Education: Texas higher education commissioner expectations state college transfer bill passes

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is hopeful that this will be the year state legislators make the important steps to improve the transfer process for students at colleges across the state.

Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes said Tuesday on a quarterly conference call with media that the topic of transferring has been the “most vexing issue” for at least the past four sessions.

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

Senate Bill 25, initially documented by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, will be heard on the Texas Senate floor Wednesday.

The bill intends to better organize prerequisites, center and lower-level courses, making it simpler for understudies to recognize which courses will transfer and how they can depend on fields of study in order to graduate in a timely manner without losing credits.

The new enactment, whenever passed, would expect understudies to counsel with scholastic guides and file degree designs that would outline and make understudies mindful of the courses they have to take. It would likewise require each post-secondary school to give a report to the planning board that depicts any courses that are not qualified to transfer for credit to another school for every understudy for survey.

The current system of transferring from one public university or college to another is complicated and costly, and students frequently amass an average of seven more credit hours than required. As indicated by a report by the planning board prior this year, the present system means students pay an extra $59 million in tuition, fees and revenue each year.

“We’re hopeful that the bill will move,” Paredes said.

Other enactment Paredes featured included SB 1504, a bill by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, that would reallocate $127 million in unappropriated funds for Texas B-On Time record 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 give performance-based funding to public universities based on their number of graduates. The supplement aims to urge encourage institutions to raise completion rates of low-income and low-performing students, and to expand advising, tutoring and other academic services.

Paredes likewise accentuated the significance of HB 3042, which passed Tuesday. The bill, presented by Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, plans to extend work-contemplate in Texas and make paid internships for college students. The activity will offer financial guide for students — a major goal for the organizing board — yet in addition the open door for students to pick up understanding and attractive abilities everywhere companies, all which line up with the board’s goal of helping 60 percent of individuals between the ages of 25 and 34 complete post-secondary education by 2030.

Paredes likewise noticed the relationship between’s quality government funded instruction and the achievement of advanced education. He accentuated that the regular kindergarten through twelfth grade or K-12 procedure, ought to be changed to stretch out into the last long stretches of an undergrad 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.

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