the persuasive case for the bill’s passage – it will come from CSU faculty senates, which have the authority to set course requirements.
There’s simply no justification for accepting a 2.0 at a university.
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California should have passed this type of bill years ago, but I wonder why the two systems -CSU and community colleges -could not work this out themselves, rather than rely on the legislature.
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Once again, for the sake of $money the California eudcational system codifies low standards and low expectations. A 2.0 average at a community college is equivalent to about seventh grade achievement, and that might be generous. The community college general education “college” courses are taught at high school level; the AA degree does not even require college math.
What is needed is a bold statement of support for high standards and high expectations: education should not be a social, welfare system.
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As an educator watching the system unfold, the CSU’s would have no students if they did not lower their expectations. We have children GRADUATING from high school and still cannot read. Our children cannot pass the EXIT EXAM, because they are not properly taught, but allowed to graduate, and permitted to take the exit exam in a ABE class somewhere. This is not all the teachers fault. Many of my students are third grade come to me (foreigners)who cannot read or write and I have to get them to pass a California state test. I also have children the state and their parents say they are ADD, ADHD, DDD SAD, and they are medicated so much, they sleep all day in class. Or the students whose parents do not mandate homework or reading time. Lets start with some of these issues. Lets stop blaming the teachers, wanting to cut salaries, fire teachers because you can, for this education mess.
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On the face of it this bill sounds good. Who can object to uniform requirements for transfer and avoiding duplication and unnecessary jerking of students? At the same time two outstanding issues must be addressed. (1) The 2.0 GPA seems low — wasn’t 2.2 a threshold at many/most 4-year colleges long ago? Why would lower level colleges expect credit for their students for any less, especially with grade inflation? If at all it should probably be 2.5 these days. (2) This all seems reasonable as long as it works, but I don’t see any remedy for CSU/UC in case they observe that a particular CC campus continuously violates the trust and grants credit for much below-level courses. They are forced to accept the credits, and they cannot even require a repeat of certain courses which they may know that CC is not doing a good job at. I think the bill is good as a DEFAULT position, but UC/CSU must be able to EXCLUDE particular courses from these requirements at a particular CC campus. This will provide some remedy & way of pushback in case some parts of CCC abuse the trust.
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The bill is good and long overdue but it perpetuates a major transfer problem — the differences between UC and CSU and the lack of common set of requirements. Students should have the opportunity (as they do in high school with the common A-G requirements) to do their best and keep their options open for transfer applications. Until we see a THREE-system agreement we will not have true reform. I prefer the approach being taken in AB 2302 (Fong). It’s time to structure transfer from a student-centered view, rather than a segment- or institution-centered view.
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I have to disagree with most of what has been stated. There are standard transfer requirements throuout the state of California. It is called California State University General Education Breadth Requirements. This provides a precise description of the general education classes needed for CSUs. The UC system is different because, there are different requirements for each college and for different majors (schools) within each college. However, there is an articulated agreement generally for general education. It is called IGETC (Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum)this also covers a student’s general education if they don’t know if they want to transfer to a CSU or a UC.
Another component of transfer is “preparation for a major”. This is what articulation agreements are for – what does each CSU want as “preparation for their major”. That can change college by college. Prep for teaching – Liberal Arts requires 4 different sciences – 3 with labs. It also requires extra English and Humanities and college level transfer Math. Prep for Business is often Acct. 1A,1B, Econ (micro and macro) additional Math, etc.
Community Colleges have Student Education Plans which outline what needs to be taken for a Certificate, Associate of Science, Associate of Arts, and transfer requirements with prep for major. Students need to see their academic counselors. EOPS (Educational Opportunity Program) requires 3 vists to their counselor per semester. DSPS (Disabled Student Programs and Services) offers support services counseling and academic counseling. Then there is ASPire which also helps with counseling, tutoring and academic recommendations, there are other student services such as DARAJA (stepping stones to success) and Puente which also has a counselor that assists with the complications of deciding which way a student wants to proceed, and CalWorks for single parents. There is also general counseling who also does all of the above. These are not duplicated services – each provides different opportunities for students – however we all work together for student success.
Unfortunately they are all being cut.
Thus AB1414 already exists within community colleges.
In addition, students do come unprepared often to college. Remember the difficulties of our current populations and the breadth in which grammar schools and high schools must teach to.
Often students do well over time at a community college because they are growing up – maturing in the process.
In regard to students with ADD/ADHD this is a very real concern. If students are falling asleep in class they need to revisit their Dr. After 25 years in Disabled Student Services I have seen many students who have difficulty in K-12. However, I can only speak to the students I see, and appropriate medication can make a world of difference in a student’s ability to focus, concentrate, complete assisnments, etc. The only way someone is determined ADD or ADHD is through a thorough report on past history, family history, symptoms, etc. It takes a consideral amount of time to make a determination of Attention Deficit Disorders – and medication should not be given out at random.
Also don’t forget that about 2 out of 7 students have some form of a processing deficit – Learning Disabilities. (Average to above average with a descrepenciy between potential and achievement) A learning disability is not a developmental disability (where there is little descrepency between potential and achievment.)
There are many complexities to what is happening at schools, as well as Community Colleges and transfer. Many of those interventions and counseling guidance are all ready in place if they are not cut further. Community Colleges do have Articulation agreements and standard general education requirements for both CSU and UC. UC being the more complicated because of differing requirements for majors and pre for majors.
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How can such important decisions be made based upon such a profound lack of such basic understanding of this complex process about how CC students transfer to CSU’s . This action could create a nightmare in advising a student in choosing a major and a CSU campus to transfer to! The information in SB1440 is about to reverse every effort in Title V which was created to streamline the transfer process. This Bill makes no rhyme or reason about the transfer process that CC’s counselors have used in advising students in transferring and receiving degrees . Our students have transferred with units which represent the competiveness for admission. Community College students take additional courses to accommodate skill development needed to successfully complete major prep and GE. The courses needed that exceed minimums to transfer are often needed to guarantee success when transferring.
Many majors require multiple sequential courses and students often take additional courses to qualify as a full time students so that they can afford to go to a CC. The lack of understanding about transfer and advisement is just overwhelming! The article treats 40 units like 40 classes. The reference to 20 units represents less than 2 courses per semester in preparation to compete for admission to two California systems of Education and to countless Private Colleges.
How does this misinformation get corrected before students are harmed in their progress toward successful transfer?
Also note that this Bill does not address the volumes of students who change majors while taking transferable classes which results in additional classes being taken towards their transfer goal.
Debbie Anthony, Counselor
Former Transfer Center Director
Monterey Peninsula College
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We tell students to use college to explore their options, then we fault students for taking too many units. A student who changes their major five times at the small, liberal arts college is “exploring”, but the coomunity college student who takes four years to transfer is stuck in a “transfer maze”. The only problem is that transfer students are not allowed the same luxury to explore because they have to meet transfer admission requirements about mid-way through. Why don’t you check to see how many “native” university student would meed junior level transfer requirements their second year at the university? Policy makers seems to think of community colleges as cash cows that need to be herded through to the CSU/UC system. Students do not come in knowing their major or where they want to transfer, therefore, it will take time and wasted units, such is life. Guaranteeing transfer admission with the completion of an AS/AA degree makes sense, but its just one piece of a very large puzzle.
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At the same time that it is the Bill proposed to make transfer to CSU easier, there must be serious efforts to greatly improve the graduation rates and the time to graduation rates of students at CSU. These are already quite poor especially compared to UC and other universities/colleges. Making it easier for students to enter CSU is not going to help anyone if ultimately the students cannot do the work or has to pay for many terms to graduate.
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This bill is a classic example of good intentions gone wrong, and of oversimplifying a very complex issue.
There are many reasons why community college students may take so-called “extra” units. Many require extensive remedial education before they are ready to tackle college work. Some pursue majors that require training that goes several levels beyond what is available in high school. Some also choose to take extra courses to prepare for a double major or major/minor combination. For those pursuing majors in the sciences or engineering, they often extend their stay at a community college to complete the extensive major preparation that is required before transfer. And for many, they change majors or want to explore multiple subjects to find their best path in life, and that process may require a few more classes than the minimum. I would argue that in none of those cases are the students wasting time or money, or taking “extra” classes; they are utilizing their educational resources in exactly the ways which most benefit the individuals and society.
SB1440 not only takes control of academic programs away from education professionals, but in many cases it will actually force students to take excess courses – the opposite of its stated goal! For example, a student who is majoring in Political Science or Communications may only need two or three courses in that major at the community college; the bulk of the major is completed at the university level. This bill would now require that those students MUST take excess classes to complete an AA in their major before transfer. Forcing such degree completion might look nice in state statistics, but will require courses and a degree which the universities do not require for admission and which will not benefit the student.
The mission of the California community colleges is to provide intellectual enhancement and educational opportunities for anyone, regardless of their background or goal, and the system has been a model of social, educational, and economic success for decades. While there is always room for improvement, trying to force every student into the same mold is not the answer.
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Kind of doesn’t make sense that they would be trying to get more transfer students in if they are already cutting enrollment now does it? Also with all the students already at the CSU colleges that can’t get the classes they need to graduate due to class cuts and too many students fighting for spots why would they want to add to that?
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