Transfer to Senior Colleges and Universities

Students who plan to transfer credits earned at Central Carolina Technical College to other colleges and universities are advised to discuss this intention with representatives of the institutions to which they wish to transfer. COURSE ACCEPTANCE SHOULD BE DETERMINED BY THE OTHER INSTITUTION PRIOR TO ENROLLMENT IN CENTRAL CAROLINA TECHNICAL COLLEGE COURSES. Further information on transfer to other institutions may be obtained from Career Services or from Natalie Mahaffey for Associate in Arts, or from Jessica Lea for Associate in Science.

Transfer to South Carolina Colleges and Universities

Parents and students are finding that Central Carolina Technical College (CCTC) provides an excellent transition to a four-year degree. Students can save money by staying at home and have the support of their families as they begin their education.

The Statewide Articulation Agreement of 86 courses has been approved by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education for transfer from two-year to four-year public institutions and has been in effect for over a decade.

Information on the College’s various admissions agreements can be obtained through our website at www.cctech.edu. Click on “Academics,” and then “Admission Agreements.”

Transfer Policy

The South Carolina Course Articulation and Transfer System serves as the primary tool and source of information for transfer of academic credit between and among institutions of higher education in the state. The system provides institutions with the software tools needed to update and maintain course articulation and transfer information easily. The student interface of this system is the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center (SCTRAC) web portal: www.SCTRAC.org. This web portal is an integrated solution to meet the needs of South Carolina’s public colleges and universities and their students and is designed to help students make better choices and avoid taking courses which will not count toward their degree. Each institution’s student information system interfaces with www.SCTRAC.org to help students and institutions by saving time and effort while ensuring accuracy and timeliness of information.

Regulations and Procedures for Transfer in Public Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions in South Carolina as Mandated by ACT 137 of 1995

Background

Section 10-C of the South Carolina School-to-Work Transition Act (1994) stipulates that the Council of College and University Presidents and the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education, operating through the Commission on Higher Education, shall develop better articulation of associate and baccalaureate degree programs. To comply with this requirement, the Commission, upon the advice of the Council of Presidents, established a Transfer Articulation Policy Committee composed of four-year institutions’ Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs and the Associate Director for Instruction of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education. The principle outcomes derived from the work of that committee and accepted by the Commission on Higher Education on July 6, 1995, were:

• An expanded list of 86 courses which will transfer to four-year public institutions of South Carolina from the two-year public institutions;
• A statewide policy document on good practices in transfer to be followed by all public institutions of higher education in the State of South Carolina, which was accepted in principle by the Advisory Committee on Academic Programs and the Commission;
• Six task forces on statewide transfer agreements, each based in a discipline or broad area of the baccalaureate curriculum.

In 1995, the General Assembly passed Act 137 which stipulated further that the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education “notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, shall have the following additional duties and functions with regard to the various public institutions of higher education.” These duties and responsibilities include the Commission’s responsibility “to establish procedures for the transferability of courses at the undergraduate level between two-year and four-year institutions or schools.” This same provision is repeated in the legislation developed from the Report of the Joint Legislative Study Committee, which is now moving through the General Assembly during the 1996 session. Act 137 directs the Commission to adopt procedures for the transfer of courses from all two-year public to all four-year public institutions of higher education in South Carolina. Proposed procedures are listed below.

Unless otherwise stated, these procedures shall become effective immediately upon approval by the Commission and shall be fully implemented, unless otherwise stated, by September 1, 1997.

Note: The following transfer information is required for inclusion by the Commission on Higher Education (CHE). The College assumes no liability for the accuracy of the information provided by CHE.

Statewide Articulation of 86 Courses

1. The Statewide Articulation Agreement of 86 courses approved by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education for transfer from two- to four-year public institutions is applicable to all public institutions, including two year institutions and institutions within the same system. In instances where an institution does not have courses synonymous to ones on this list, it shall identify comparable courses or course categories for acceptance of general education courses on the statewide list.

Admissions Criteria, Course Grades, GPA’s, Validations

2. All four-year public institutions shall issue annually in August a transfer guide covering at least the following items:
   1. The definition of a transfer student and requirements for admission both to the institution and, if more selective, requirements for admission to particular programs.
   2. Limitations placed by the institution or its programs for acceptance of standardized examinations (e.g., SAT, ACT) taken more than a given time ago, for academic coursework taken elsewhere, for coursework repeated due to failure, for coursework taken at another institution while the student is academically suspended at his/her home institution, and so forth.
   3. Institutional and, if more selective, programmatic maximums of course credits allowable in transfer.
   4. Institutional procedures used to calculate student applicants’ GPAs for admission. Such procedures shall describe how nonstandard grades (withdrawal, withdrawal failing, repeated course, etc.) are evaluated, and they shall also describe whether all coursework taken prior to transfer or just coursework deemed appropriate to the student’s intended four-year program of study is calculated for purposes of admission to the institution and/or programmatic major.
   5. Lists of all courses accepted from each technical college (including the 86 courses in the Statewide Articulation Agreement) and the course equivalencies (including “free elective” category) found on the home institution for the courses accepted.
   6. Lists of all articulation agreements with any public South Carolina two-year or other institution of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access these agreements.
   7. Lists of institution’s Transfer Officer(s) personnel together with telephone and FAX numbers and office addresses.
   8. Institutional policies related to “academic bankruptcy” (i.e., removing an entire transcript or parts thereof from a failed or underachieving record after a period of years has passed) so that re-entry into the four-year institution with course credit earned in the interim elsewhere is done without regard to the student’s earlier record.
   9. “Residency requirements” for the minimum number of hours required to be earned at the institution for the degree.
3. Coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, and statewide agreements) covered within these procedures shall be transferable if the student has completed the coursework with a “C” grade (2.0 on a 4.0 scale) or above, but the transfer of grades does not relieve the student of the obligation to meet any GPA requirements or other admissions requirements of the institution or program to which application has been made.
   1. Any four-year institution which has institutional or programmatic admissions requirements for transfer students with cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) higher than 2.0 on a 4.0 scale will apply such entrance requirements equally to transfer students from regionally accredited South Carolina public institutions regardless of whether students are transferring from a four-year or twoyear institution.
   2. Any multi-campus institution or system shall certify by letter to the Commission that all coursework at all of its campuses applicable to a particular degree program of study is fully acceptable in transfer to meet degree requirements in the same degree program at any other of its campuses.
4. Any coursework (individual courses, transfer blocks, statewide agreements) covered within this transfer policy will be transferable to any public institution without any additional fee and without any further encumbrance such as a “validation examination,” “placement examination/instrument,” “verification instrument,” or any other stricture, notwithstanding any institutional or system policy, procedure, or regulation to the contrary.

Transfer Blocks, Statewide Agreements, Completion of the Associate in Arts and Associate in Science Degrees

5. The following Transfer Blocks/Statewide Agreements taken at any two-year public institution in South Carolina shall be accepted in their totality toward meeting baccalaureate degree requirements at all four-year public institutions in relevant four year degree programs, as follows:
   • Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: Established curriculum block of 46-48 semester hours
   • Business Administration: Established curriculum block of 46-51 semester hours
   • Engineering: Established curriculum block of 33 semester hours
   • Science and Mathematics: Established curriculum block of 38-39 semester hours for Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education students only. Secondary education majors and students seeking certification who are not majoring in teacher education should consults the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences or the Math and Science transfer blocks, as relevant, to assure transferability of coursework.
   • Nursing: By statewide agreement, at least 60 semester hours shall be accepted by any public four-year institution toward the baccalaureate completion program (BSN) from graduates of any South Carolina public associate degree program in Nursing (ADN), provided that the program is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) and that the graduate has successfully passed the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and is a currently licensed Registered Nurse.
6. Any “unique” academic program not specifically or by extension covered by one of the statewide transfer blocks/agreements listed in #4 above shall either create its own transfer block of 35 or more credit hours with the approval of CHE staff or shall adopt either the Arts/Social Science/Humanities or the Science/Mathematics block by September, 1996. The institution at which such program is located shall inform the staff of the CHE and every institutional president and vice president for academic affairs about this decision.
7. Any student who has completed either an Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree program at any public two-year South Carolina institution which contains within it the total coursework found in either the Arts/Social Sciences/Humanities Transfer Block or the Math/Science Transfer Block shall automatically be entitled to junior-level status or its equivalent at whatever public senior institution to which the student might have been admitted. (Note: As agreed by the Committee on Academic Affairs, junior status applies only to campus activities such as priority order for registration for courses, residence hall assignments, parking, athletic event tickets, etc. and not in calculating academic degree credits.)

Related Reports and Statewide Documents

8. All applicable recommendations found in the Commission’s report to the General Assembly on the School-to-work Act (approved by the commission and transmitted to the General Assembly on July 6, 1995) are hereby incorporated into the procedures for transfer of coursework among two and four-year institutions.
9. The policy paper entitled State Policy on Transfer and Articulation, as amended to reflect changes in the numbers of transfer blocks and other Commission action since July 6, 1995, is hereby adopted as the statewide policy for institutional good practice in the sending and receiving of all course credits to be transferred.

Assurance of Quality

10. All claims from any public two- or four-year institution challenging the effective preparation of any other public institution’s coursework for transfer purposes shall be evaluated and appropriate measures shall be taken to reassure that the quality of the coursework has been reviewed and approved on a timely basis by sending and receiving institutions alike. This process of formal review shall occur every four years through the staff of the Commission on Higher Education, beginning with the approval of these procedures.

Statewide Publication and Distribution of Information on Transfer

11. The staff of the Commission on Higher Education shall print and distribute copies of these Procedures upon their acceptance by the commission. The staff shall also place this document and the Appendices on the Commission’s Home Page on the Internet under the title “Transfer Policies.”
12. By September 1 of each year, all public four-year institutions shall on their own Home Page on the Internet under the title “Transfer Policies”:
    1. Print a copy of this document (without appendices).
    2. Print a copy of their entire transfer guide.
    3. Provide to staff of the Commission in satisfactory format a copy of their entire transfer guide for placing on the Commission’s Home Page on the Internet.
13. By September 1 of each year, the staff of the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education shall on its Home Page on the Internet under the title “Transfer Policies”:
    1. Print a copy of this document (without appendices).
    2. Provide to the Commission staff in format suitable for placing on the Commission’s Home Page of the Internet a list of all articulation agreements that each of the sixteen technical colleges has with public and other four-year institutions of higher education, together with information about how interested parties can access those agreements.
14. Each two-year and four-year public institutional catalog shall contain a section entitled “TRANSFER: STATE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES.” Such section at a minimum shall:
    1. Publish these procedures in their entirety (except Appendices).
    2. Designate a Chief Transfer Officer at the institution who shall
       • provide information and other appropriate support for students considering transfer and recent transfers
       • serve as a clearinghouse for information on issues of transfer in the State of South Carolina
       • provide definitive institutional rulings on transfer questions for the institution’s students under these procedures
       • work closely with feeder institutions to assure ease in transfer for their students
    3. Designate other programmatic Transfer Officer(s) as the size of the institution and the variety of its programs might warrant.
    4. Refer interested parties to the institutional Transfer Guide.
    5. Refer interested parties to the institution’s and the Commission on Higher Education’s Home Pages on the Internet for further information regarding transfer.
15. In recognition of its widespread acceptance and use throughout the United States, SPEED/EXPRESS should be adopted by all public institutions and systems as the standard for electronic transmission of all student transfer data.
16. In conjunction with the colleges and universities, develop and implement a statewide Transfer Equivalency Database at the earliest opportunity. (As an electronic counseling guide, this computerized, online instrument will allow students and academic advisors to access all degree requirements for every major at every public fouryear institution in South Carolina. Also, the Database will allow students to obtain a better understanding of institutional programs and program requirements and select their transfer courses accordingly, especially when the student knows the institution and the major to which he/she is transferring.)

Development of Common Course System

17. Adopt a common statewide course numbering system for common freshman and sophomore courses of the technical colleges, two-year regional campuses of the University of South Carolina, and senior institutions.
18. Adopt common course titles and descriptions for common freshman and sophomore courses of the technical colleges, two-year regional campuses of the University of South Carolina, and the senior institutions. The Commission will convene statewide disciplinary groups to engage in formal dialogue for these purposes. (A common course numbering system and common course titles and descriptions for lower-division coursework at all public institutions in the state can help reduce confusion among students about the equivalency of their two-year coursework with lower-division courses at the four-year level. To this end, a common system leaves no doubt about the comparability of content, credit, and purpose among the lower-division courses at all public colleges and universities in South Carolina. It would also help eliminate institution disagreement over the transferability of much lower-division coursework, thus clearing a path for easier movement between the technical colleges and senior institutions.)