WSU, CBC signing coordinated bachelor’s degree agreement

TRI-CITIES — On Nov. 28, officials of Washington State University Tri-Cities and Columbia Basin College will sign an agreement that will ultimately allow students to be enrolled simultaneously at both institutions.

The event is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in the Board Room on the CBC campus, 20th and Court streets, Pasco. CBC President Lee Thornton will be joined by WSU Tri-Cities Chancellor David Lemak in the formal signing ceremony.

Several years in the making, the state’s first coordinated bachelor’s degree program will ease the process of going from a community college to a university. The groundbreaking agreement is described as “an invisible transfer.”

The degree program provides a transfer process that is “invisible” to students by developing college application, admission and transcript evaluation activities that are co–managed between the two schools with little, if any, student involvement.

Some 65 CBC students working toward a bachelor’s degree already participate in the program.

The new program will insure that all CBC courses, included in approved plans of study for bachelor’s degrees, are transferable to WSU.
Additionally, CBC students in the program will have access to bachelor’s degree advising as soon as they enroll at the community college.

The partnership will enable students to begin a program of study for a bachelor’s degree when they start their college education. Doing so, a student can choose between earning an associate’s degree from CBC and transferring to WSU Tri-Cities, or completing general education and lower-division requirements at CBC and then transferring to WSU.

In some instances, CBC students in the program can be admitted to WSU after earning 40 credit hours.