Recently, SB 1440 was voted into being to make the lives of transferring students easier. Most students do not realize that some of the units they take at Community College do not transfer to a California State University, SB 1440 is supposed to put an end to that, at least for some majors.
SB 1440, the Students Transfer Agreement Reform Act (STAR Act-Padilla), was signed into California legislation on September 29, 2010 and is meant to give Community Colleges and CSUs the ability to collaborate on creating Associate of Art Degrees (AA-T) and Associate of Science degrees (AA-S) transferable once a student has reached the specified requirements of the degree. Often a student takes their required 60 units to graduate the CC only to have to retake some classes at CSU level taking more than the 120 units necessary for a Bachelor’s Degree.
SB 1440 guarantees a student who has acquired the necessary units the ability to transfer to the nearest CSU and prevents the university from demanding the student retake classes they already passed.
To earn an associate degree for transfer a student must complete 60 semester units eligible for transfer to a CSU with a minimum of 2.0 GPA.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s office has begun the process of approving AA-T degree programs for the Yuba Community College District. Yuba College has an AA-T degree available for Sociology and Woodland Community College has been approved for AA-Ts in Communication Studies and Psychology. Yuba is currently working on approval of an AS-T degree in Mathematics with more coming in the future.
Note: This article appears in the Fall 2011 print edition of the Prospector.
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