Students who transfer to a different four year college in the state can end up spending time on classes they don't actually need to graduate.

That's according to state representative Vanessa Grassle, who aims to solve the issue with her House Bill 94.

Our Mackenzie Spink tells us what her bill would change and why it's being criticized by Kentucky's largest public universities.

88 if House Bill 94 becomes law, the Council on Post-secondary education would create transfer pathways between universities for some of the most high demand majors in the state.

The bill's proponents say it will prevent students from earning credits that become obsolete when they transfer to a different school.

And last months post-secondary education committee.

Four universities testified against the bill, saying it solves a problem that doesn't exist.

Transfer students are actually graduating more efficiently than native students, and we have not seen data to credibly challenge this evidence to date.

Students are not losing earned prior credit access credit, which for our Kentucky residents transferring from a four year public university is around nine credit hours or three courses usually results from student driven changes.

Maybe they've switched their academic program.

They've added a major.

They've added a minor.

In today's committee meeting, bill sponsor Representative Vanessa Grassle said the data provided by the universities was too broad.

She presented transfer student data that focused only on the programs addressed in the bill, such as education, nursing and social work.

When we look at education programs in particular, and we know we need teachers out into the workforce, there's a significant transfer penalty for students who move between four year institutions.

You can see this in grain at U of L, the burden is the greatest.

When we look at education with students completing over 155 hours on average in order to graduate.

Representative Grassle argues that the state's public institutions do have room to grow in these high demand areas of study.

Transfer students in these programs often take far more than the 120 credits required for bachelor's degree, compared to native students.

Nursing has the highest institutional transfer burden of all.

When we look at four year to four year transfer again in grain at U of L and UK for a year to four year transfers complete 166 hours on average.

In previous hearings on the bill, Representative Grassle said she experienced an unwillingness on the part of the universities to collaborate with her on the proposal.

A new committee substitute requests that the schools do more research and find solutions.

This bill asks CPE to convene the chief academic officer, or their designee from each institution to specifically work on the pathways that we identified over a year ago that are in high demand and high demand for the workforce, like teaching and nursing, and to issue a report to this committee by December 1st of this year on how to improve and streamline transfer for these specific pathways aimed at reducing both cost and time to degree.

The pathways outlined in House Bill 94 would not be mandatory for every school to adopt, but the institution would have to publicly explain why specific programs should be exempt.

The House Committee on Post-secondary education passed House Bill 94 unanimously.

For Kentucky edition, I'm McKenzie Spink.

Thank you.

McKenzie.

Now, the next stop is the House floor.

If House Bill 94 passes altogether, it would also create a one stop shop transfer portal for students and advisors.

It would also compare credit transfer information between each public university and outline the different available pathways.