Southwestern is a regionally-accredited college with courses appropriately designated for transfer and/or baccalaureate credit. Southwestern College courses are generally accepted throughout the nation by other colleges and universities. However, acceptance of a Southwestern College course is ultimately determined by the receiving institution. In addition, there may be a limit to the number of units a college or university may allow from a community college.  Practical, applied, technical, career and developmental courses, in most cases, do not transfer to other colleges or universities.

The following are examples by which a community college course may transfer:

• As meeting a lower-division major requirement at the intended transfer college or university. To be accepted for this purpose, the course usually corresponds exactly to the comparable course at the transfer institution in content, prerequisite, and unit.
• For meeting general education transfer requirements, the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC) is the singular general education pathway for California Community College (CCC) students to fulfill lower-division general education requirements for transfer and admission to both the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC).
• Students should review the general education patterns for the college or university to which they intend to transfer.  Each university has list of the transferable general education courses for the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC) systems. All students should consult with a counselor for assistance in selecting the appropriate general education course pattern.
• Elective credit may be applied to the total unit requirement for the bachelor’s or higher degree. The receiving institution reserves the right to determine the extent to which transfer credit satisfies the specific and elective requirements of degree programs.

Courses not accepted to meet specific subject requirements are usually the result of one of the following occurrences:

• The units have exceeded the maximum amount of community college units allowed by the transfer institution.
• The corresponding course at the transfer institution is designated as upper-division.
• The course is a prerequisite for a course in the student’s major, which is normally completed in high school.