Meg Harvey left LSU to attend Baton Rouge Community College because her grade point average didn’t meet admission requirements. But Harvey said she’s unsure when or if she will be able to get back into the University.”They told me the credits didn’t transfer over,” said Harvey, history junior. “My GPA is a 4.0 at BRCC, but none of those credits would transfer [to LSU].”Transferring from a two-year community college to a four-year university can be a student’s worst nightmare, but Louisiana’s higher education officials are planning guidelines for students to make the switch less painful.In March, the Board of Regents was presented with a statewide pathway for students to earn an associate degree and transfer into a four-year degree program without barriers and credits going to waste.All System presidents agreed to establish a Statewide Transfer Council to guide the process and set the framework to allow the transfer of all associate degrees.”We are the university of choice, and if we can’t let you in as a freshman because your ACT score is too low, we still should give you a well-defined ladder to get here,” said University Chancellor Michael Martin.Martin said a joint program with Baton Rouge Community College could be necessary to guarantee those students will be future Tigers.”We are clearly participating in a statewide articulation agreement relationship, but I think we have to go beyond that,” he said.Students would, in theory, start a joint program at BRCC with a defined curriculum to get into LSU.”If you follow this path, you can come into LSU as if you were always here,” Martin said. “It’s better than saying, ‘I’m going to take this collection of classes and then run over to LSU and see what counts for what.'”Michelle Samuels, customer service specialist at BRCC, said once students declare a major at BRCC, counselors usually advise them to take certain courses that will transfer to a University with a four-year degree.”We have a lot of students who come to try to get their GPA where it needs to be to go to a four-year university,” Samuels said. “They can just come here, [fill out] an application, and then they can transfer.”Harvey was sent to several counselors at BRCC, until finally, they advised her to take online classes through LSU’s Independent and Distance Learning program. One problem associated with that is students can only take three classes at once, she said.”Obviously, you need more than three classes to get your GPA up,” Harvey said. “That really ticks me off because I’m wasting my time here.”–Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]