Joint Legislative Audit

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's oversight hearing of the joint legislative audit committee. Thank you, Mister Fong, Chair Fong for being here. And I think Members will be rolling in as we speak. Thank you, Mister Parks, our auditor, who's here.

Today, we'll discuss the findings and recommendations in the recent audit report titled California Systems of Public Higher Education Streamlining the College community college transfer process could increase access to bachelor degrees. I wanna thank Assemblymember Alvarez for requesting this audit and for raising a fundamental and timely question. Are our public higher education systems effectively supporting college students seeking to transfer and earn bachelor's degrees? At this point, Mister Fung, did you wanna make an opening?

Thank you so much, Mister Chairman. It's a Chair of our obedience to Vice Chair Cabaldon for organizing this hearing, and thank you so much to some of our office for requesting this audit. As the Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, our committee commit continues to grapple with the transfer process and students' ability to successfully earn a four year degree should they choose to. And according to the PPIC, California's higher education system depends heavily on our community colleges in California.

California enrolls a much larger share of recent high school graduates and community colleges than other states, but it's near the bottom when it comes to enrolling in four year colleges and universities.

That's why transferring to four year institutions plays a vital role in boosting a number of bachelor degree holders here in our state and to keen to strengthen economic security of California's workers. In fact, according to a PPIC March 2026 publication titled College Completion in California, degree and transfer attainment remain low at our community colleges.

The PPIC found that among students who that begin at a community college, more than sixty percent declared degree or transfer goal, yet only one fifth of transfer intending students do so within four years and only ten percent within two years. We know there's a lot more work to be done in this space, and now's the time for our segments to continue working closer together to continue to break down those transfer silos that remain in place for our students.

I remain committed to ensuring that our students have the best tools and opportunities to transfer to four year colleges and universities, And I look forward to the discussion here today.

Thank you so much again to Chair Harabedian. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair Fong. I think just building off of that, I think that we're trying to figure out how the 2,000,000 students in our community college system can transfer more easily into the four year public education systems, both Cal States and UCs. And I think that the audit which the results came out a few years ago now, I think was extremely enlightening.

And I thought that the issues that were brought up by the auditor and his team, I think, posed some real questions for us to to discuss today. I think having this hearing is is really fruitful, and I think you'll have more members come in and make opening statements.

But I just want to highlight a few of the things, from the audit that I think are important. Again, 2,200,000 students are in the community college system here in California, and it really is the cornerstone of our of the best, I will say, the best higher education system in the nation. And it serves the most diverse student body in California higher education, including many first generation, low income, and historically underserved students. And I think that's why it's so important.

These aren't just a the community college population tends to be just that, first generation, low income, and historically underserved.

And I think when we're talking about the ability of these students to transfer and obtain four year degrees, we are not just talking about an equal swath of the college community. We're actually talking about those that really we are trying to uplift the most, and we're trying to ensure that they have, more, access than your average college student college student, if you will. And I think that, as Chair Fong noted, the data isn't great.

We see that one in five students who come into community college at this point in California, only one in five are actually transferring within four years to a four year institution. Most startlingly, I think for the 75 % of students that aren't transferring within that four year from a community college to a four year university, only 4% of those students are even applying.

And most within that population you see don't have the units to apply. There's a lot of confusion as to how they apply. There's four different paths that one can take to apply from a community college to a CSU or UC. And so a lot of people seem to be falling through the cracks, and we're trying to figure out here today and going forward, how can we implement recommendations to make that better? And why does it matter?

Again, bachelor's degrees open doors. They do a lot to help with job security, higher starting wages, and a broader range of career opportunities. And so earning a bachelor degree in our CSU and our UC program or outside of that prog program here in the state and anywhere in the country if they get a bachelor's degree is a gateway to opportunity and upward mobility.

For the state, a strong transfer pathway has immense potential for advancing equity, addressing workforce shortages, and maximizing the return on public investment in higher education. Despite the importance of transfer, the state auditor again finds that California's current system transfer system is not really serving our students well.

And it can be better, and it should be improved. And I do think that we need to talk a bit about, you know, the fact that even with you know, we've noted the statistics of just on a very surface level, one in five being able to transfer out. If you if you dig down deeper, it's concerning that there seems to be significant variability across campuses, majors, and demographic groups for those that actually do get to transfer.

So for example, access to competitive majors and campuses such as the STEM majors and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Berkeley, notably more limited for our community college transferees. The statistics statistics were also extremely startling for our Latino and black students.

Their transfer rates were much lower than the overall average, much lower than white and Asian demographic students. And, beyond that, the geographic differences. We saw that in certain regions like the Central Valley and the in Inland Empire exhibited lower transfer rates than others. And, furthermore, the audit concludes that complex, and as I noted before, varying transfer requirements across and within the three systems make the process difficult for students to navigate. And I think that that is, that's highlighted by, for example, the associate degree of transfer.

There's a lot of discussion in the audit of the associate degree of transfer, and that has benefited some students that wanna go to the Cal States. But as the audit notes, some community colleges do not offer, at this point, the associate degree for transfer. And certain CSU campuses do not accept the ADT in all subject areas, which there's gaps there then. Right? So and the UC system doesn't accept the ADT whatsoever, I believe.

And I do think that that has created gaps, particularly in the STEM, majors. And because the UC doesn't accept the ADT, there are three transfer options that the UCs accept, which are different than the ADT. So, effectively, you have students who are trying to figure out how to get to their end place, but they don't really have a sense of a streamlined process and the requirements within that process to make it easy.

Before I turn it over to Assemblymember Alvarez for an opening statement, I just wanna leave us with the note that these findings have real and measurable consequences for our students and for the state. When transfer systems are unclear and inconsistent, students lose time, they lose money and momentum.

They fall through the cracks. They end up not transferring within four years, and they end up leaving community college and not obtaining their four year degree. That disproportionately affects students with fewer resources, those who rely most most on clear and predictable pathways. And from a statewide perspective, inefficiencies and transfer limit educational opportunity perpetuate inequalities and reduce California's capacity to meet workforce demand. And I think the audit makes very clear that improving transfer is not simply aspirational.

It's central to access equity and affordability in higher higher education. So we're gonna hear from our state auditor on this audit, and what he recommends going forward. I do wanna thank Senator Berman, who is in here, who has done a lot to advocate in this space, and I certainly wanna hear his thoughts. But right now, I'm gonna turn it over to Senate member Alvarez who actually requested the side.

I wanna thank him again for his work and cede the floor to him for any opening remarks that he'd like to make.

Thank you very much, Harabedian. Appreciate the opportunity to join you all today and back, at this committee. It's really actually feels really good to be back. The hearing today centers on the audit of the community college transfer that I requested three years ago, and I appreciate the work that was done to produce the audit. The goal was to gain understanding of the current gaps in the transfer process to afford more individuals the opportunity for four college educate education.

Since then, I'm sure it's no surprise to many people who are observers of what happens in the legislature working along Chair Fong and colleagues in the Senate. My work has consistently been about ensuring that our community college students have those opportunities.

And the work that the audit audit demonstrates or identifies that needs to be done is certainly one that is always with me, was with me this year through our budget hearings and subcommittee number three on the issue of common course numbering, which is one of the ways to address some of these concerns, which are identified in the recommendations by the auditor, which I'll get into in a second. But, again, thank you to the auditor, the team, to the committee consultants.

Thank you for, the work, and for having us here today.

I also wanna thank the community college system, the UC system, the CSU system, for their continued commitment to serve the state's diverse student population and willingness to engage the state to ensure the pathway to a bachelor's degree is accessible for our I think we're doing some good work. But as the audit identifies and as hearings since then have identified and legislation that we've discussed since then has identified, there is more work to be done. There are still barriers along the transfer pathway.

That's the headline, I think, of the entire audit. So even though our community colleges serve that very diverse student population now reaching highest enrollment levels in in years, well over 2,000,000 students across the 116 campuses.

These are the students that I think we often do our work around, our first generation students, our low income students, historically underrepresented students. The students who may have not received an acceptance letter from the UC system or from the CSU system, but yet still have the same dreams and desires. And, actually, there is no barrier to enter our community college system. You can walk straight in and be accepted whether you have your high school degree or seeking a GED.

But are you looking for your continued pathway in education to find those opportunities anyone can get in?

However, the number is staggering that three out of four first time community college students are transfer intent to earn a bachelor's degree, yet relatively few successfully transfer to a UC and CSU. In fact, one only one in five students transfer within four years of the initial enrollment. Again, that's where the audit comes in. The associates degree for transfer, as the Chair mentioned, in 2010, the state established the ADT to guarantee admission to the CSU from a community college for those students who met those requirements.

The number of ADT earners has has increased since the request of the audit showing an 11% growth since 2023.

However, as the Chair identified, it is still I I like to think about our community college students, and and I like to vision you know, bring them up into a a vision of them or a a picture of them. And at least when I initially began a lot of this work, I pictured a student who's coming out of high school. Fifty eight percent of students are over the age of 24 in our community college student.

They are not your 18 year old coming out of high school. I say that because that means that there are nontraditional individuals.

This is we use this word, students in a community college system are are from all walks of life. They have different challenges and different upbringings and experiences. And and what we've done is we've tried to create pathways that are very, very narrow and specific, which students have to then navigate and figure out how to get into that pathway. The transfer admission guarantee tag program, certainly, when I was in high school and going to college, I heard a lot about that.

This is a program with the UC, which is not the UC is not subject to the ADT.

So they can do their own thing, and they do. There are six campuses that do offer transfer admission guarantee to community colleges, so not all UCs offer it. So, again, picture yourself a student who many times you're working. Many times you are a parent. You have family obligations.

And on top of that, you know you wanna get a four year degree, but you either have to figure out whether you do an ADT and which campuses you're gonna get into if you do an ADT and which ADT program to do or a tag program. Figure out whether those campuses are relatively appropriate for you because as we know, many college students are often place bound. They're not looking to just get up and uproot and go somewhere else.

And and so if you wanna go to UC, hopefully, you live close enough to one that has a t a tag program and that they have it in the program that you want to study. So that is what our students need to navigate.

And also just a reminder, UC's most competitive campuses, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego do not offer transfer admittance guarantee. The Chair spoke already very well on the representation or lack thereof of our student population or student groups, whether it's Latino or black. Certainly, first generation won't get into that regionally.

I wanna just highlight this as someone who comes from San Diego because it was a surprise for me to learn in this audit that San Diego was included within Inland Empire and the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento area as areas that lag behind the two that seem to do the be the most successful, which is the Bay Area and LA. Important programming reminder that we have students throughout the entire state of California.

And while Los Angeles and Bay Area are significant centers of population, we have many, many other Californians who are hoping and seeking and dreaming just like everyone else. So while ADT and Tagg are steps in the right direction, more reforms are needed.

What we asked for in the audit was the progress of CS community colleges, CSUs, UCs, toward improving the number of community college students transferring to public four year institutions, the barriers, the extent to which transfer opportunities have expanded under CSU and UC, and the differences in transfer requirements and admission standards and practices across the selection of UC and CSU. The standards do differ. You're a community college student.

Again, I walked you through it. Just because you think you graduated with the or you you actually graduated successfully graduated from a community college does not mean you took the right courses to get into our four year institutions. So it was my hope that with the the findings, state auditor would offer some recommendations, and I was pleased to see some of the recommendations which have been adopted.

But I do wanna highlight one theme, which is consistent and which I think a lot of the work that those are who do those of us who do work in higher education space have been focused on. And that is on the issue of the significant barriers that remain in course articulation.

So we ask students to go and do do their best and take the courses and graduate, and they do. And even when they do, because the articulation agreements do not exist between the systems or as we call them segments, there is a lack of standardized transfer requirements that undermines the students' ability to successfully transfer and eventually complete a bachelor's degree. This wave of reform must include increased strategic coordination, data sharing as was identified between the segments, and some of that work still remains.

So what I'm looking forward to hear today is particularly the recommendation. So as the three segments come and testify, I'd be interested in the recommendations that have not been implemented yet.

I think they're all very reasonable. I like to hear and, again, we those of you from the segments might recall, we had oversight hearings on the issue of common course numbering, an articulation related type of issue. But, certainly, I think there's more work to be done, and and some of it has not been completed. I will call attention.

Thank you to the auditor for acknowledging that the legislature also has some recommendations and recommendation number seven on the STEM fields was one that was identified as fully implemented legislature that was legislation that was adopted in AB 2057.

But also I see here that there's a couple of recommendations that, really, we need to work on. The one I'm looking at from the legislative perspective is recommendation number eight, and this has to do with students having central access of information. It seems to be quite simple.

So as, the segments come up, certainly be be aware that this is an issue that I'll ask, which is as easy as ensuring that information is placed on the assist, not just on external websites, but on assist, which is what students are utilizing to identify their coursework and whether their coursework is the correct one to be able to articulate into the UC and CSU. So, again, thank you, all of you for the work.

Thank you again to the auditor and for the team of the audit, who worked on this. Mister Chair, I really appreciate you having this here. Obviously, it's an issue that matters personally. We don't just request audits for the sake of fun, but this has been an important one for me and my work in the last couple of years and will continue to be on a going forward basis. Thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you, Toussamera Alvarez, who also chairs this budget committee over education. So he's been immersed in these issues every day on a number of different levels. So just thank you for your work and and obviously in bringing this, but everything you've done to actually implement some solutions to these problems.

And, I do see that some member, Aaron, is here who has a particularly unique perspective and voice, on these issues having been through our community college system, having then transferred to UCLA, and off also serving as a community college, trustee prior to the Assembly. So he is invited here today and would like to turn it over to him if you have any opening comments.

Well, thank you, Mister Chair, and thank you to the other members who are here who's worked on these issues for a very long time. I wanna appreciate, Assemblymember Alvarez's leadership and Assemblymember Fong's leadership in particular on really trying to hone in on on outcomes and and not accepting really the status quo. And I appreciate the seriousness of of the audit findings and and how, you know, we're all trying to get there.

We're all trying to serve the one of the largest higher education bodies in the world. And and I think it's it's really critical that we continue to look inward to see how we can always do a better job.

And as the Chair mentioned, I not only my community call California Community College transfer student, but I'm a former community college, trustee president who for prior being elected, served on one of the most successful community colleges, I would say, in California, the Foothill De Anza Community College District, and saw firsthand when we coordinated with our higher education institutions and we looked inward how much progress we can make. And I also saw how how much more we need to go.

And I also wanna particularly thank Assemblymember Fong for your leadership on AB, 1098, the core the coordinating of higher education bodies.

It's sort of astounding to me as a former trustee and as a former legislative staffer for fifteen years how resistant I feel the UCs, the CSUs, and the community colleges actually don't purposefully talk to each other and how controversial it was to even talk about course numbering, about how PolyOne should be PolyOne at a public higher education university system, whether you go to community college, whether go to UCs or CSUs, and how difficult we have made it for students who are the first in their families to go to college, all because of resistance of well, that's the way we've always done it.

And so those that era is long gone, and there's still remnants of that. But I appreciate the leadership of the legislature and, the leadership of many, college administrators, faculty, and staff who have seen that we need to put students at the center of our higher education policy, not hiding in sort of the messages of, well, this is the way we've always done it or this is the preference of someone who's worked there.

It really needs to be about the changing demands of where our students need to be and how easy this can be for our students. And we need to be better at that, quite frankly. And I think this audit also shows really valuable data that we can glean from to support.

I know we have a very interesting model, between the UCs and the CSUs and the community colleges, but, that doesn't mean we can't continue to try and control and use our oversight and audit authority to continue this.

So I'm looking forward to the testimony here today, but I just wanna underline how how much more work we need to be doing on the fact that twenty one percent of our students who begin community college, as the audit says, between 2017 and 2019, with the goal of transferring to a UC or CSU, did so within four years. This is not to shame anybody.

I think this is a responsibility on all of our parts, and we need to first acknowledge that we're we're failing so many students. And we're failing the system is failing, and we need to do better at that.

And so how do we do better at that? Not doing the same things over and over. So I think we need to look at the findings of this audit seriously and hopefully begin deeper conversations about how we best prepare our students. And, you know, but by the time I was a community college student to to now, we didn't have food banks. We didn't have we didn't have any sort of housing grant programs.

We didn't have any near the categorical program funding, and we I was going to community college when we had repeatability. So the system has changed. It's been forced to change a lot because of these budgetary issues. But and and it's we're forced to meet the students, all of our students where they are. And I think we've made great strides, but we should also be looking at very basic things that this audit points out.

Like, the system should be talking to each other. I personally think it shouldn't take legislation by Assemblymember Fong to force the UCs and CSUs and community colleges to talk to each other. Unfortunately, we have to do that. It is a little embarrassing because you all should be talking to each other regardless. It shouldn't need state law to to force those conversations.

But we're here now, and we need to know, from the testimony how we can best support you all. And it begins by basic communication. So thank you, Mister Chair, for be having me here today.

Thank you. And thank you for those comments and and the perspective. And I wanna echo, the sentiment and thank Chair Fong for everything that he continues to do on the higher education front, especially on these issues and just his leadership throughout the the many years that he has provided. So thank you again, Mister Chair. And with that, let's invite our auditor up.

He will be our first panel, him and his team, Mister Versace. We'll we'll remind folks that after the presentation, there will be questions from the dias. And then after the last panel, we will actually open it up to public comment. So, bear with us for public comment. But, Mister Parks, good to see you.

Mister Versace, great to see you. You have technically, I think, fifteen minutes, but you usually don't take a full fifteen if you want to, please. But the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Harabedian, Members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning to discuss our 2023 audit on community college transfers. With me today is, Nick Versace, who supervised the audit and dealt extensively with the three systems of higher education included in the audit. Three systems of higher education included in the audit.

As was noted, in May 2023, Assemblymember Alvarez requested an audit examining how the state can increase the rate of student transfers from community colleges to the UC and CSU systems, thus expanding access for those seeking a four year degree, and identifying barriers to achieving higher transfer rates.

The importance of having a well functioning transfer process is reflected in the state's master plan for higher education, which was intended to serve as a framework for differentiating the different missions of the community colleges, the CSU, and the UC systems. And a central idea behind the master plan was to emphasize student transfers from community colleges, which primarily provide lower division education to the CSU and UC systems, which offer both lower and upper division courses.

And by envisioning that 60% of UC and CSU's undergraduate students would be enrolled in upper division coursework, the master plan expected that both systems would essentially reserve space in upper division classes for incoming transfer students. The master plan's 60% goal translates to roughly enrolling one transfer student for every two freshmen, assuming most students typically graduate in four years.

And state law further requires the governing boards of the UC and the CSU to coordinate and collaborate together as they develop articulation agreements and transfer programs. Assembly member Alvarez's audit requested and asked about three central questions. Are the systems meeting their student transfer goals? And if not, why not? What barriers are students facing as they attempt to navigate the transfer process?

And then what further outreach and support can be offered to increase transfer student representation at the UC and CSU systems? And so I'll take each of those issues one at a time. With respect to transfer rates, as chairman Harabedian pointed out in the beginning of his presentation, Our analysis found that globally, the CSU and the UC systems generally have high admission rates and transfer representation, but it's a different story when you examine specific campuses and highly competitive degree programs.

While for community college systems at the time of our audit, they had yet to meet their transfer goal outlined in their 2017 strategic plan. So I'll start briefly with community colleges.

Starting in 2017 and their strategic plan vision for success, the community colleges set a goal of increasing the number of students transferring to either UC or CSU by 35% over a five year period going from 80,000 to a 108,000. And what the audit found was that the community colleges were actually doing a good job up until the pandemic where that transfer growth was increasing. But after the pandemic, those transfer rates declined, through 2223 academic year, which was the last year of our audit.

However, another important measure of success is how often students who intend to transfer based on their course seeking behavior successfully transfer and within what time frame. And as been noted today, our audit found that roughly twenty one percent or roughly one in five transfer attendants transfer intending students were able to successfully transfer to a UC, CSU, or other university.

And for the remaining seventy nine percent or roughly 745,000 students that we reviewed during the audit, only about 4% had applied to a UC or CSU but did not transfer. Roughly 14% or a 131,000 students had 60 units or more but did not apply to UC or CSU. And the vast majority of students, roughly five hundred five hundred and eighty four thousand students, had less than 60 units, while 317,000 students had earned 15 units or less.

And according to the community college officials we spoke with during the audit, their students face multiple barriers that can hinder transferring successfully. At the community college level, students can always access the prerequisite courses that are needed to transfer or find timely and accurate information on transfer requirements.

At the UC and CSU level, complex transfer requirements that are difficult for students to understand and fulfill are a barrier, while limited capacity at UC and CSU for certain high demand degree programs can make accommodating transfer students difficult. And further, some come on some community college students themselves face personal barriers to transferring, such as fiscal considerations, family obligations, or the inability to relocate outside of their local communities.

The audit also found variation in transfer rates in geography, as has been noted, where, community colleges in the Bay Area and San Diego, in South Central regions had slightly higher transfer rates than the statewide average, while community colleges in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and Northern regions of the state had lower transfer rates.

And we also saw disparities of underrepresentation among certain demographic groups, such as African American students who accounted for just over 6% of all transfer intending students, yet represented only 2.3% of transfers admitted to UC. And Hispanic and Latino students accounted for 50% of all transfer intending students, yet represented 27% of transfers admitted to UC.

And these gaps likely exist for a variety of reasons, some of which may be difficult for community colleges to address on their own. But our observations at the community colleges themselves found that they often could not explain how they determine the root causes behind these performance gaps so so that programs could be developed to offer additional support.

At the UC and CESU level, we found that both systems enroll more transfer students than required under the master plan on a statewide system wide basis between academic years 1819 through 2223. As a whole, you see, we found in the UC UC system that thirty three point four percent of new resident enrollees were transfers. And for CSU as a whole, we found that 53% of new resident enrollees were transfer students.

However, not all individual campuses enroll this many transfer students. Notably, Santa Cruz, Riverside, Merced, and Cal Poly in the CSU system had much lower transfer representation. And we also found similarities between UC and CSU, and that they weren't having as much success transferring students into STEM related degree programs. For example, at UC, transfer students represented about 20 to 25% of all undergraduates in STEM fields like engineering and computer science, but accounted for 50% of undergraduates in the arts and the humanities.

And similarly at CSU, transfer students represented about 40 to 40% of degree earners in STEM fields, but accounted for between 65 to nearly 70% of degree earners in non STEM fields.

And when limited capacity exists, we believe both UC and CSU can better prioritize the admission of transfer students, such as by monitoring how campuses in their specific programs are enrolling transfer students compared to freshmen, and ensuring that campuses and programs are adequately prioritizing transfer students. We found some evidence during the audit that some UC and CSU schools were not prioritizing transfer students, and campus officials expressed concerns to my audit team that they would be disadvantaging freshmen if more transfer students are accepted into competitive degree programs.

For example, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is among the most exclusive schools in the state, and it denied 81 of transfer applicants during our audit period. And of those denials, 9,400 community college students had GPAs of 3.6 or higher. And Cal Poly's vice president of enrollment confirmed to us during the audit that the campus does not admit all qualified transfer up all transfer applicants, including those transfer applicants who have met campus specific or major specific supplemental requirements.

We saw a similar thing at UC Berkeley in its computer science program where it denied a 108 transfer applicants in the fall of twenty twenty two, even though those applicants were rated as recommended for admission, including 95 transfer applicants rated as best prepared or strongly prepared in terms of the prerequisite courses that they had completed. And just of note, at UC Berkeley's computer science program, only 11% of new enrollees are transfer students, and only 10% of those students go on to win degrees in that major.

One of the major barriers we uncovered during the audit is really students who struggle to understand what's required of them as part of the transfer process, noting the many variations in course requirements between the CSU and UC systems. Academic faculty at UC and CSU define the prerequisite courses needed for students to successfully transfer into their programs leading to different requirements. But these varying requirements can lead to great confusion.

And so one of the things we did in the audit is we followed a student who was studying, computer science and trying to figure out what courses the student would need to take if they were transferring to a UC or CSU school. And for this student focusing on computer science, we found that this person would have to figure out that at UC bar UC Santa Barbara, that campus required two physics courses, but UC Berkeley did not require physics courses.

But UC Berkeley requires certain math courses that could only be taken after transfer, while UC Santa Barbara required statistic courses that could only be taken after transfer. San Diego State required a statistics course, but UC San Diego did not. And UC San Diego required additional calculus courses that was not required by Berkeley, Santa Barbara, or any of the other three CSU schools we reviewed.

The legislature and CSU's attempt to streamline and add consistency to course requirements has been, part of the associate degree for transfer program, which provides a competitive advantage for students and guarantees course transferability to reduce the time needed for a degree. And it's offered in 40 programs throughout the state using pre established curricula. However, there are significant limitations to the ADT program. Earning an ADT does not guarantee admission to any specific campus or major.

Community colleges do not offer, and CSU campuses do not accept the ADT in all 40 subjects.

And aside from these limitations, the admission benefits to students from an ADT can be modest. Although students with an ADT are admitted 80% of the time, those with traditional associate's degrees are admitted for transfer 74% of the time. And students earning an ADT averaged 82 community college credits when transferring versus 85 units for students transferring without an associate's degree, or 95 units for those with an associate's degree.

On the UC side, they have their TAG program, which provides community college students with a guaranteed admission to certain participating campuses. But as has been mentioned earlier in this hearing, not all schools recognize TAG.

Schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego do not offer TAG at all, while other campuses exclude TAG from certain high demand or STEM related programs like computer science, mechanical engineering, or business administration. Ultimately, what our audit team found is that there needs to be much better alignment on the transfer requirements between UCCSU and community colleges. The transfer process could be greatly improved and simplified for community college students if this process took place.

However, the academic senate at the UC and CSU have had limited success in aligning course requirements, especially since no single state entity is responsible for ensuring the three systems collaborate and given UC's independence under the constitution from legislative control.

As of October 2023, UC and CSU were only able to align course requirements through what it calls its transfer alignment project for just two academic disciplines, political science and sociology, and concluded at the time of our audit that it could not reach agreement on transfer requirements for a degree in five other academic disciplines, perhaps surprisingly not being able to reach agreement on the transfer requirements for a degree in mathematics.

Finally, we found that much more could be done to provide outreach and further support, for community college students. At the community college level, we found, when we visited fights campuses that they did not provide their students with education plans as required by California regulations to assist them with transferring to CSU or UC. State law generally requires community colleges to take an active approach to seeking out counseling and monitoring the progress of transfer intending students. We saw limitations of counselors, available to assist, transfer intending students.

Four of the five campuses that we reviewed, did not meet recommendations to have at least one counselor for every 370 students.

And none of the five campuses that we reviewed had equity plans that provided clear information about the root causes for the equity gaps I talked earlier about. African American students and Latino students not having the same degree of success when transferring to a CSU or UC. We'd expected these equity plans would have provided information on what's driving these disparities and how are we evaluating the programs we're developing to offer solutions to those gaps.

At the UC and CSU level, we also heard consistently that there was a great desire for greater data sharing and collaboration among the three systems, and it appears to us that they are making progress working towards that. Overall, our report made 22 recommendations of which 10 are fully implemented with another four that are partially implemented.

Our next check-in, with the CSU and UC systems and the community colleges will be this coming September. Recommendations that have already been implemented, so I I won't go into too much detail there. In terms of outstanding recommendations of what's still left to do, I think I would focus on, again, what Senate or what Assemblymember Alvarez mentioned during his opening remarks is that much more work needs to be done with respect to articulation.

That is really the driving force, that helps community college students understand what's required so that they're taking the courses that are necessary that best positions them to transfer. Those are my opening remarks.

I have Nick Versace here with me to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you, Mister Parks. And we will delve into some of those momentarily. And right now, I would just wanna welcome Assembly Member Quirk-Silva who's joined us and and give her the first bite of questions. But first, if you have an opening statement, please feel free to do that. And then if you have any questions.

Thank you. I just I came in a little bit after your presentation started, and I haven't had a chance to digest. But from what I've just heard from the last maybe you had started ten minutes before I came in, so forgive me if I don't have the information. I just wanna go back to 2012 when I first started here in the state body. And all of what you're talking about has been talked about for well over a decade, if not two decade.

And it really angers and saddens me that here we are again heading into 2026 with what we want to do more articulation. We wanna collaborate collaborate more. And yet some of the very basic things like the transfer degree that was a promise to students, which was that if you take this set of courses, you will be able to be admitted into, a CSU or a UC. And by your testimony, we can see that that's not the case.

It's no surprise to me that our students of color, our black students, our brown students are following falling far behind.

And I think more than just an audit, the CSUs and the UCs needs to start checking themselves who makes these decisions on the campus about if a a course aligns, who is the body. I believe they have their only their senates, all of these, and who usually sit on those bodies. A lot of times, the professors and I'm sorry, professors, if you're getting mad at me. Sorry. But a lot of times, they don't align with their students.

They don't see who's in front of them. They're not seeing the barriers these students, which is why community colleges are so vital, which makes me even more aggressively supporting this initiative to have BA degrees on the community college campuses because then they won't have to transfer. I was a transfer student too long ago, forty years ago. And to be honest, not much has changed. Not much has changed.

But what has changed is students don't go to campus the way I did forty years ago and sit with the counselor. So a lot of this is done without the support. That's on them too, the students. But the reality is if you have a transfer degree in place, they should be able to transfer. Otherwise, what are we selling?

We're selling a bunch of lines that aren't coming true for these students, and it really upsets me. So I'll just stop there because the report, I think, speaks for itself. But I'm leaving the body, and it saddens me that we're still talking about things that we were talking about almost fifteen years ago. And we keep giving this latitude, and the latitude is, well, they have their own constitution. We can't, you know, get invested, and we better We better.

Otherwise, why are we putting these dollars into higher education when many, many students don't attain the degree that I think they initially want to attain? But many of these students get exhausted. They just get exhausted from jumping through hoops. Oh, I took that class. Now it doesn't qualify.

Sorry out there, whoever's listening, but this has has to stop. It's embarrassing, and it is not the California dream we're promising. Thank you.

Thank you. Well said. Well said. I'll move to other members for questions. Chair Fong?

Thank you so much, Chair Harpreeti, and thank you so much to the grant to auditor for the presentation. We know that as we heard from your testimony, there's still a lot more work to be done around coordination, around ADTs, around our most impacted university campuses like UCLA, San Diego, and Berkeley.

And the work and efforts of continue to push with our interagency council, the work and efforts of the segmental collaboration, but knowing the certainty of when student comes on the community college campus that they can articulate, that they can transfer, making sure that we provide that information upfront.

I think at the recommendations that you do have Harabedian we'll look at additional legislative remedies that we continue to push, but on the budget front as well as Chair Alvarez and Senator Enns and Senator Quirk Silva mentioned, but the work in episode, we gotta continue around additional reducing those barriers whether it's around housing, whether it's around food or financial aid. In the budget process this year, we're expanding the Cal Grant eligibility.

And thank you so much to Charles and to everyone, the CNA Commission for that work as well. But we know there's a lot more work to be done, and so we look forward to the work ahead to look at the recommendations as to we, look at implementing a number of these recommendations to make it easier for students, to transfer. And we know that the transferability rate right now of only twenty percent is unacceptable. And so there's a lot more work to be done. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Alvarez?

Thank you again for your work. I'm actually gonna ask you to repeat something you said in your testimony because I think it's important to capture that. Can you can you once again read to us the student who you followed? This is a real live scenario. Right?

This this is a student who was trying to transfer, was intending on transfer, or as a community college student. Can you tell me where that student was? And then tell me about all of those different requirements that they'd have to figure out that you just walked us through?

Just give me a moment to find it, my testimony here.

Just to, share, and maybe I misspoke, what we did was we took a hypothetical student. Okay. So maybe Aye, you know, didn't speak as clearly as I intended. But we took a hypothetical student that was focusing on computer science, and correct me if I'm wrong, Nick, but I I believe that's what we did.

And what we did is

If a student entered a community college system who would like to pursue a bachelor's degree In computer science. In computer science, this is what they would face.

Right. Okay. Here it is. Sorry for the delay. And so my testimony was, you know, during the audit, we looked at what courses a community college student who is studying computer science would need when transferring to a UC or CSU school.

I think we have a graphic to this effect on figure 15 on page 44 of our report. And so, for example, UC Santa Barbara required two physics courses, while UC Berkeley did not require physics courses. But you So

let me just stop you there. If this student wanted to go to UC Santa Barbara but didn't take two physics courses, they wouldn't be able to go to UC Santa Barbara, but they could apply to UC Berkeley and they would meet the qualifications. Assuming they met the other requirements. Okay.

Then I went on to say that UC Berkeley required certain math courses that could only be taken after transfer, while UC Santa Barbara required certain statistics courses that could only be taken after transfer. And so these are examples of, both UC schools requiring courses that perhaps could have been taken at a community college level, but instead, the UC schools are requiring that they be taken on their campus.

And they're two different sets of courses for the same degree.

Right. K. San Diego State, a CSU school, required a statistics course, but UC San Diego did not require a statistics course.

So if I'm a student my my child wants to become a computer scientist in San Diego goes to community college, but does not take the statistics course. They would not be eligible to apply for San Diego State, but they would be eligible to apply to UCSD.

That's right. K. And then UC San Diego required additional calculus courses that was not required by UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, or any of the other three CSU schools we reviewed. And so this example was meant to highlight that these different campuses really have different standards for what is required to transfer to those respective schools, and that adds real costs to community college students who wish to transfer because they have all these requirements they have to navigate.

And if they wanna expand the pool of schools that they're going to apply to, that could necessarily result in them taking way more classes than would otherwise be the case had these requirements been aligned. Right.

Or if you're a community college student who, has a family and you live in San Diego and wanted to pursue a degree, if you've missed some of those courses or you took the wrong ones, you may not be able to get into UCSD, but you can get into Berkeley, Santa Barbara. But as community college students, you're probably not leaving San Diego. So good luck and go take another course. K. That exemplified the infuriating, I think, sentiment that exist among many many of us.

And let me ask you now about, the general education transfer Cal Getze. And this was supposed to be, another mechanism in addition to, an associate's degree for transfer that would meet minimum requirements for a community college student to then gain admission. I I realize you don't you don't mention, much of that, and I don't know the all the history of Calcutta. So do you did you, do you have anything you can provide towards that?

Yeah. Thank you. I'm Nick Versace. I was the supervisor on the audit. So you're correct.

We didn't get too much into the general education requirements in part because major preparatory courses were more where that misalignment was happening and were more relevant to, the majors and transfer requirements. But we do mention Calcutta briefly in the report as an effort to try to cut down on the number of general education units that students have to take. And I'll also point out that the ADT, which we talk about a lot, builds in general education requirements as part of that 60 unit package.

So I think that's another reason why we recommended expanding the use of the ADT more. So if

a student goes into community college and they wanna make sure that they take all their general ed because the assumption is you take your general ed requirements and then get you you graduate with your associate's degree, and that is good enough. That's the golden ticket to apply to a UC or a CSU.

The audit says that may not be the case because you may not be prepared with the right golden ticket because you needed to have taken other courses that you didn't take as part of your general ed requirements. Is that true?

Yes. I think part of what we were saying in the audit was that general education is yet another set of courses you need to figure out that has in the past differed between the systems. And that's one reason why a couple of things we're recommending, expanding the use of the ADT because it simplifies that that ticket to the four year. And then the second thing we talk about is more counseling and education plans at the community college level to help navigate those decisions.

K.

Thank you. Senator Aaron, any questions? Before we let you go, first of all, I just wanna thank you again, both you for the work and the whole team. Did you and the audit doesn't really delve into this. And I think we can delve more and talk more about trying to streamline the the ADT process.

I mean, it would be very effective or hopefully be more effective if the UCs and all of the CSUs all had the same requirements that got students from point a to point b with a very clear path, and there were no questions. I think yeah, I agree with Senator Alvarez and what's been said. It's infuriating to hear those inconsistencies, and it's just setting kids up to fail. Frankly, not kids.

A lot of these students are are working parents and are just trying to, get a clear pathway to better their lives.

What would it take to and did you ask questions on the UC and the CSU side? What would it take to actually just have everyone adopt the same set of requirements using the ADT and making it just a a uniform process? And if you ask that question, what was the response?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. So we did ask that to the campuses and systems. I think they brought up a lot of challenges that they can probably speak to in more detail related to, different programs being offered, for example, at different campuses. So community college level, smaller colleges may not offer certain programs that there's an ADT for at others.

At the four year systems, they may have different programs, different requirements. One thing we do talk about that could that we thought could change was some of those middle ground areas where maybe one community college can can do an ADT, but the other can't because of a unit difference between classes. That's something that we bring up. Or at the four year side, one campus doesn't think that courses adequately prepare students, but another campus may believe that it does.

So I think that's where the room for compromise that we saw exists, and we make recommendations to the CSU and the community colleges to offer and accept more ADTs and have good rationales when they don't.

And then on the UC side to either accept the ADT similar to the CSU system, or if they they really can't at least emulate the same benefits that it offers in the UC context. So that would be unit caps and, ensuring articulation.

But I think another thing that, just to to speak bluntly here, I think you asked what is it gonna take. I think it's gonna take a will, by the CSU and the UC and the community college system to invest the time to work through these articulation agreements and to the extent that the legislature is looking at other alternatives to perhaps incentivize that collaboration.

I know that there are bills moving through or being considered now that are going to expand the use of community colleges as a vehicle to get four year degrees. And so maybe that is a policy consideration that the legislature needs to consider moving forward.

Go ahead.

You mentioned in your comments that it seemed or and then rephrase if I have it wrong, that even though there's transfer students that are available to transfer, there's still the CSU or UC don't always admit them. Is there a preference to to starting to get the students in on the CSU or the UC campus in as freshmen and have them go all the way to a four year?

Or is there some type of funding stream that they get that makes it in essence, that they would wanna have the students four years, or why aren't they seeing the transfer student as somebody that they just want to have on that campus? Because it seems like if these students are attaining these degrees, associate degrees, or the transfer degree, they would want to admit them as, I would assume, juniors. So what is that hesitancy that you can kind of

So based on a couple of campuses that we spoke to where we saw relatively low representation among transfer students, I think and correct me if I'm wrong, Nick. You can expand on these comments. We did sense some reluctance, by CSU and UC campuses to admit transfer students. There seemed to be a clear preference for not disadvantaging freshmen and making sure that there was available upper course division space for those freshmen. Nick, I didn't know if there was further context you wanted to provide there.

Yeah. I'll just add something that we identified as a area for change in recommendation was actually the planning mechanism for the transfer students coming in. I think it what we saw in this audit is that it's easier to plan around freshmen because they're already there. So, you know, they're kind of progressing through the four years. You then have to carve out space for transfers to come in to seats that the freshmen are already moving toward.

So we saw at some of the campuses we reviewed that they weren't necessarily planning intentionally to enroll a larger number of transfer students, and that's a recommendation we made.

Thank you.

And and I guess my last question, I I do think that the the caps on units was a huge issue, and we've had legislation to send Mer Berman who who may be here with twenty fifty seven, tried to address that with commute computer science. But that is definitely still an issue clearly from the audit. That when you have a cap on units for ADT, that's probably gonna lend itself to problems when certain, especially STEM majors, are gonna require more coursework.

That seems like something that we need to address across the board. But I guess the one thing that the audit didn't really get into, and I'm not sure if this was part of the the the question or the questions that led to some of these findings.

But there seems to be financial disincentives and incentives for some of this to actually be broken. If you think about it, the longer that a student stays in community college, the more money potentially that community college system makes versus that student who's gonna be paying somewhere going to a CSU or a UC. On the flip side, on The U on the UC side at CSUs, potentially, there's incentives or disincentives on which students to allow in.

A four year student would be a four year a freshman would be paying for four years, a transfer student two to three years, out of state students. The audit, I don't think, goes into out of state.

Out of state students, obviously, paying more when you when you net out financial aid and and and other factors. And so did did the audit team delve into potential corruption, if you will, within the system and a brokenness that actually is coming from the financial incentives and disincentives to the system as a whole operating, which, frankly, the community colleges and the CSU, and UC folks would be aligned on that.

I mean, a lot of these a lot of the disconnect actually provides the same financial incentives to both parties. Is that something that you guys looked into or asked questions about?

Yeah. We did ask a lot of questions about the different incentives at play. I I think from the folks that we spoke to at the systems and the campus level, we didn't identify a lot of that and what they were telling us and what we were able to see, and that's that's why we don't speak to it as much in the report.

I will note that each, system has strategic plans and goals that now kind of focus on, can we get students through the community colleges more efficiently and out with a degree more quickly from the CSU and UC. So that is something that I think they've they've worked toward.

We also mentioned the out of state, issue a little bit in terms of the community college population is very resident focused. It's mostly California residents. But we do note the UC system has agreed in in recent compacts to limit the non resident students, which has been the subject of past discussions.

Okay. Thank you very much. And appreciate everything that we heard today and everything else in the audit. We're now gonna bring up our second panel. We're gonna have James Todd, the vice chancellor chancellor of academic affairs from California Community Colleges.

April Grommo, the assistant vice chancellor of strategic enrollment management for the CSU system, and Han Mi Yoon-Wu, the associate vice president and executive director of undergraduate admissions for the University of California. Welcome. And you each have seven minutes. You don't have to take a full seven minutes. You can use you can use your time more efficiently.

And why don't we just go from my left to right? So, miss Yoon-Wu, if you'd like to start.

Thank you, Chair Harabedian, and Members of the committee for this opportunity to speak about the University of California's efforts to improve transfer. My name is Han Mi Yoon-Wu, and I'm the associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admission for the UC system. I wanted to begin my remarks by affirming the university's commitment and support of the transfer function, transfer enrollment, and transfer student success. These continue to be among the highest priorities for the University of California.

Transfer students are admitted to UC at extremely high rates.

Last year, seventy seven percent of community college applicants were admitted. UC enrolls more community college students than any university of its caliber in the nation. And these students don't only enroll at UC, they succeed, earning degrees and contributing to an educated and upwardly mobile California workforce. UC has a higher share of entering students who are transfer students than any other selective public or private university. A third of UC's bachelor degree recipients started at a community college.

We appreciate the time and effort the California State Auditor's Office committed to identifying ways in which the University of California could increase accessibility for community college transfers and improve the transfer process overall. Supporting California students in successfully transferring to the university has been and continues to be a top priority.

The university shares the goals of the auditors report and our partnership with the community college chancellor's office to ensure that transfer students have the support they need not only to enroll, but also to graduate and succeed after college. Adequate preparation of transfer students for upper division work in their major is essential for student success. The university remains equally committed to expanding opportunity and access for all California students.

And we're proud that enrollment of UC students who started in the community colleges continues to grow since the post pandemic declines. We are now near the high mark that was set in the fall of twenty twenty with nearly 18,000 new community college enrollees for fall twenty twenty five. And once they're at UC, they will do very well. We currently graduate eighty nine percent of our transfer graduates within four years.

On the UC specific recommendations, we share the report's goal of increasing transparency about how campuses and disciplines are making progress toward enrolling one resident transfer for every two resident first year student.

Last September, the office of the president published a new dashboard where the public can easily view new California two to one enrollment ratios by discipline as well as the proportion of California bachelor degree recipients who began as freshmen or as transfers. The new dashboard also provides campuses an additional tool to monitor their own progress toward achieving the two to one goal and for having campus conversations around the academically appropriate enrollment goals for the different disciplines and academic units.

We have also clearly communicated in our responses to the state auditor's office that the office of the president will not set or prioritize specific disciplinary goals for the campuses as they have recommended because transfer enrollment capacity is shaped by multiple factors at the campus level, including faculty and staff levels, available physical space, and alignment of community college coursework with UC admission and major requirements.

The community college chancellor's office and the office of the UC office of the president established formal bidirectional data sharing agreements to improve outreach and recruitment efforts as well as better assess the effectiveness of our collective transfer efforts, a process that started prior to the release of the auditor's report.

For the remaining recommendations related to streamlining lower division course requirements and identifying articulation gaps, UC, along with the other segments and in partnership with Assist, have developed a plan to enhance data integration and transparency to strengthen insight into articulation patterns and transfer pathways aligned with 98 bachelor degrees across the UC system. UC's academic Senate also assessed the alignment of UC's four biological science pathways, resulting in one unified biological science pathway that is compatible with the biology ADT.

The UCLA ADT pilot launched last fall, and we anticipate having insight into the initial outcomes this with this fall's enrollment. We also expect that at least four additional campuses will have their own ADT pathways by the twenty twenty eight, twenty nine academic year. So we look forward to continuing our work with our state and local education leaders and our community college and CSU partners to improve the transfer process.

Thank you, and I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is April Grommo, and I serve as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment Management at the California State University. Chair and committee members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the CSU. The CSU appreciates the state auditor's work and the legislator's continued focus on one of California's most important educational and economic priorities, helping more California community college students successfully transfer and complete a bachelor's degree. Transfer is central to the CSU's mission.

Each year, upwards of 50,000 California community college students transfer to the CSU. For those students, transfer is often the gateway to economic mobility, family sustaining careers, and long term opportunities. This work is also personal for me. I am a first generation college student who began my own higher education journey at a California community college. My daughter also began her college journey at a California community college.

So I understand both professionally and personally that transfer is not an abstract policy issue. It is a lived experience for students and families trying to navigate a system, make responsible financial choices, and keep a bachelor's degree within reach. Many students begin their higher education journey at a community college after high school because it's widely viewed as a more affordable pathway to a bachelor's degree. Yet the outcomes show why this hearing matters.

A recent PPIC report found that after eight years, only 14% of those students who originally enrolled at a community college have earned a degree at a UC or CSU.

The state auditor similarly found that only about twenty one percent of California community college students who began college from 2017 to 2019 and intended to transfer did so within four years. Together, those findings show that California's challenge is not a student aspiration. It is whether our systems provide the clarity, advising, course access, credit applicability, and sustained support students need to move from transfer intent to bachelor's degree completion.

The audit also found that among transfer intending students who did not transfer within four years, the vast majority never reached the point of applying to the CSU or the UC, largely because they had not earned enough units. At the same time, the audit confirms that CSU provides broad access for students who do not re who do reach the application stage.

More than 90% of California community college transfer applicants gained admission to at least one CSU campus during the audit period. So our task is twofold, help more students become transfer ready and apply, and then ensure students can enroll, carry their credits forward, and complete efficiently in the campuses and programs they are seeking. This is why transfer and transfer credit are explicit priorities in CSU Forward, our strategic plan.

CSU Forward commits the CSU to increasing transfer enrollment by 15% and achieving 90% credit applicability at the same at the time of transfer. These goals matter because transfer success is not only about whether a student is admitted, it is about whether the courses they already completed apply to degree requirements and preserve time, money, momentum, and financial aid.

CSU is also using itS Budget and enrollment reallocation plan and enrollment growth strategy to align enrollment capacity with student demand, including opportunities to increase transfer FTS at campuses and high in high demand programs. CSU campuses are also adding more online options for place bound and working transfer students. Clearer pathways matter, but students also need real capacity in the programs and regions they are trying to reach. The legislature has also taken an important step through SB 640.

CSU appreciates Senator Cabaldon's leadership and the legislator's partnership in extending the transfer success pathway program, our dual admissions program through twenty thirty five thirty six, and expanding the timeline for transfer completion from two to three academic years.

That change recognizes the real lives of community college students, students who are working, supporting families, attending part time, and navigating financial pressures. We also appreciate the California Community College Chancellor's Office for issuing guidance to colleges and districts regarding SB 640 and the importance of promoting the transfer success pathway program. TSP will only reach its full potential if students hear about it early and consistently from both systems. TSP is designed to address the uncertainty the audit identifies.

It gives eligible students early assurance of admission to a CSU campus, a clearly defined transfer pathway aligned with major preparation, coordinated advising, and structured support, why they complete lower division coursework.

All 22 CSU universities participate, and CSU partners statewide with all California community college. The program is still young, but it is growing. The agreements are executed through the CSU transfer planner, which now has over 65,000 student users and helps all community college students explore CSU campuses, majors, career pathways and salaries, academic history, educational plans, and when eligible, their transfer success pathway agreements. CSU is also using direct admissions communications to reach students earlier.

For students who not may not yet be on track to meet a through g requirements or direct CSU or UC freshman eligibility, the message should not be that the CSU door has closed.

Beginning at a California Community College can be a start of a structured supported route to a CSU degree through TSP. Of approximately 50,000 direct admissions mailers sent in fall twenty five, more than 9,000 of them were specifically sent to promote the transfer success pathway program.

And I'll just ask you to wrap up next fifteen seconds if you can. Sure. Thank you.

In closing, CSU accepts the urgency reflected in the auditors' findings. We are proud to be California's leading destination for California community college transfer students, and we are proud that the CSU admits the vast majority of eligible transfer applicants, more than 90%. But we are not satisfied with a system where there are too many students that never reach the application stage.

Our focus is clear to increase transfer enrollment, approve credit applicability, implement SB 640, and strengthen transfer success pathway, and also improve the ADT in articulation. We experienced transfer not as a maze, but as a guided route to a degree.

Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

Thank you. Mister Todd.

Thank you. James Todd, I'm the vice chancellor of academic affairs for the California Community Colleges. Just wanna say thank you for the opportunity to address you, and I share so many of your concerns that you brought up today. I wanna also thank the state auditor and the staff for a tremendous audit.

We embrace this audit because it's a thorough student centered and focused on one of the most important equity set, questions in California higher education, whether students who begin at community college can reach the baccalaureate if that's their goal.

And so for many Californians, especially students who are first generation, low income, working, parenting from rural communities and from communities who are historically underrepresented in higher education, the community college is not an alternative pathway. It is the primary pathway. It is the point of access. And so when transfer is confusing, it's uneven, or it's delayed, the burden doesn't fall equally. It falls most heavily on the students who need a more a clear and affordable route to the bachelor's degree.

And that's why the California Community Colleges are hyper focused on equitable equitable baccalaureate attainment. I think that was mentioned earlier. We do that through transfer, and we also do it through our own baccalaureate programs. And I I really believe transfer reform is not really just about movement between institutions. It's about access to the baccalaureate degree.

So historically, transfer has been central to California's master plan. Community colleges were designed to provide broad access to lower division education with CSU and UC providing upper division and baccalaureate opportunities. But that design only works if transfer works. If students can enter community college but cannot see, navigate, or complete the path to the university, then access has stopped short of opportunity. And I think the audit shows that this is where too many students are today.

The problem is not only that students are denied after applying, It's in many cases that they never got to the application stage. They do not accumulate the right units. They don't receive timely information or they're forced to navigate requirements that vary by system, by campus, and by major. And for students with more time, money, and access to advising, complexity can sometimes be managed. But for students balancing work, family, transportation, housing, and financial pressures, complexity becomes a barrier, and that is the equity challenge before us.

I would say that California has made important progress over the last fifteen years. The associate degree for transfer gave students a clearer route to CSU. CID created a faculty led infrastructure for identifying comparable courses across colleges. AB 928 moved us towards a single lower division general education pathway through CalGATC and strengthen the expectation that transfer and sending students be placed on an ADT pathway where one exists.

And common course numbering is now building the next layer of infrastructure so that students can understand what a course means across colleges.

But the next phase is that we've gotta go further. We've got to improve, a move from trap transfer pathways that exist on paper to transfer pathways that functionally function equitably for students. And so our work is cent ered on two principles. First, students need clear and transparent credit mobility, and I'm so thankful for the conversation before I say before I'm making my remarks because so many of you captured them already. A course that prepares a student for transfer should count in a predictable way.

A community college course should not lose value because of where it was taken, and students should not have to accumulate excess units or delay transfer because system to system articulation has not kept pace with their goals. And we should be candid that course articulation is one of the most difficult challenges before us, but it because it requires shared agreement across segments, campuses, disciplines, faculty, and systems about how a course counts and how that credit applies. But that is exactly why we must embrace it.

If we leave articulation to thousands of individual course by course and campus by campus decisions, we will continue to reproduce the very complexity that the audit identifies. And that's why common course numbering is so important.

It must become more than the labeling exercise. It must support common transferability, common general education applicability, and consistent major preparation articulation. As proposed, AB 2236 points that direction, points directly to that future by requiring streamlined system level articulation using common numbering templates rather than individual course review. And that kind of reform can dramatically reduce articulation gaps and make credit mobility real for students. Second, we must expand the power of the ADT as an equity tool.

Right now, community colleges are preparing students for two separate public university pathways, the CSU and the UC. And that stretches college resources, it complicates counseling, and it creates confusion for students. Students may have to choose courses not only based on their major, but based on whether they are preparing for the CSU, the UC, or trying to keep both doors open. And that is inefficient for institutions and and equitable for students.

ADT expansion is also difficult because it asks us to align lower division preparation with as many baccalaureate pathways as possible across different universities, disciplines, and local program structures, but we have to embrace this challenge.

Consider the power of focusing our transfer system around the ADT for transfer intending students. Imagine what the California community colleges could do to increase transfer if our counseling, our education planning, our core scheduling, our student supports, and intersegmental partnerships will are will are were all organized around one clear degree pathway designed to open as many baccalaureate doors as possible.

That is the promise of ADT expansion, a simpler system for colleges, a clearer pathway for students, and a stronger equity strategy for California, and might I add, more transfer students for our partners. The ADT gives California an opportunity to simplify the current structure and expand students' options. If an ADT is deemed similar to a baccalaureate pathway, that similarity determination should be student centered, transparent, and expansive.

ADT should articulate to as many aligned CSU pathways as possible. And where there's clear major alignment, UC adoption of the ADT would dramatically change transfer equity. This is about ensuring that students have as many affordable options as possible to complete a baccalaureate degree. For many community college students, transfer is not only an academic decision, it's a financial decision. Moving to a university can mean taking on costs for housing, transportation, food

Just gonna ask you to wrap up.

Yep. Lost work hours and other educational spend expenses. The more broadly ADTs are accepted across CSU and UC, the more students can make transfer decisions based on their academic goals, not only what they can afford, where they live, or which pathway they were able to decode. And I'll just stop there on my on those points. I think we I've heard your comments earlier that are echoing this.

Hopefully, I'm right in alignment. I think the transfer audit was fantastic and and welcome questions.

Thank you. Thank you to all three of you. I'll open it back up for questions. Chair Fong?

Thank you so much, Chair Harabedian, and thank you so much to all our panelists here. And thank you for the work and efforts. And as Mister Todd said, we gotta continue to embrace these challenges going forward. So that's what we're gonna do. Continue to do as a legislature as well.

My first questions are for the CSU system. So on page 53 of the audit, they mentioned the child development child and adolescent development programs when it especially with San Diego State mentioning that there was a minimum of 65 units of upper division credit required, but 17 of the 23 CSU campuses do accept the child and adolescent development ADT. Is there a reason why there's not consistency in the system in terms of that specific major, and how can we continue to make that easier for our students?

Well, I think we would have to refer to San Diego State to ask them

If you can information. Yeah. The microphone closer. Thank you.

There is definitely regional differences in the way that campuses create curriculum. So there may be a biology major, child development major that is specific to that area and what is needed for workforce demands in that area. So we would have to connect with San Diego State to get an answer to that.

Okay. Thank you so much. That was highlighted in the auditor's report on page. But the three in terms of a difference across the system and anything we can do to create additional parity or even though there's regional workforce needs as well to make it easier for students to transfer because this is what it's about. Is it how could you make it easier for our students to transfer?

And Mister Todd mentioned the ADT programs. And so that's one thing I wanted to highlight is that there's the inequitability across the system on on some different majors and some gaps there. So I just really wanna uplift that, but I appreciate the context of your

So as part of the recommendations for the audit, one of the asks was for the CSU to implement a procedure and process around ADTs. So that has been completed with, fall twenty five. Our office went through and worked with every campus to, evaluate every ADT program and to see if it could be aligned with their coursework. And so every ADT, if it is not being accepted and the campus has a similar major, they have to provide that information as to why it's not being accepted.

And we did see, as a result of that review, a couple of campuses that were able to add additional ADT similarities.

And thank you for that context. That's very helpful information. I think anything we could continue to do to add additional ADT pathways for the different majors and concentrations would be critical. So thank you for uploading that. And then my next question is for the UC system.

You mentioned earlier in your remarks that UCLA and so I just wanna see if there's any preliminary data for the UCLA ADT that's gonna be implemented for 26-27. Any insights there yet?

Not yet. The admission process is still in progress as you know. And, you know, while they may have some preliminary statements of intent to register, the July there's a July 1 deadline for transcripts, and so there may be some additional movement on the transfer side once transcripts are received. So and campuses are still potentially making wait list offers, and so there really isn't that much information at this point.

Okay. Thank you for that context. Any additional information we have going forward, that'd that'd be really insightful for the progress of that program at UCLA. And then you mentioned in your remarks that four other campuses will have, the HST pathway starting in 2829. What are those four campuses, and then why are we now doing it for the rest of the campuses?

The four campuses, I don't wanna necessarily put them on the spot right now, but we have had sort of the campuses volunteer that they're eager to have their their faculty have already started to look at the various ADTs and how they might align with preparation for their own programs on their campuses.

The other campuses, you know, they they may also already have capacity issues with their transfer programs And in the legislation that was asking UC to have this ADT pilot program, the expectation was that at least four additional campuses were going to participate. And so I'm saying right now that there are at least at least four additional campuses. There may be more.

And so those campuses now yet been determined? Or

Right. There have been some signals about at least four have signaled that they are planning to, and there may be more.

Okay. And do you know what those campuses may be? Or like he just thought like I said

I believe it's

because we have the most impact at universities, whether it's the three of the most impact in those, obviously, UC San Diego, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. So are those cons because because it's in consideration for those additional four?

So UCLA is already one of the pilot campuses. Right? So it's I believe it's Merced, Riverside, Irvine, and Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara. And so you're saying that for Berkeley and for UC San Diego, they're not gonna be part of the ADT expansion in the 28-29

That hasn't been determined yet.

Hasn't been determined yet. Okay. Well, I just wanna help out those most impacted universities and campuses as well, whether it's Berkeley and and San Diego as well as something as a legislature working with miss Harviz and and my colleagues who've been pushing hard on to expand a number of residents there to expand opportunities.

And with ADT pilot program at UCLA, I think when we have the information going forward, I think that'd be very helpful to the legislature, to the Assembly as we look at these additional steps to improve the transfer pathway. So really appreciate the context.

And thank you so much to all of you for everything. I know this is hard work here, but we need to continue to embrace the challenges to make it easier for our students to transfer. We know that it's critical for California, for our students, for our families, for our communities, and for the future of our state. So thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you, Senator Rafang. Senator Alvarez.

Thank you, Mister Chair. I am trying to ascertain whether to feel where to channel the right level of frustration here in different context, not not to you personally, different context. Is it a frustration that a system our our our segments, our entire higher education system doesn't totally work, which I think we could all agree it doesn't fully work. There's there's issues and problems. This is just another example of it, this this audit.

Or the fact that we may be come we have become too comfortable with the idea that the system exists the way it is and that we know that some students are not successfully achieving their potential and what would benefit us as a state, which is achieving a bachelor's degree. And I and I don't know how to feel about about how to appropriately feel about both of us.

Like, which one should I be more upset that we cannot figure out how the systems to work better together because we've got to figure that out. Or the fact that we have some sort of artificial limit in terms of how many students we are allowing to succeed in our higher education system for a variety of reasons. That could be budgetary.

That could be any other reasons. But but that's where I'm at this moment. But with that said, I would say I'd like to go through all of you because, I remember reading a few years ago some studies, academic studies done on the success of community college students once they enter a four year degree.

And I remember at the time, this has been a few years ago, that community college students who end up going to a university have higher achievement and success rates than your freshman who enter your institutions. Is that still the case for UC?

Is that still the case for CSU?

That's correct for UC. The transfer students graduate their four year graduation rate is slightly higher than the six year graduation rate for students who enter as first year students.

K. CSU?

That's still correct. But I would just point out that part of our challenge as the audit provided is not the students that are applying and getting in. It's the students that never make it.

I'm getting to that point.

Yeah. But yes. But your transfer students succeed at higher levels than your freshman students.

Correct.

And to that point, UC testified that seventy seven percent of those who apply are admitted. CSU testified that ninety percent of those who apply are admitted. That's if they can actually apply. Because as we heard from the audit earlier, not everyone can apply for a variety of reasons because each of you and each one of your campuses has different requirements for students to apply to those campuses. UC testified that I believe the statement was 10 there are 10 new transfer pathways since this audit was done.

I'd like to know if those 10 new transfer pathways are at all UC campuses or just at some UC campuses?

The pathways are meant to be system wide. So for if there's a program that is offered at a UC campus, it would apply to all campuses. So not all programs exist at every campus. Right? So but if when it exists, it is applied to all campuses.

So has I think you mentioned after you said that that there were I think you said the number 98. I could be wrong about that.

Degree programs. Individual degree programs.

So are those 98 degree programs spread throughout all of the UC campuses?

That's correct.

Every single campus?

Yes.

Are there some that are overrepresented more than others?

I don't know the distribution of those degrees at this time. Could you

provide us with the distribution of that? What is the UC goal for transfer students? Is this still two to one? Is that the I know that's been since the master plan, and I know that press former president Drake, at least and partially in his response, said that that's the

the

the North Star, if you will. Is that is that the policy of the UC? Is that a goal? Is that a recommendation? What is two to one?

What what what does that mean to UC?

It's the goal as a system to enroll one transfer student, California resident transfer student for every two first year students across the system. But in order to get to that system wide goal, we do need a participation from all the campuses to be able to meet that goal. So right now, we do have some campuses that do far better than other campuses, and UCLA is one of those campuses that actually has more transfer students than the two to one ratio.

But we have a couple campuses that are challenged with reaching that two to one primarily because of the the feeder community colleges are just don't exist or their locations are such that, you know, it's more difficult for them to actually have a a wealth of transfer applicants who are able to transfer and enroll at those campuses. But because we do have a few campuses that do better than the two to one as a stem, we're still very close to meeting that two to ones.

You are making a statement that, helps me with an argument that I've made, which is that community college students don't easily just get up and move and go to a campus. You just stated that there are some campuses that don't have community colleges within their service area, and therefore, that has been an inhibitor of transfers. Is that the case?

That's correct. If you take a campus like UC Santa Cruz, you know, there it's geographically sort of isolated off on the coast, so we have to go over a little mountain range to get there. And then the community colleges that are close by are also serviced by several CSU campuses. So transfer students may, be easy have better access to those campuses.

A campus like UC Riverside in the Inland Empire, is also, competing with the same students with a CSU campus or a few CSU campuses as well as some of our own UC campuses.

Yeah.

So can you provide us when you provide us the information on the degrees distribution with the campuses which are hitting the two to one goals and which ones are not?

Yes.

Thank you. You also mentioned in your testimony that I wanna get into now with with each of you. I will do this. The recommendations which, in the case of of UC, there are a few that are have not been implemented, at least as of the to date on the public portal available to us from the, auditor. And you mentioned one in particular.

I wanna make sure I capture the one that you mentioned that you said you are not going to be implementing. Which one will you not be implementing?

So the recommendation was around the two to one, and it was to have the office of the president prioritize for all the campuses' specific programs to meet two to one goals. And the administration the leadership at the UC office has determined that that is not something that it should be managed at the office of the president. That is something that is for the campuses to manage because they are better aware of their capacity issues, their faculty and staff, the physical capacity.

Help me understand if you're understanding the recommendation the same way because I may be misunderstanding it, actually. Is it that the auditor is recommending that a two to one ratio for every degree or two to one ratio at every campus?

The auditor's recommendation was to the degree to the program level.

K. And and you don't believe that can be accomplished at the program level?

We don't think that at the office of the president, we should be managing that for the campuses.

So how are we gonna be able to get information as to whether they're hitting two to one ratios at the campuses? Doesn't the UC collect OP collect all this information?

Yes. So we have this new public dashboard where that information is available. And as we, work with the campuses every year to set the enrollment targets, the campuses have access as well as the general public access to see where they are in terms of their transfer to first year ratio as well as the final degrees that are being issued for transfer students as well as freshmen students.

That's all been very helpful. I think I will be looking into that in the future on how to do that more successfully. Mister Chair, if I can move on to CSU real quick. Thank you. CSU, tremendous, and you know this actually quite well, decline in enrollment at several of our campuses.

Shouldn't we very easily be picking up students who wanna transfer into many of our campuses? East Bay, San Francisco, Sonoma, Humboldt, severely underenrolled based on the target funding that the legislature has approved for these campuses. Shouldn't it be as easy as we're taking you if you're qualified, if you have an ADT degree? Why why has it not been as easy to allow for those transfers, or are you not getting transfer requests at those campuses?

Well, first, I'll just state that East Bay, about 70% of their incoming class every year is transfer students. So the majority of their incoming class is transfer. But I think one of the things that you hit on earlier, which is a lot of students are place bound.

So we do offer a program called redirection, which was at the, request of the legislature that was effective as of fall 2019, where we offered any student transfer ADT pathway, transfer pathway, what we call redirection to any of our campuses that have capacity. So we have done that for several years with limited success.

Part of that is because we do not have any funding to help those students look at relocation, housing, or other costs. This past year for fall twenty six, we did change some of our messaging to those students, and we did see a 46 increase in, transfer students taking us up on redirection.

And the focus of that messaging was more around the major that they applied to at the CSU and to let them know that those campuses that have capacity do have the major that they're interested in and providing them information about the outcomes of students in those majors. So we have been trying to look at how we can reimagine the redirection process with very limited funding and resources, and it seems that working on the focus of the major has helped.

So since 2019, you had an effort in redirection for students. And even with that effort, we're still seeing decline in enrollment at some of our, campuses in the CSU system.

That's correct.

And, what is the I don't know how you I wanna call it this, but in the probably a better term, the success or failure ratio of redirection in those that you attempt to redirect.

So up until this fall twenty six, which we don't have final numbers for, it was about one percent of the applicants who were admitted. It is important to note that usually we look at students that are CSU eligible and did not receive admission to any campus that they applied to. Sixty six percent of those students applied to San Diego State or Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. So many of them actually end up at a different four year university than at a CSU.

K. You gave us a statistic in your testimony of, which I appreciate, a goal of 15% of increase in transfer. Is that risk for on

an annual basis for 26-27, 27? What what is that goal for?

So that is part of our strategic plan, CSU forward. That is one of the stated goals. And so that plan is a three year plan. So we are working towards looking at how we can increase transfer, so through outreach, through the transfer success pathway program.

2030 is what your 15% goal is? K. One of the recommendations that was made to your office or sorry, to your segment of course, as I go there, I lose it here. There was one that was pending.

Oh, has to do with articulation. So it didn't not just CSU, but it's all three, but maybe give me your perspective, please, on this analysis by September 2026, which I realized it's still not September 2026, so you may be working on this. What is the status of recommendation number 11?

So that is an intersegmental piece. Han-Mi touched on it in her testimony. So the CSU, the community colleges, and the UC are working together on how we can better look at assist data and articulation information to further ensure that articulation information is available to students.

Okay. Now go over to community college system, and I would like to point your, attention to recommendation number 10, which is one that is also not fully implemented. Again, articulation. I like to get your perspective on where we stand on this recommendation with the community college.

Which one is that?

Recommendation number 10.

Oh, this is on the plan to address articulation.

Yes. This seems to be quite a significant issue with how this whole system works, so I'd like to get your perspective on this.

So a couple of things on that. One is our data's the assist platform is you know, the technology around this is all, it's very complicated, and so we are trying to come up with better significant investments in the assist platform to kind of follow and track and monitor where we are in particular processes with course articulation.

That data, believe it or not, I've been in this position for about a year, is very difficult for us to get as a system and for us to monitor where are we in, you know, particular courses. They can also submit several times if there are concerns about articulation on these course to courses that move through our system.

But I think the bigger piece right now and why our office has supported AB 2236 is that that will dramatically help in terms of closing articulation gaps for major preparation courses and for general education. And so us coming to a system to system level articulation, it is very difficult for me to put into words, how dramatic that change will be, for course transparency, articulation, and credit mobility for our students.

So if you're asking what a good solution for that is, I think it's in the conversations that are in work. I know there are, that ICUS and our academic senates continue to work on that. And I think, you know, that's one of the reasons our office is in full support of that legislation.

Okay. We're putting a lot of eggs into this articulation basket. So I think we will definitely be having multiple conversations about this going forward. Lastly, on recommendation number one to the community college chancellor's office, also still pending. This has to do with the effort for, community college student transfers a gold transfer rate.

Yeah. So we have, defined, kind of internally now a new definition around transfer intending students. It's actually complicated. It's not just merely whether a student marks this, but it's amongst a a variety of patterns that can show and demonstrate that a student is is on a transfer pathway. We've internally worked that out with a with a committee, and we expect in July to have rates that fully show us what's happening with transfer and attending students. So happy to provide that information over the next month or so.

Okay. Thank you, all three of you. Appreciate all of your answers. Thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you. Wanna welcome Senate member Berman here. Thank you for joining us. Before going to him, Senator Ahrens, I do think you have two questions.

Thank you, Mister Chair. I think my question more broadly to the three three of you is I appreciate how seriously you all are expressing your support for the audit findings and the ones that you are in agreement of. Can you, in your conversations or position by the campuses, talk about areas or findings within the audit that you're not intending to implement or you that you disagree with?

I think for the UC system, as I stated prior that, from the beginning, we have said that while our system wide goal is to meet the two to one, we do not feel that it's appropriate for the office of the president to manage at the campus level their program two to one plans.

So you agree that it's a goal, but you don't necessarily agree that the office of the president should be involved in helping reach that goal?

No. we don't feel that we can manage the individual campus. We don't have the information that the individual campuses have at the program level to know that, you know, the reasons why a particular program may or may not ever reach the two to one goal. But because we have now, have the data and we are presenting that information to the campuses, they can actually see it and all the public can see which programs are less likely to be taking transfers.

But the office of the president doesn't necessarily take in the data from each campus to evaluate whether or not they can reach that goal? I'm just trying to understand your statement.

No. We have the data. We're presenting the data. We're not micromanaging the campuses in terms of how to progress individually at the program level. But at the campus level, we do ask in our enrollment planning consultation that they are planning to meet two to one as a campus.

Okay. Thank you. And the CSU?

From the CSU perspective, we did not disagree with any of the audit findings and have been implementing them plus additional measures to increase transfer and support students.

Same with the community colleges. One note of interest, though, for us, I would say, we continue to focus on the ADT as the vehicle mainly for transfer and would like to see that as the intersegmental solution.

Refining or redefining pathways from, you know, different points of transfer to the CSU or UC might make some improvements, but I think fully implementing, and exhausting the possibilities for ADTs that can go to UC and CSU continues to be a priority for us in terms of our efficiency for work for students.

Thank you. And how often do you all collaborate together on your counterparts at the CSUs and community colleges and UCs?

Well, I would say one of the things that we do have is, you know, we do have a group of both executives and kind of, middle manager and dean level of folks that work on the assist project, which is the primary intersegmental kind of group that talks about the gaps in the work and articulation. Our academic senates also have, you know, a role and responsibility in the work of articulation and designing degree pathways, and they work, you know, through ICA.

So there are these places and points. The question is how can we best facilitate and support and move the work forward for, you know, the articulation and the transferability pathways?

So that's on an annual basis? Is that on a monthly?

It's on a regular basis.

How much is regular basis?

Monthly basis for our assist group, for example.

Okay. Thank you. CCU? Yeah.

I'll just add that we work formally and informally with the community college chancellor's office and the UC on a regular basis. Vice chancellor Todd was just in our office last, a couple weeks ago. I would also add that our division of academic affairs is right now recruiting for a senior director of community college partnerships to really more focus in on our community college partnerships and the opportunities to expand.

Thank you. And UC?

Yeah. And just to add, to what my colleagues have said, in addition that UC is the fiscal manager for the assist project, but we consult in, the management oversight group consists of representatives from all of these segments. There's the ICAS group, which is the academic Senate group that meets also regularly.

In terms of outreach and recruitment, our teams are also in constant communication with both setting up the counselor conferences across the state to offer professional development for our community college staff and professionals who are doing counseling to prep prepare students both for the CSU and for the UC.

We work together in terms of scheduling to make sure that we're not, you know, stepping on, you know, over scheduling and making sure that it's available to all of our colleagues out in the k-12 space as well as in community college space.

And then finally, our inter, I'm sorry the institutional research groups also are in communication with the data exchanges to do various research and analysis.

Thank you. I'll just finally say, Mister Chair, I appreciate everyone's testimony here today and and the dedication and the work that you have to making, one of the most successful systems of higher education as successful as it can be.

I do appreciate, also the work that Assemblymember Berman, I know, who has fought, vigorously on aligning a lot of what I feel is very common sense approaches to aligning students first in a lot of our policies when it comes to, again, like I said, very simple things that met a lot of strange opposition from, you know, stakeholders in the higher education system such as just simply naming one course the same course in our public institutions.

And I'm glad you used the word segments because I really feel like oftentimes when we are looking at approaching our policy or when we're approaching our students, we're not really seeing each system as segments, but we're seeing them as very separated, very siloed approaches to serving the same body of students, some of which that you all see.

I was a community college student, a CSU graduate, and a UC graduate, and had very different experiences in all three, very different levels of funding, very different levels of student support.

And it didn't seem to me like any, one was really talking to each other and when we approach very common sense reforms that students are begging us to implement, we're met with so much opposition.

And so, I think that is why you see the legislature, be so aggressive in trying to do basic things, which if we all acknowledge that there are gaps in transferability in certain regional areas or lack of access, why a need, for example, to increase baccalaureate degrees at community colleges is so needed because literally the system is designed and is so difficult for students to navigate through that it is easier to create an entire new baccalaureate program than it is to continue working on articulation.

And I certainly, as a freshman member of the legislature, don't wanna be in the position of my colleague, as Assemblymember Quirk-Silva noted, that we are gonna be talking about this in twelve years when I'm termed out, and we're gonna be auditing and and having the same conversations about, well, it's difficult and, well, we're working on it. And we need to see more measurable progress.

And I know that you all share those goals, but I would just invite you and your colleagues to understand that we should probably be doing something different other than, you know, having the same conversations, having the same auditing practices, and agreeing over and over that we have these same goals while systematically fighting against baccalaureate programs at community colleges, while fighting against common course numbering while fighting against things that we know works. And so I know the legislature is very animated about this, as you can tell, I'm animated about this because we shouldn't be upholding these systems that no longer work. And I know that I have a real interest in meeting with you all outside of the committee. I hope that you will agree to do so as we have larger conversations about the need to revamp our higher education master plan, which I think is really broken, quite frankly, and yet is still being cited and used to uphold things that we know are not serving students and I know that is a lot of leadership and body of work that Assemblymember Berman has led on that I will very much continue wanting to work with you on. So thank you Mister Chair.

Thank you. And with that, I will hand it over to Assemblymember Berman.

Well, thank you Chair, and thanks to the committee for inviting me to join this oversight hearing, bring all of us together to highlight the crucial topic of transfer. Apologies for missing most of it. I blame the Senate Business and Professions and economic development committee for keeping me there longer than I wanted to be. I first learned about the importance of this issue directly from the students who lived it, and I know we'll be hearing from them soon.

As Chair of the select committee on the master plan, I held informational hearings throughout the state where students over and over again brought up the issue of transfer and the challenges they faced.

When students discussed their experiences with the transfer process, their message was loud and clear. The transfer process is broken. It was too complex, confusing, and difficult to navigate. And instead of being a clear path, it was a maze, and it was costing students time and money that they simply could not afford. The data, including the transfer rate findings in the audit, also showed this troubling reality.

At the same time, students shared the importance of the community college system as a second chance, the primary access point of higher education for many first generation, low income, and underrepresented minority students. Students deserve better. And for me, this was a call to action to reimagine transfer from their perspective, which is what led to my focus and legislative work, in this space that I know has has been discussed.

While we've made progress and implementation of these efforts continue, the audit reinforced that there is a clear need to improve transfer and make it easier for students to navigate. Now more than ever, it's critical to increase degree attainment, improve time to degree, and close equity gaps.

When I previously convened a hearing with California's higher education system leaders back in 2021, all of them acknowledged that the transfer process needs to be improved for students. And so I'm glad, to hear that that acknowledgment still exists. That the desire, from all the different segments still exists, and I hope that that commitment remains a top priority. I view today's conversation on transfer as a valuable opportunity.

So thank you again to the Chair to bring greater attention to the importance of transfer and continue to take a student centered approach to improving the transfer process.

So I was very excited to see that a portion of the hearing is dedicated to that student perspective. I commend the Chair and the committee for including student voices, and I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues, students, faculty, higher education leaders, and advocates to identify solutions and make meaningful change that benefits students, including on articulation. And I was, extra heartened when I walked in because I'm like, some of them are Quirk-Silva. I have one more term, two more years.

But you start to worry about the things that you worked on and whether or not they'll actually be implemented when you're gone. But I come in and I see I see a settlement member Fong and a settlement member Harabedian and a settlement member Aarons and a settlement Alvarez who all have eight, ten years, left in the legislature.

And I know, and on the Senate side, senators Kabaldin and Perez, you know, the these are colleagues who are gonna be here a lot longer, you know, for a long time after I'm gone and who frankly are as passionate about these issues as I am, and to be honest, are more qualified to talk about them. I kinda tripped into this when then speaker Rendon didn't appoint me to the higher education committee in the Assembly. And I said, okay. I'll create my own.

And that's kinda how all this happened, much to some people's dismay. And so, you know but the fact that I've got colleagues who are so, you know, the personal lived experiences like Assemblymember Aaron spoke to, or their experience at the LA Community College District Board, like Assemblymember, Fong, you know, it's, I'm just really excited for what's to come over the next ten years. So grateful to the committee for letting me chime in a little bit. Sorry I missed most of it, but I'll go back and watch the tape when I get a chance. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for joining. Thank you for all your work and continuing to lead on this issue and for your voice here today. Much appreciated. And thank you to the panel.

We will we will allow you to recess and appreciate all of you today and for all your words and work. And we will bring up the final panel. And just for my colleague's attention, Angel Bhatuya actually could not make it. So in her place is going to be Alicia Nagpal, vice president of legislative affairs for the Student Senate for the California Community Colleges, and Kevin Hill, regional affairs director for Region 2. If you both can please join us and take your seat.

We have sessions starting at 1:00, but I'm gonna give, your voices are incredibly important, if not the most important here today. So we're gonna give you your time. You each have five minutes, and we look forward to hearing from you. And you guys can start whoever first, and we look forward to hearing from you. So thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Alicia Nagpal, and I serve as the vice president of legislative affairs for the student senate for the California Community Colleges this past year. I am now a former community college student attending CSU Sacramento. Like many California Community College students, I enrolled with the goal of transferring to earn my bachelor's degree.

When I started at a community college, I believed there was a clear path to transfer if I worked hard, met with counselors, and completed the courses I was told to take. Instead, I found myself trying to navigate different transfer requirements depending on the university, the campus, and even the specific major I wanted to pursue. This actually led me to change majors from my initial, search for a bioengineering degree to political science because the transfer requirements for my first major were too inconsistent.

The complexity goes deeper than people realize. The preparation courses required for my major were different, not just between the UC and the CSU, but between individual campuses within the same system, and sometimes even between majors at the same campus.

Some of the courses I needed weren't offered at my college at all, and the others do not articulate the way I expected. I was completing my ADT believing it would open a straightforward path to my baccalaureate degree only to learn that the campus and program I was working toward did not fully recognize it. Statewide, only about one in four ADT earners were on a pathway where they could access all of its promised benefits.

Instead of focusing on my education, I spent countless hours trying to understand changing requirements, meeting with multiple counselors, and adjusting my education plan. Every additional semester meant more tuition, more debt, and more uncertainty, chipping away at the very affordability that community college was supposed to promise.

For students, the promise of community college is a lower cost path to a bachelor's degree with an average total cost of around $10,560 and seventy two percent of students graduating debt free. But when complexity in the transfer process forces us into extra semesters or pushes us out of the system entirely towards more expensive institutions, that promise disappears, and the debt burden falls hardest on the students who can least afford it. What makes us harder to accept is knowing the scale of the problem.

The CCC system serves over 2,200,000 students and is one of the most diverse systems of higher education. However, according to California state auditor, only about twenty one percent of community college students who intended to transfer actually did so within the traditional four years.

That is a very concerning finding. The majority never even reached the point of applying, not because they gave up, but because the system that was supposed to help them made it too hard for them to accomplish this. Students should know how to access resources and navigate their path forward, but there is a difference on being an informed student and being forced to absorb the consequences of a fragmented system.

When complexity creates delays, adds semesters, and derails education plans, the burden lands on us students, and that's what needs to change. We need a transfer process that is consistent, transparent, and designed around students, not one that changes depending on which campus, which major, or which system you are aiming for. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Good afternoon Chair and members my name is Kevin Hill, and I serve as the outgoing Regional Affairs Director for Region 2, representing 14 colleges across the Greater Sacramento region and the incoming Vice President of Finance for the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. Currently, I'm in my last year at Sierra College where I also serve as the Sierra Joint Community College District Student Trustee while pursuing my, sorry, while studying business administration with the intent to transfer to Cal State Sacramento to pursue my studies further. While balancing school with work, family responsibilities, and outside pressures, I relied on my college for guidance. But timely counseling was hard to come by, and that experience is not unique to me. Access to counseling remains an unmet and underreported need across our system, and students are paying the price in lost time, added debt, and abandoned goals. Part of the reason it runs deeper than resources, state law requires that no less than 50% of a district's general fund be allocated to classroom instruction. However, academic counselors are excluded from the definition despite holding faculty status under California code of regulations title 5 and serving a mandated educational function. This exclusion creates a structural disadvantage for districts trying to hire full-time counselors whose salaries cannot count towards the 50% threshold. The result is constrained counseling capacity with appointment range of wait times ranging from ten days to six weeks at multiple colleges. When counseling is this hard to access, students cannot get the guidance they need to navigate a transfer system that was already complex to begin with. And that complexity has real consequences beyond the classroom. Many students face housing and security, food and security, caregiving responsibilities, and the inability to relocate. When students are denied admission to the campus they need and redirect to the schools hundreds of miles away, relocation is simply not a realistic option. The state auditor found that the two most common reasons students didn't enroll through CSU's redirection process were, one, an inability to relocate, and two, not wanting to attend the available campuses.

Even students who do everything right may find that the campus or major they work towards is effectively closed to them. Particularly in high demand fields, such as computer science and biological sciences, where transfer students are significantly underrepresented campus after campus. These are not surprises that should meet students at the finish line. There are systematic gaps that must be identified and addressed from the moment a student walks in the door. The stakes of getting this right are real.

Research shows that 56% of students who completed a bachelorette degree through a California community college program said they would not have pursued a degree at all if had not been available to them. For students not getting financial hardship, caregiving responsibilities, or geographic barriers, community college may be the only door that is open. We cannot afford a system that leaves the door open only part way. Community college students are resilient and determined.

We are asking for a transfer system that recognizes the realities we face, one that expands access counseling, simplifies transfer pathways, and ensures that where a student lives, what they studied, and what they can afford does not determine whether or not they get to finish what they started. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you both. Thank you for being here and lending your voice, critical voice to this conversation. I'm gonna bring it back to my my colleagues here to see if Assemblymember Fong or Assemblymember Berman have any questions.

Thank you so much, Chair Harabedian, just really wanna uplift your stories, your resiliency. Thank you for testifying before the committee and the ... sharing your experiences on what we need to do continue to improve the transfer pathway programs, the importance of counseling. Thank you for uplifting the work and efforts there as well and mentioning the 50% rule as well.

And so I really appreciate your comments and a lot of food for thought and anything that we can do to continue to uplift students and the work and efforts around housing security, food insecurity, know that this legislature has prioritized that and...this as block grants as well.

There's approximately $130 million dollars in there this year as well. Anything we can do to support our veterans students, our first gen students, we're expanding the Cal Grant program with the age limit as well to 30. But we know there's still a lot more work to be done on the transfer pathways. I know that working with my colleagues here, Mister Berman, Mister Harabedian and all my colleagues that spoke earlier, we know that we're in your corner. Anything we can do to work on these programs, we're here for you. Thank you.

I'll just second everything that my colleague, Assemblymember Fong, said. Thank you both so much for coming and sharing your stories. And, you know, you know and we know that that you're speaking for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of other students in California that have gone through the same, difficulties that you have, unnecessarily. Right?

We need to do better, and California, we need to uphold the promise, that benefited prior generations so much, and that is, you know, fraying, at the seams, for today's generation, and that's not fair, that's not right. And so that's something that we're gonna keep on working on. Also, I really appreciate the focus on basic needs in addition to transfer and common course numbering.

Basic needs was a big focus of mine, and and I was lucky to get 30 or 40 million, I think it's now $40 million dollars in the budget, for every community college to be able to establish a basic needs center and hire a basic needs coordinator, one person on every campus who's in charge for whether it's food and security, housing, health care, mental health, you know, all the different things that, you know, we wanna support students with to because we need you to, if you want to, to get your associate's degree ideally in two years and to be able to transfer to a CSU or UC and then graduate from there ideally in two years, and then graduate and pay taxes so that we can go pay for all of the stuff that we wanna pay for.

So it's a virtuous cycle, and we need to uphold our part so that you can, you know, reach those dreams that that you wanna reach. So really appreciate you coming and speaking today. Thank you.

Well said by both you and, Senate member Ahrens. Any questions or comments to the students?

Just that. Really appreciate your leadership as a former member of the Student Center for California Community Colleges. I understand. These are all the same issues that I was talking about, and I will not mention how many years ago I was.

That was fast.

But, you know, but I think the North Star, I think, for all of us as Mister Berman eloquently mentioned when he walked in is that, we are intending to have these conversations, and we are in also intending to have solutions to these problems before, all of us get any older and age out, because these aren't conversations that we should just be having continually and never actually addressing.

And that's uncomfortable for some stakeholders in the higher education system because it means changing the things that we know are not working. But that is our job, and and we are doing that because of of you and all the many students that you all represent. So thank you.

Thank you. And just, again, thank you. We know how busy you are. We know how hard it is to come before a body like this and even testify. And it takes a lot of nerve and and speaking truth to power, you know, and and saying all the things that you said isn't easy.

And as Senator Berman said, you speak for a lot of folks that came before you and that are gonna come after you. So thank you very much. We really appreciate it, and we will be following up with you. So thank you. At this point, we will open this up for public comment.

If you do have a public comment, please step forward. You'll have one minute. And your name, affiliation with an organization, if applicable, and and your comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and members. Joshua Hagen on behalf of the Campaign for College Opportunity. As proud sponsors of many of the policies that were talked about today, we remain committed to their faithful implementation. So thank you all for your collective commitment to get transfer right for students. Things like AB 928, AB 1111, AB 2057.

I think we are optimistic that we are on the right path for students. And I think after the conversation today, we share your collective and righteous frustration that we still have a lot of work to do for students. So I want to just kind of summarize three of the themes that I'm walking away from to with today's conversation with. I think the first is around the need to center data in intersegmental partnerships.

We have the infrastructure in California to be able to do this through the California Education Interagency Council, through the cradle to career data system.

We can get this right if transfer is and remains a priority for these systems and structures. The second is around the need for transparency and consistency. We heard a lot about common course numbering, articulation. That needs to be a focus of the legislature moving forward. And I think the third is this continuing to focus on what works.

Thank you.

This audit affirms that the ADT is the best pathway for students in terms of reducing excess credit accumulation, making sure students get to where they're trying to go and to clarify transfer requirements. So we are ready and able to serve as a resource for any of you in this continued fight for students. And I think we, we really share the optimism that we can get this right if we do this with and for students. Thank you.

Chair members, Austin Webster with W Strategies on behalf of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Not often I get to just align my comments with the speaker from the campaign, but certainly, we remain committed to working with you all as we endeavor to serve our students specifically on common course numbering and some of the other items. Also just wanna make a brief comment that, Assemblymember Alvarez mentioned the assist program, we are certainly happy to continue working with you all and provide more information about how that program functions, the funding needs associated with it, and so on and so forth.

And then lastly, switching gears to my other client, the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. Just wanna thank the committee again for, allowing the students to testify.

Thank you. And see no further public comment, bring it back. Any closing remarks from my colleagues? And with that, I know that this, took a lot of effort. I wanna thank, my team here, for the committee for putting this together.

I wanna thank the auditor, his staff, Mister Versace and his team, who, oversaw the audit and, obviously, the institutions who who were subject to the audit. And I think it goes without saying that I I think that this hearing was very enlightening. I think there's a lot of work to do. And as Senator Berman said, many of us will be here for a long time.

And I think the the one thing that I want everyone to know is that we're we will continue to monitor this and expect action and expect reform and improvement because I think as the students testified, the same issues are persisting, unfortunately.

And I think that we are in an age where, that that type of outcome, considering the tools and the technological advancements that we have are just unacceptable. And I do think that if this were a private business, if this were a marketplace where people had choice, I think the results would be even worse. And I think that a lot of these students have no other choice but to go to our community colleges and try to get a four year baccalaureate.

And even with that, we can't serve them, and we can't actually, ensure that there are easy pathways to getting there. And I think that that's sad.

And I think it's it's, incredibly frustrating. And I do think that more reform is gonna come from this audit. There's separate audits. Actually, the 50% rule that was mentioned here that, that go to some of the issues that, we have heard today. But I do think with leadership from Chair Fong, leadership from members like Assemblymember Ahrens, we will get this right.

And, so I just wanna thank everyone who's been involved. Thank for thank you for your attention today. And, we will follow-up with, additional conversations. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.