Running Out Of Room, California Looks To Fisk University To Take Its Community College Transfers

Nashville’s Fisk University is one of nine historically black colleges around the nation putting out the welcome mat for California students. A new deal signed today helps Fisk—and also alleviates a problem in California. 

The state of California operates more than a hundred community colleges with more than 2 million students. There isn’t enough room at the state’s four-year schools for students who want to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. There also aren’t any historically black schools, known as HBCUs, in the state.

So California officials brokered the deal aimed at making it easier to transfer credits to a handful of HBCUs, many of which — like Fisk — are struggling to attract students. Even after three years of growth, Fisk has fewer than 800 on campus.

Under the deal, California students who meet the following requirements can enter Fisk as a junior:

• Earn one of two degrees that were originally designed specifically to facilitate transfer to California’s state universities (Associates in Arts for Transfer or Associates in Science for Transfer) or completion of 30 credit hours that includes the “Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum” that is at the heart of the transfer degrees
• Minimum 2.5 GPA