By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Kansas Board of Regents will likely consider later this year expanding a pilot program that allows for more hours to be transferred from community colleges to four-year Regents institutions.
"I think it's a great idea," said HutchCC President Dr. Carter File. "I think it gives students a greater opportunity to utilize their value at a community college. I think that it's going to enhance students opportunities at a community college. One of the things that many students now are faced with is a choice at the end of their freshman year, especially if they brought in a number of early college credits, or what we call concurrent credits. They are faced with, do they stay a year and get additional credits that may or may not help them toward their degree, or do they transfer before they have completed their full allotment of what is now 60 credits? We think this will give students the opportunity to stay that full extra year."
The idea appears to be to allow up to 75 credit hours to be transferred, subject to still to be determined conditions.
"The pilot program they had between Johnson County Community College and KU Edwards Campus was, they allowed a transfer of up to 75 credits in selected programs and areas," File said.
The pilot appears to have helped with retention of students all the way to a four-year degree, but HutchCC knows that making sure what students take will transfer will put an additional burden on their staff.
"We will have to have very specific advising and making sure that students understand exactly which programs they are going into, which 75 credit hours will transfer, if that's the number they land on," File said. "We do a great job with that now, but with six universities and 19 community colleges, it's difficult to keep all of those metrics in alignment."
It's most likely that any short-term agreements will be between pairs of institutions like HutchCC and Wichita State, rather than an attempt to align all of the community colleges with all of the universities at once.
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