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THECB staff outline transfer-data findings and SB 3039 implementation; top reason for course denials remains 'outside degree requirement'
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Summary
Dr. Christina Zavala presented FY25 transfer data showing nearly 65,000 denied courses, with the top denial reason being 'outside the degree requirement.' Staff described merged reporting, transfer liaisons, and new website transparency requirements coming from SB 3039.
State coordinating-board staff presented updated transfer data and described rulemaking to implement SB 3039, emphasizing changes intended to improve transparency and consistency in how transfer credit is tracked and reported.
Dr. Christina Zavala, who led the data presentation, told the committee that for fiscal year 2025 (fall 2024 and spring 2025 reporting), the agency is seeing roughly 65,000 courses denied credit. She said the top reason for denials continues to be courses classified as "outside the degree requirement," followed by minimum-grade failures, repeated courses, and exceeding maximum transfer hours. "So for fiscal year '25 ... we continue to see that the course being flagged as outside the degree requirement continues to be the top reason for courses being denied credit," Zavala said.
Zavala walked members through the top denied course list: college algebra led with a little over 2,000 denials, followed by learning framework courses, composition I, general psychology and composition II. She also reported that among students coded as transfer who had not earned an associate degree, the cohort completed about 43 semester credit hours on average, with about 40 of those hours falling within the ACGM (core) and roughly 33 hours counted as core-course work.
Committee members raised questions about coding and dual-credit students. Mitzi Lauderdale asked whether the transfer coding could include students who completed an associate while still in high school; Zavala confirmed the current analysis uses any student coded as a transfer but offered to run disaggregated reports on request and to share the data code used for classification.
Emma Gelsinger outlined SB 3039 implementation priorities: each institution must identify a transfer liaison (or oversee a liaison function), the agency will consolidate previously separate transfer reports into one combined transfer report presented every other year, community colleges will be added to the survey process, and institutions (likely universities) will be required to post on their admissions pages the top five majors or certificate programs with the highest number of denied courses and the most common course-denial reasons. "We will be working with Christina Zavala and her team to get all that in motion," Gelsinger said.
Staff described other changes from the negotiated rulemaking: shifting recommended core-sequencing reporting to a five-year certification to reduce institutional reporting burden and improving degree-plan transparency across departmental pages and catalogs.
Zavala noted that a prior university survey identified SIS (student information system) inconsistencies that sometimes led to incorrect initial flags. Institutions were asked to recertify and resubmit data as needed; staff said they are sending data packages to chief reporting officers and IR directors to help institutions analyze outside-degree denial patterns.
No formal votes were taken on the data or the SB 3039 implementation items during this meeting; staff said rules for some items were pending adoption at an upcoming board meeting and that the fall consolidated transfer report will be the first combined report under the new structure.
The committee discussed next steps, including opportunity for members to request disaggregated runs and to help with implementation outreach; the meeting concluded with routine housekeeping and adjournment.
