To increase the number of college graduates in California, state policymakers are working to make it easier for community college students to transfer to four-year institutions, particularly the California State University (CSU) system. Legislation in 2010 required state community colleges to create a special degree that would ease the transition to CSU campuses.
Researchers Colleen Moore and Nancy Shulock provided a progress report on the implementation of this new degree at a PPIC briefing on Friday. These two researchers are from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at CSU Sacramento and are the authors of a new report for PPIC, From Community College to University: Expectations for California’s New Transfer Degrees.
They found that the new degrees have improved pathways for community college students. But many community colleges still offer transfer degrees in only a few majors, and some CSU campuses accommodate the degree in only some of their degree programs. In other words, the program still has a long way to go before it is fully implemented.