A plan approved Sept. 23 by the governing board of the Wisconsin Technical College System will make it easier for students at technical colleges, such as Madison Area Technical College, to transfer to UW System schools.
The plan, first unveiled two weeks ago by leaders of the WTCS and the UW System, is on its way to the UW System Board of Regents for approval.
David Walsh, Vice President of the UW System Board of Regents, summed up the idea behind the proposal.
\The main objective of the proposed plan is to improve access to a university degree without migrating away from the mission of technical colleges, which is to provide students with an alternate and more affordable path to education,"" he said.
Currently, the WTCS has ""2 + 2"" programs that allow students to begin their degree at a technical college and from there transfer between 50 and 60 credits to a UW-System school to fulfill a baccalaureate degree.
The problem with the current program is that it is only offered in a small variety of fields such as nursing and clinical lab science, which could pose a problem for students wishing to transfer to UW Systems schools.
Katharine Lyall, President of the University of Wisconsin System, has been working on this plan for more than 10 months. In a statement issued by Lyall earlier this month, she said, ""One major aim of the plan proposed by WTCS and UW System schools is to expand the number of ""2 + 2"" programs in order to make it easier for students to transfer who are not interested in the current programs offered.""
Terrance Webb, an executive dean for learning programs at MATC, said students who transfer into the UW System with more credits have a better chance of being successful at the next level.
""Research shows that students who transfer from Madison Area Technical College to UW-Madison as juniors, which is a 54 credit standing, have a much higher rate of graduation than students who transfer in as first year students,"" he said.
By next fall, Lyall hopes to have more courses, upon review by UW faculty, transferable between WTCS and UW Systems.
Representatives from the WTCS and UW System said they hope the two systems can come together so students are no longer denied access to either school due to non-transferable credits.
""We are all here to serve the same student, and the more the two systems can get together and align what we are doing to educate the students, the better,"" Webb said.
