MiraCosta grants  degree credit for  courses taken at United States regionally accredited institutions of higher learning (Associations of Colleges and Schools), but MiraCosta reserves the right to evaluate work completed at other colleges. If an institution is fully accredited, the credit earned at a time when an institution was a candidate for accreditation may also be accepted for credit.

Courses from  U.S. regionally accredited colleges or universities will be evaluated for  degree requirements based on C-ID number or course description, comparable or equivalent content and student learning outcomes, and appropriate prerequisites. Students may be required to provide a course outline and/or a syllabus to determine course comparability and a transcript to verify prerequisite completion.

Courses completed at another California community college and from other U.S. regionally accredited institutions will be applied to the MiraCosta College general education pattern (Plan A) using the following criteria:

• The course completed was approved for the same general education Area as the MiraCosta general education Area .
• The course completed was approved for  a comparable general education Area .
• The course completed is comparable to a course offered by MiraCosta in a general education Area.

Course placement on the transferable general education patterns--CSU-GE (Plan B) and IGETC (Plan C)--will be according to the policies set by the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC).

Transfer credits from institutions using the quarter system will be evaluated as follows: each unit of work for a quarter is equivalent to two-thirds of a unit of work for a semester (e.g., 3 quarter units = 2 semester units).