Transfer faster with new degree

Community colleges statewide are now offering a new type of associate degree designed to help students streamline the transfer process to a California State University baccalaureate program, but not without a making some skeptics along the way.

Last September the transfer degree was signed into state legislation as the Student Transfer Achievement Act. All community colleges are governed by state law and were required to offer the transfer degree for 2011-2012 school years. Majors must be state approved and follow the framework outline by the transfer degree curriculum.

“Every community college would create a transfer degree of no more than 60 units,” California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott said in a press conference Aug. 22. “It would have the exact kind of general education requirements that’s true of the California State University.”

When the requirements are met a student may then transfer to a CSU, where only 60 units more are needed to earn a bachelor degree. The purpose of the new degree is to make the transfer process clearer and easier for students. However, the degree doesn’t meet the transfer requirements for the University of California.

Last year around 2.7 million students enrolled at community colleges across California and 400,000 students at the California state schools. With a staggeringly high volume of students, adopting the transfer degree has increased the workload for an already burdened administrative staff.

“We’re all kind of learning,” City College articulation officer Deanna Abma said, saying that the transfer degree is still a work in progress. Abma was one of the administrative staff racing all summer to make the degree available for students by the start of fall semester. They developed two new majors for an associate arts degree eligible for transfer, psychology and speech communications. A major in physics is still pending.

As the economic hard times drag on, the transfer degree will help save money for the student and the state. Students will be able to join the work force sooner, meeting the increasing demand for educated workers and become taxpaying citizens, said Scott.

Scott projects the new degree will help 40,000 community college students and 14,000 CSU students clear-cut the path to a bachelor degree each year, saving the state over $160 million annually.

The transfer degree is making some big promises, but not everyone is buying it.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Karen Saginor, president of the academic senate. One concern is the degree guarantees admission to a CSU with a bachelors program in the desired major, but it doesn’t guarantee admission into a CSU of the student’s choice. It won’t even guarantee the student is admitted to the major’s program of study.

Impacted majors are a huge problem at the CSUs and Sagnior worries about the false hope the transfer degree may pose to students.

“The CSU may say ‘yes we guarantee you a seat,’” Sagnior said, “but we don’t have enough space.”

The transfer degree might not get a student into a school of his or her choice or into an impacted major, but it will give students a 0.1 grade point bump, said Terri Eden, articulation officer for San Jose State and SF State. It may not seem like much, but Eden said it could be the deciding factor for admittance. Especially with impacted majors requiring a grade point average of 3.5 or higher.

“It has a little way to go before things get worked out,” Eden said, referring to the kinks in the transfer process. “The faculty has been working on this a lot. There has been a lot of collaboration with the academic faculty.”

Another positive aspect of the transfer degree is students won’t duplicate credit, said Eden. The path is clearer and students will know what their credits are worth. Its heart wrenching, Eden added, when a student comes to a CSU with a regular associate degree and receives only 40 transferable credits.

Up until now, an associate degree didn’t help or hurt you in the transfer process, said Lawrence Demato, department chair and counselor of the City College transfer center.

A student could graduate with an associate degree but those credits earned wouldn’t necessarily transfer over to a CSU. And vice versa, a student only following the transfer requirements wouldn’t earn an associate degree and therefore would not graduate from City College.

“The requirement for associate degree is not in line for transfer requirements,” said Demato. “This transfer degree will help remedy that problem.”

Already five or six students have come to Demato interested in the transfer degree, he said, especially psychology.

Even though the transfer degree eliminates certain local requirements needed for the ordinary associate degree, section G and H of the City College General education requirements, it does increase math and English levels. The degree also requires a student to be enrolled in 18 units for all majors, making some students reluctant.