San Francisco
This state, which boasts the nation’s largest
two-year college system and one of the best community college student
transfer rates, thinks it can do even better.
California has been a leader in encouraging students to start their
college careers at two-year schools and finish up at four-year ones,
largely because of overcrowding at senior institutions.
But even though its transfer record has been the envy of other
states, California relies largely on a complicated patchwork of
individual pacts and agreements.
The state community college system office has been working for some
time to streamline the system. Late last year, it began to see a return
on its negotiating investment.
The University of California (UC) considered the state’s top-tier
system, in November agreed to try and increase community college
transfers to 14,500 by 2005. That would represent a 38 percent jump
over the number of transfers the college system accepted last year,
statistics from the California community colleges state chancellor’s
office show.
“This agreement provides significantly increased access to the UC
system for our students,” says California Community Colleges Chancellor
Thomas J. Nussbaum.