Improving California's course-transfer system between its community colleges and four-year institutions is vital to the state's economic future, says a report released today by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at California State University at Sacramento.
The report's authors cite trends showing that, by 2025, there will be one million fewer college graduates than are needed in the work force. One way to narrow the gap would be to increase transfer rates from community colleges to four-year institutions so more students could graduate with a college education, they conclude.
Currently, the state's decentralized, segmented higher-education structure favors a campus-to-campus rather than a systemwide course-transfer scheme. As a consequence, some students transfer with too many credits that don't count toward the specific requirements for a bachelor's degree, while others transfer without completing a transfer curriculum and have to enroll in additional low-level but high-cost courses at the four-year institution. Furthermore, some students transfer to a four-year institution without earning an associate degree, and those who do not graduate are left without any degree at all.
The report recommends creating associate degrees specifically for transfer students that would fulfill the basic requirements for all California colleges and universities, and guarantee transfer of all credits earned in certain courses. Other recommendations include developing a standardized general-education checklist of courses that would allow transfer to all of the state's public, four-year institutions, and creating a degree-audit system that students and counselors could check to ensure that the associate-degree and transfer requirements are being met.
Comments
1. jesor - August 27, 2009 at 05:34 pm
And as we've discovered in my state, the best laid plans of presidents, provosts, legislators, governors, deans, and chancelors die at the doorstep of departments that absolutely insist that no course but theirs will meet a prerequisite for upper division work, or that the unique vision of their department mandates a lower division requirements found nowhere else.
Not to discourage diversity within the system, but really folks is there that much difference between a "Systems of Biology" and a "Biological Systems" course?
2. uibranch - August 27, 2009 at 08:05 pm
Jesor speaks of the crucial piece:
"...the best laid plans of presidents, provosts, legislators, governors, deans, and chancelors die at the doorstep of departments that absolutely insist that no course but theirs will meet a prerequisite..."
Indulge a bit of bragging from a staffer at a Ministry of Advanced Education... want to see how we got around that impasse in British Columbia?
1. Go to http://www.bccat.ca
2. Click on "Transfer System", then the "BC Transfer Guide" link.
3. Choose a "Sending Institution". Try Camosun College, a fair-sized two-year public institution. Click "Go".
4. On the next screen, select "English" as the subject, and "2*" as the course number. You want to know which second-year English courses from Camosun College get transfer credit.
5. Select this academic year, and for a receiver, go for the big fish -- select "UBC-Vancouver Campus". Now you're asking which of Camosun's second-year English courses are accepted for credit at the University of B.C.
6. Click "Search". Presto -- UBC will accept fourteen Camosun English courses as equivalent to seven of theirs.
There are roughly 100,000 such credit-transfer entries in this database, covering every public institution and several private institutions in BC. Even the University of Phoenix has some.
How on earth did we get those past all the departments?!
Actually, the university and college departments worked out the equivalencies themselves, via joint faculty committees which included (at the start) articulation experts from BCCAT.
It has taken years to develop, and is a smashing success. British Columbia students can and do transfer all over the province.
Go California! It can be done!
3. stopple - August 28, 2009 at 11:07 am
uibranch - It already exisits. Go to http://www.assist.org
4. arzunys - September 16, 2009 at 12:21 am
How much information was looked up before writing this article? What is an IGETC? Why is there www.assist.org? What leads you to believe a Associate Degree is necessary or meets all the criteria for a transferring student?
"Currently, the state's decentralized, segmented higher-education structure favors a campus-to-campus rather than a systemwide course-transfer scheme. As a consequence, some students transfer with too many credits that don't count toward the specific requirements for a bachelor's degree, while others transfer without completing a transfer curriculum and have to enroll in additional low-level but high-cost courses at the four-year institution."
Wrong again. There are course transfer guides and there is the CSU 'system' and UC 'system" which have clear paths to follow. Of course within majors there are difference, so you see a counselor or educationl advisor.
I'm hoping I am understanding this article incorrectly.