Graduates from most of Georgia's technical colleges will be able to transfer all the credits from an associate's degree toward a bachelor's degree in one of five programs at Southern Polytechnic State University under an agreement signed Thursday.
Articulation agreements are typically between two colleges and designed to transfer credits between schools. The agreement just reached applies to the 22 public technical college accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges. The 11 remaining colleges are accredited through another agency and are not eligible.
"No longer will students have to worry about some of their credits not counting and it taking five or six years to earn a bachelor's," said Ray Perren, assistant commissioner of technical education. "They do two years with us, two years with them and they're done."
The agreement applies to five degree programs at Southern Polytechnic: management, manufacturing process, information technology, industrial engineering technology and mechanical and electromechanical engineering technology.
The articulation will begin this fall with manufacturing and information technology, while the others will roll out over the next couple of years, said Zvi Szafran, vice president for academic affairs at Southern Polytechnic. Officials must review all the curriculum taught on the different campuses to make sure students don't miss any material as they transition from one school to the other, he said.
Students will be able to take courses at the Marietta campus or online, Szafran said. The college is writing grants to set up laboratories around the state where students can do some of the work, he said.
More states are developing programs to ease transitions from two-year to four-year schools. These agreements are expected to increase as President Barack Obama has committed to increasing college degree completion rates.
About the Author
The Latest
Featured
