Senate JLAC — 2026-06-29

At this point, Mr. Fong, did you want to make an opening? Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and to Chair Harbidian, to Vice Chair Cobaldon for organizing this hearing, and thank you so much to Senator Alvarez for requesting this audit. As the chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, our committee 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 in 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 the number of bachelor degree holders here in our state and to continue to strengthen the economic security of California's workers. In fact, according to a PPIC March 26 publication titled College Completion in California, degree and transfer attainment remain low at our community colleges. The PPIC found that among students that begin at a community college, more than 60% declare a degree or transfer goal, yet only one-fifth of transfer-intending students do so within four years, and only 10% within two years. We know there's a lot more work to do in this space, and now's the time for our segments to continue working closer together, to continue to break down the 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 very much, Chair Median. Appreciate the opportunity to join you all today back at this committee. It 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 college 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 demonstrates or identifies that needs to be done is certainly one that is always with me. It was with me this year through our budget hearings in 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 want to thank the community college system, the UC system, the CSU system for their continued commitment to serve the state's diverse student population and a willingness to engage in the state to ensure the pathway to a bachelor's degree is accessible for our students. 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 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 years, well over two million 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 UC and CSU. In fact, only one in five students transfer within four years of the initial enrollment. Again, that's where the audit comes in. The associate's 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 increased since the request of the audit, showing an 11% growth since 2023. However, as the chair identified, it is still, I like to think about our community college students, and I like to bring them up into a vision of them or a picture of them. And at least when I initially began a lot of this work, I pictured a student who was coming out of high school. 58% 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. We use this word, students in a community college system, from all walks of life. They have different challenges and different upbringings and experiences. 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 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 college students, 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 want to get a four-year degree, but you either have to figure out whether you do an ADT and which campuses you're going to 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, community college students are often place-bound. They're not looking to just get up and uproot and go somewhere else. And so if you want to go to UC, hopefully you live close enough to one that has 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 camp 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 want to 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 San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento area as areas that lag behind the two that seem to 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 TAG are steps in the right direction, more reforms are needed. What we asked for in the audit was the progress of 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 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 findings, the State Auditor would offer some recommendations, and I was pleased to see some of the recommendations which have been adopted. But I do want to highlight one theme, which is consistent, and which I think a lot of the work that 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 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 student's 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 recommendations. 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'd 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 a B 2057 but also I see 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 This seems to be quite simple so as the segments come up certainly be aware that this is an issue that I 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. Mr. 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, Mr. Chair.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the other members who are here who's worked on these issues for a very long time. I want to appreciate Assemblymember Alvarez's leadership and Assemblymember Fong's leadership in particular on really trying to hone in on outcomes and not accepting really the status quo. And I appreciate the seriousness of the audit findings and how we're all trying to get there. We're all trying to serve one of the largest higher education bodies in the world. And I think 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, not only am I a California Community College transfer student, but I'm a former community college trustee president who, prior to 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 much more we need to go. And I also want to particularly thank Assemblymember Fong for your leadership on AB 1098, the coordinating of higher education bodies. It's sort of astounding to me as a former trustee and as a former legislative staffer for 15 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 Poly 1 should be Poly 1 at a public higher education university system, whether you go to community college, whether you 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 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 vestiges of well this is the way we 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 want to underline how much more work we need to be doing on the fact that 21% of our students who began community college, as the audit says, between 2017 and 2019, with the goal of transferring to UCRCCSU, 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 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, by the time I was a community college student to now, we didn't have food banks. We We didn't have any sort of housing grant programs. We didn't have any near the categorical program funding. And 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. And 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 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, Mr. Chair, for having me here today.

yours. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Herabedian and 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 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, 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. 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. 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. I'll start briefly with community colleges. Starting in 2017 in 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 108,000. 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 22-23 academic year, which 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 21% or roughly one in five transfer intending students were able to successfully transfer to a UC, CSU, or other university. And for the remaining 79% 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 131,000 students had 60 units or more but did not apply to UC or CSU. And the vast majority of students, roughly 584,000 students had less than 60 units while 317,000 students had earned 15 units or less. and according to the community The 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't 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 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 and geography, as has been noted, where community colleges in the Bay Area and San Diego and 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 determined the root causes behind these performance gaps so that programs could be developed to offer additional support. At the UC and CSU 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 18-19 through 22-23. As a whole, UC, we found in the UC system that 33.4% 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 in 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 percent of all undergraduates in STEM fields like engineering and computer science, but accounted for 50 percent of undergraduates in the arts and the humanities. And similarly at CSU, transfer students represented about 40 to 40 percent of degree earners in STEM fields, but accounted for between 65 to nearly 70 percent 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 and 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 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 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, 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 and its computer science program where it denied 108 transfer applicants in the fall of 2022, 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 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 statistics 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 UC CSU and community colleges The transfer process could be greatly improved and simplified for community college students if this process took place. However, the academic senates 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 that 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 five 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. Assemblymember Alvarez pointed out to some of the recommendations that have already been implemented, so 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 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. I came in a little bit after your presentation started and I haven't had a chance to digest but from what I just heard from the last maybe you had started 10 minutes before I came in So forgive me if I don have the information I just want to 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 decades. And it really angers and saddens me that here we are again, heading into 2026 with what we want to do more articulation. We want to 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 falling far behind. And I think more than just an audit, the CSUs and the UCs need to start checking themselves. Who makes these decisions on the campus about if a course aligns? Who is the body? I believe they have their only, their Senate, 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, 40 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 40 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 15 years ago, and we keep giving this latitude. And the latitude is, well, they have their own constitution. We can't 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 to stop. It's embarrassing, and it is not the California dream we're promising. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chair Harbidian, and thank you so much to the grant 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 working efforts of continuing to push with our interagency council, the working efforts of the segmental collaboration, but knowing the certainty of a student comes on the community college campus that they can articulate, that they can transfer, making sure that we provide that information up front. And I think the recommendations that you do have here, and we look at additional legislative remedies that we continue to push, but on the budget front as well as Chair Alvarez and Senator Arons and Senator Cork Sullivan mentioned, but the work and efforts that we've got to 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 Charis and to everyone to see a 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 20% is unacceptable. And so there's a lot more work to be done. Thank you

Thank you again for your work. I'm actually going to ask you to repeat something you said in your testimony because I think it's important to capture that. Can you once again read to us the student who you followed? This is a real live scenario, right? This is a student who was trying to transfer, was intending on transfer, or was 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?

If a student entered a community college system who would like to pursue a bachelor's degree 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 was 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. 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. Okay. 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, if 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. 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've 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 want to 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 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 a community college student, you're probably not leaving San Diego. So good luck and go take another course. Okay. That exemplified the infuriating, I think, sentiment that exists among many of us. And let me ask you now about the general education transfer of 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 realize you don't mention much of that, and I don't know all the history of Calgett C. So do you have anything you can provide towards that?

decisions. Okay. Thank you. Senator Aaron's, any questions? Before we let you go, first of all, I just want to 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 ADT process. I mean, it would be very effective, or hopefully it'd 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 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 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

Go ahead. You mentioned in your comments that it seemed and then rephrase if I have it wrong that even though there transfer students that are available to transfer there still the CSU or UC don always admit them Is there a preference 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 want to 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...

Thank you. And I guess my last question, I do think that the caps on units was a huge issue, and we've had legislation, Assemblymember Berman, who may be here with 2057, tried to address that with 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 going to lend itself to problems when certain, especially STEM majors, are going to 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 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 going to be paying somewhere going to a CSU or a UC. On the flip side, on the UC side or the CSUs, potentially there's incentives or disincentives on which students to allow in. 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 net out financial aid and other factors. And so 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 the disconnect actually provides the same financial incentives to both parties. Is that something that you guys looked into or asked

the subject of past discussions. Okay. Thank you very much and appreciate everything that we heard today and everything that was in the audit. We're now going to bring up our second panel. We're You have James Todd, the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs from California Community Colleges, April Gramo, the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Strategic Enrollment Management for the CSU system, and Hanmi Yun-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 your time more efficiently. And why don't we just go from my left to right? So Ms. Yun-Wu, if you'd like to start.

Thank you.

I'll just ask you to wrap up the next 15 seconds if you can.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

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

and how can we continue to make that easier for our students?

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.

to make it easier for our students to transfer because this is what it's about, is how to make it easier for our students to transfer. And Mr. 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 some different majors and some gaps there. So I just really want to uplift that. But I appreciate the context of your comment. 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 25. 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. 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 uplifting that. And then my next question is for the UC system. You mentioned earlier in your remarks that UCLA, and so I just want to see if there's any preliminary data for the UCLA ADT that's going to be implemented for 26-27. Any insights there yet?

Okay, thank you for that context. Any additional information we have going forward, that would 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 ATT pathway starting in 28, 29. What are those four campuses and then why are we not doing it for the rest of the campuses The four campuses I don want to necessarily put them on the spot right now but we have had

And so those campuses have not yet been determined?

Okay. And do you know what those campuses may be? Or like he just taught us?

So are those in consideration for those additional four? So UCLA is already one of the pilot campuses, right?

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

Hasn't been determined yet, okay. I just want to help out those most impacted universities and campuses as well, whether it's Berkeley and San Diego as well. That's something as a legislature and working with Mr. Arvids and my colleagues. We've been pushing hard on to expand a number of in-state residents there, to expand opportunities. And with the ADT pilot program at UCLA, I think when we have the information going forward, I think that would 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, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Rafong. Senator Alvarez.

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.

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.

Correct.

The pathways are meant to be system-wide. So if there's a program that is offered at a UC campus, it would apply to all campuses.

But when it exists, it is applied to all campuses.

Degree programs, individual degree programs.

That's correct.

Yes.

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

What is two to one? 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 feeder community colleges just don't exist or their locations are such that it's more difficult for them to actually have 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 2-to-1 system, we're still very close to meeting that 2-to-1.

That's correct. If you take a campus like UC Santa Cruz, it's geographically sort of isolated off on the coast, so you 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 have better access to those campuses. A campus like UC Riverside in the Indian 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.

Yes.

So the recommendation was around the two-to-one, and it was to have the Office of the President prioritized 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 it's something that is for the campuses to manage because they are better aware of their capacity issues, their faculty and staff, the physical capacity.

The auditor's recommendation was to the program level.

We don think that at the Office of the President we should be managing that for the campuses Okay So how are we gonna be able to get information as to whether they hitting two to one

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.

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,

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 26, 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.

That's correct.

So up until this fall 26, which we don't have final numbers for, it was about 1% 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 66 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 university than at a CSU

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.

There was one that was pending. Oh, it has to do with articulation.

So that is an intersegmental piece. Hanmi 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.

Which one is that?

Oh, this is on the plan to address articulation.

So a couple of things on that. One is our data, the assist platform is, you know, the technology around this is 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, and 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 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 core 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 works. I know that ICAS 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.

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 variety of patterns that can show and demonstrate that a student is on a transfer pathway. We've internally worked that out 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.

Thank you. I want to welcome Assemblymember Berman here. Thank you for joining us. Before going to him, Assemblymember Ahrens, I do think you have two questions.

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.

we not micromanaging the campuses in terms of how to progress individually at the program level But as a 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

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. solution. Refining or redefining pathways from 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

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 folks that work on the ASSIST project, which is the primary intersegmental kind of group that talks about the gaps and the work in articulation. Our academic senates also have, you know, a role and responsibility and the work of articulation and designing degree pathways, and they work 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 the articulation and the transferability pathways.

That's on a regular basis.

On a monthly basis for our assist group, for example.

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 at our office 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.

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, and the management oversight group consists of representatives from all of the 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 prepare students both for the CSU and for the UC. We work together in terms of scheduling to make sure that we're not stepping on 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 the institutional research groups also are in communication with the data exchanges to do various research and analysis Thank you I just finally say Mr Chair I appreciate everyone testimony here today 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

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 in legislative work in this space that I know has been discussed. While we've made progress in 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 acknowledgement still exists, that 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 unlike Assemblymember Cork-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 Assemblymember Fong and Assemblymember Harbedian and Assemblymember Aarons and Assemblymember Alvarez, who all have eight, ten years left in the legislature. And I know on the Senate side, Senators Cabaldon and Perez, you know, these are colleagues who are going to 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 kind of tripped into this when then Speaker Rendon didn't appoint me to the higher education committee in the assembly. And I said, OK, I'll create my own. And that's kind of 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 their personal lived experiences like assembly member Aaron spoke to or their experience at the LA community college district board like assembly member Fong you know it's I'm just really excited for what's to come over the next 10 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

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Alicia Nakbal, 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 believe 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 did 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 72% 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 this harder to accept is knowing the scale of the problem. The CCC system serves over 2.2 million students and is one of the most diverse systems of higher education. However, according to the California State Auditor, only about 21% 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 both. Thank you for being here and lending your voice, critical voice, to this conversation. I'm going to bring it back to my colleagues here to see if Senator Fong or Senator Berman have any questions.

Thank you. I'll just second everything that my colleague, I guess I'm Rufong, 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 in California, we need to uphold the promise that benefited prior generations so much. And that is 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 going to keep on working on. I also really appreciate the focus on basic needs. In addition to transfer and common course numbering, basic needs was a big focus of mine. 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. or one person on every campus who's in charge for whether it's food insecurity, housing, health care, mental health, all the different things that we want to support students with. Because we need you, 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 the stuff that we want to pay for. So it's a virtuous cycle. And we need to uphold our part so that you can reach those dreams that you want to reach. So really appreciate you coming and speaking today. Thank you.

Just that I really appreciate your leadership as a former member of the Student Senate 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. But, you know, but I think the North Star, I think for all of us, as Mr. Berman eloquently mentioned when he walked in, is that we are intending to have these conversations and we are also intending to have solutions to these problems before all of us get any older and age out because these aren 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 we are doing that because of you and all the many students that you all represent. So thank you.

Thank you, chair and members. Joshua Hagan, 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 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. 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 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 want to 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 Center for California Community Colleges, just want to thank the committee again for allowing those students to testify. Thank you.