As Inside Higher Ed reports, this deal is supposed to make it easier for students to move from school to school if they choose.

Crossing State Lines

California’s 112-campus community college system is making it easier for graduates to attend historically black colleges and universities across the country.

The system is launching a new program that guarantees students admission to nine HBCUs if they graduate with an associate degree. The deal allows a student with 60 community college credits to enter the historically black colleges as a junior.

The deal serves twin goals. It helps two-year students from California find a place to get a four-year degree if they want to leave the state. It also helps historically black colleges find students as some struggle with enrollment declines. Late last year, the for-profit University of Phoenix’s attempt to partner with historically black colleges prompted skepticism.

There are no HBCUs in California, and the deal may be a precedent-setting agreement between a state system and a series of public and private colleges in other states.

The California agreement builds on some existing transfer agreements between individual community colleges and nine individual HBCUs, all but one of which is private.