Transfer plans, articulation agreements provide seamless transitions for San Jacinto College student

San Jacinto College student Karina Lozoya talks over transfer plans with educational planner Alfredo Gomez.

San Jacinto College provides educational planners to ensure that students transferring schools get credit for classes taken at previous institutions.

To make the transitions seamless, San Jacinto offers transfer plans and articulation agreements, which are partnerships that outline which courses will count toward a degree between institutions.

Most core classes should transfer between public colleges and universities, but certain degree-specific course credits do not always transfer. Because of this, colleges such as San Jacinto have established articulation agreements to provide students with specific information on credit transfers.

"There are literally thousands of individual articulation agreements between the 50 community college districts in Texas and our 38 public universities," said Dominic M. Chavez, senior director of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Office of External Relations, in the press release. "These agreements are not monitored or regulated by the state and often vary by school and in some cases by individual degree program. This lack of cohesion and consistency creates confusion that can be costly for students who end up taking courses that do not transfer or that do not apply toward their intended degree."

Spending time and money on a course that the student does not need can be an expensive and frustrating problem. The services offered by San Jacinto College are designed to ensure that loss of credit does not occur.

"We do two things to ensure a seamless transfer," said Dr. Catherine O'Brien, San Jacinto College associate vice chancellor for learning, in the press release. "First, we strongly encourage a student to meet with one of our educational planners as early as possible before registering for courses to create a degree plan. Our educational planners work closely with university advisers to keep our transfer plans updated. Second, we continuously work to expand and improve our articulation agreements with universities. Those agreements make it easier for students to successfully transfer and earn a four-year degree while not losing credits in the process."

San Jacinto College maintains articulation agreements with more than 20 other institutions in the region, including the University of Houston, University of Houston — Clear Lake, Texas A&M University, University of Texas Health Science Center and Sam Houston State University.

"An educational planner can create a transfer plan that clearly identifies the four-year university degree the student wants to earn and the San Jacinto College courses that will count toward that degree," said O'Brien in the press release. "Once that transfer plan is created, the student should use it semester to semester to guide decisions about which classes take."

For more information, visit www.sanjac.edu/transfers.