A bill to make transferring from a community college to a university easier and less costly passed in the Texas Senate Wednesday, marking a victory for Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, who introduced the first version of the legislation two sessions ago.

“I think we’re closer now than we’ve ever been,” West said.

SB 25 aims to save taxpayers, students and parents money by ensuring that courses at technical institutes or community and junior colleges can easily transfer and count toward a degree at a four-year university.

It’s a “partnership that should have been a long ago,” West said.

The current system of transferring from one public university or college to another is complicated and costly, and students often accumulate an average of seven more credit hours than needed, according to a report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

“We have a lot of students that are taking college courses that are not applied or they don’t get credit,” West said, which costs students and parents about $45 million and the state about $15 million. That comes to $60 million of money wasted on untransferable credits each year, he said.

The bill intends to better organize prerequisites, core and lower-level courses, making it easier for students to identify which courses will transfer and how they can rely on fields of study in order to graduate in a timely manner without losing credits. It further details and encourages articulation agreements between community colleges and four-year colleges, and would require students to consult with academic advisers and file degree plans within 30 to 60 credit hours that would map out their course load.

Universities will also be held accountable and will be required to provide the coordinating board with an annual report, detailing which courses were not transferable that year and why, West said.

The road to getting the bill passed hasn’t been easy. West said not all of the Senate Higher Education Committee liked every aspect of the bill, but the group came together to address their concerns. The bill still has to pass in the House before it’s sent for the governor’s approval, West said.

But he said he remains hopeful.

The senator has the support of major institutions, including University of Texas at Austin President Gregory L. Fenves, who called SB 25 one of this year’s most important bills during a Wednesday meeting with the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board. And Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes, who also supports the bill, said he hopes this is the year lawmakers will take the necessary steps to improve the transfer process for students at colleges across the state.

On a quarterly conference call with media Tuesday, Paredes said that the topic of transferring has been the “most vexing issue” for the past several legislative sessions.

“We keep hearing over and over again that [transferring] is the issue that constituents complain about most,” Paredes said.

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Other legislation Paredes highlighted Tuesday included SB 1504, a bill by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, that would reallocate $127 million in unappropriated funds for Texas B-On Time account to a graduation supplement program. Texas B-On Time is a zero-interest loan program for students set to be abolished in 2020.

The proposed graduation supplement would provide performance-based funding to public universities based on their number of graduates. The supplement aims to encourage institutions to raise completion rates of low-income and low-performing students, and to expand advising, tutoring and other academic services.

Paredes also emphasized the importance of HB 3042, which passed Tuesday. The bill, introduced by Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, aims to expand work-study in Texas and create paid internships for college students. The initiative will offer financial aid for students — a major goal for the coordinating board — but also the opportunity for students to gain experience and marketable skills at large companies, all of which align with the board’s goal of helping 60 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 34 complete post-secondary education by 2030.

Paredes also noted the correlation between quality public education and the success of higher education. He emphasized that the typical kindergarten through 12th-grade (K-12) strategy, should be reformed to extend into the final years of an undergraduate education, ensuring that students complete college.

Focusing more on quality pre-K and kindergarten education, and ensuring students are reading by grade level in the third grade are essential steps in getting students on the right trajectory, Paredes said.

“We think that leads to a natural handoff to higher education,” Paredes said.

Paredes said the board is also discussing policies that will give the board more authority to handle “unnecessary duplication” of educational programs throughout the state. For example, he said, nursing programs are in high demand and needed across the state, but library science programs are not and don’t need as much duplication. Where institutions are located and whether the programs are available online should be taken into consideration.

brittany.britto@chron.com

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