Governor Jay Nixon signed a bill into law today that calls for more uniformity among higher education institutions in Missouri.
By July 2014, all public two and four year colleges and universities in the state must adopt a core transfer library of at least 25 lower division courses that would all transfer from school to school. The bill also calls for a policy that will make it easier for students to earn an associates’ degree by reverse-transferring between two and four year schools. Governor Nixon says the legislation comes at a critical time.
“By 2018, nearly 2/3 of all jobs in the United States will require some kind of post-secondary education. Higher education is the key to Missouri’s sustained economic progress and quality of life and essential to our nation’s ability to compete and win in the global economy,” Nixon said.
The bill tasks the Coordinating Board for Higher Education with facilitating these changes, as well as a few others. The Board will need to work with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to make sure statewide tests are consistent with what students are expected to know when they get to college, and the Board’s annual report now needs to include more information about campus-level progress toward certain goals. Nixon signed the legislation at the first-ever “Governing Board Forum” in Columbia today, which brought together more than 100 top administrators and members of local governing boards from colleges and universities across the state.
