The legislature would like everyone to get into UC, especially the more hard-to-get-into campuses. The problem is that there are capacity limits. Let more in through one door and there is less room for others coming from a different door. At the margin, capacity can be raised somewhat. Maybe a few hundred more could attend UCLA if someone could figure out what to do with the Palos Verdes campus UCLA acquired for $80 million. This dilemma is yet another reason for putting together a new Master Plan process. Absent that approach, we get the kind of squabbles described below. From Inside Higher Ed:
University of California system leaders are opposing a state bill that would create a single, guaranteed transfer pathway to University of California and California State University system campuses. UC administrators and other opponents don’t believe the bill as written benefits students. Proponents of the bill say the legislation is a long-overdue step to ease a convoluted transfer process for many students.
About 80,000 California community college students transfer to UC and CSU campuses each year, according to the community college system’s website.
The legislation, Assembly Bill 1749,* authored by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, would guarantee graduates of California Community Colleges admission to at least one UC system campus if they earn what’s known as an associate degree for transfer, or A.D.T. Students who have an A.D.T. have met requirements that already guarantee them admission to a CSU campus, though not necessarily the campus of their choice.
The bill’s advocates include the California Community College system’s chancellor and the student governments of both the community college and UC systems. They argue that having to make sense of multiple sets of requirements to apply to CSU and UC campuses is inefficient and confusing for students. The proposed legislation would provide automatic admission to colleges in both the UC and CSU systems to students who meet minimum admission requirements.
Critics of the bill say UC’s requirements for majoring in certain fields of study, particularly in STEM fields, don’t align with CSU’s requirements for majoring in the same fields. The opponents also contend that students earning A.D.T.s would have to take extra classes once they got to a UC or take unnecessary classes only the CSU system requires, which would mean transfer students taking longer to graduate. UC officials also argue that the current admissions process, which accounts for factors beyond GPA and course requirements, is more likely to bring in a diverse transfer cohort and ensure students come academically prepared.
Currently, six of the nine UC undergraduate campuses, except for UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego, have guaranteed transfer pathways. But the requirements and eligible majors differ by campus...
Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2023/08/01/california-bill-ease-transfer-stokes-controversy.
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