Students transferring from Long Beach City College are being offered guaranteed priority admission to Cal State Long Beach.
Senate Bill 1440, also known as the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act (STAR Act), was approved in December 2010 by the California Community College’s chancellor’s office. SB 1440 came into affect at the start of this fall semester. It grants students from community colleges guaranteed admission to their local Cal State University with an associate degree and junior standing.
“We’re still early in the development process, but it’s exciting that our students will have some transfer degree options available to them beginning this fall,” California Community Colleges (CCC) Chancellor Jack Scott said in a conference.
Students transferring from a community college to a CSU will receive an Associate of Arts or an Associate of Science degree with 60 units that include 18 units in their major. These units consist of the general education courses and lower division major courses. The benefit of having an AA or AS degree is that students will have a better chance of getting into impacted majors at a CSU.
“It’s good to know that I can get a head start on my degree at LBCC instead of having to wait until I get to Cal State because I didn’t want to cram all my major courses in my last two years of college,” said Yesenia Sepulveda, a freshman at LBCC.
The CCC and CSU are working together to give students a better opportunity to graduate on time by creating courses universally transferable throughout the CCC and CSU systems.
Once a student completes the appropriate courses at a CCC, the CSU cannot require the student to take any of those courses over again.
SB 1440 requires students to complete the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum, which is a guide of approved courses that transfer to a CSU.
The goal of SB 1440 is to make it easier for students to graduate from a CSU on time because they will not have to take additional courses to complete their 120-unit Bachelor of Arts degree.
“It’s a good thing for students attending a community college because transferring is usually a stressful and confusing process,” said Jonathan Smith, a junior at LBCC.
According to the CCC chancellor’s office, SB 1440 will generate approximately $160 million annually in cost savings and nearly 14,000 CSU students each year.
“We’ve simplified the transfer process and that allows the CSU and California Community Colleges to serve more students and save millions of dollars by eliminating excess units that transfer students often accumulate in completing their degrees,” CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in a press conference. “It’s a win-win for everybody.”
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