The Promise of the Transfer Pathway: Opportunity and Challenge for Community College Students Seeking the Baccalaureate Degree
Executive Summary
In 2010, the College Board’s Advocacy & Policy Center, with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, initiated a project to identify ways of improving the efficiency of the transfer pathway, a century-old mechanism that provides community college students with an opportunity to earn the baccalaureate degree at four-year institutions. Both organizations understand that the national focus on increasing the number of individuals with credentials and degrees will require that transfer play a significant role, especially given the fact that 47 percent of all undergraduates attend community colleges. Now and into the future, the way in which two- and four-year institutions embrace transfer — or not — will influence the educational fate of thousands of students in the U.S.
To address this issue, College Board staff reviewed research pertaining to transfer, convened the Commission on Transfer Policy, a committee composed of education leaders having special expertise in serving community college transfer students (a committee roster can be found on page 5) to identify significant and emerging trends that influence transfer, and engaged the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) to address a series of empirical questions raised by the Commission and College Board staff.
This report, as well as several supplemental reports,* describes the transfer process as it is currently applied; identifies major challenges facing policymakers wishing to expand this pipeline; and provides a set of recommendations for states, two- and fouryear institutions, and other entities, including the philanthropic and research communities, that are designed to advance transfer as a more effective pathway to the baccalaureate degree.
Findings
The empirical and policy findings gathered for this initiative suggest the following:
- Transfer continues to be a popular route to the baccalaureate degree, but the transfer rate has not improved despite more students wishing to transfer.
- The transfer process is too complex.
- The effectiveness of statewide articulation policies in boosting transfer has not yet been established empirically, but transparent transfer credit policies remain essential for student success.
- Community colleges and four-year institutions are rarely acknowledged for the work they do on behalf of transfer, and where transfer-related metrics exist, they are often imprecise, inadequate, or misapplied.
- Community colleges and four-year institutions are different academic cultures that create barriers for students already struggling to maneuver through a too-complex system.
- Financial aid policy is an essential element for an effective transfer plan, but it is not often aligned with other initiatives to boost transfer.
- We do not know the capacity of the current transfer system, and this impairs our ability to meet the nation’s college completion agenda.
Recommendations
The empirical and policy findings gleaned from this initiative invite the following set of recommendations targeted to state governments, two- and four-year institutions, and the research, policymaking, and philanthropic communities.
- For community college and four-year institution leaders:
Create a transfer-affirming culture that spans your respective campuses, providing a pathway for community college students to advance toward the associate and baccalaureate degrees. Develop partnerships, such as dual admission arrangements or transfer contracts, which provide students with an academic road map. Develop similar partnerships to help students understand their financial aid options. Share information with one another on student goals and intentions, student academic performance, course equivalencies, and changes in programs and requirements with the overarching intention of providing students with a simpler and more coherent transfer process.
- For community college leaders:
Honor and support the intentions of your new, first-time community college students, most of whom overwhelmingly want to earn a four-year degree, by making transfer and the associate degree the default curriculum, unless they opt for a different educational goal. Help students get a good start in higher education by providing them with a mandatory orientation program before their first term in college and/or a student success course in their first term, the product of each being a program of study leading to the associate degree and transfer. Require these students to make at least minimum progress toward their educational goal each term.
- For four-year institution leaders:
Establish an authentic and equal partnership with community colleges focused on transfer. Elevate transfer as a strategic, rather than tactical, objective of your institution’s enrollment plans. Evidence this by insisting that enrollment targets be separate from those developed for freshmen. Share the responsibility of preparing students for transfer by reaching out to community college students in their first year of college with information about academic preparation, financial aid, and credit transfer. Cultivate these students with the same intensity and commitment that you cultivate your high school prospects and demonstrate this commitment by providing them with first-priority in the admission process over other transfer applicants.
- For state government leaders:
Create a coherent transfer strategic plan that aligns with the state’s overall higher education objectives. Incentivize the joint activity of community colleges and four-year institutions to serve community college transfer students, but also hold them accountable with reasonable and meaningful metrics that best assess what each type of institution does best.
- For research, not-for-profit and philanthropic organization leaders:
Develop research methodologies that allow policymakers to assess the capacity of the transfer pathway nationally. Create a definition of transfer that two- and four-year institutions can use to meaningfully assess their progress. Build Web-based college-search and other informational databases for community college students preparing for transfer that are at least as sophisticated as those for high school students applying to college. Develop new evaluation methods that can measure students’ learning outcomes and thereby allow them to demonstrate competency in lieu of completing specific course work that may not have been articulated between any given two- and four-year institutions.
Chapter 5: Incentives and Accountability
“Transfer should be a performance indicator for community colleges and for four-year schools. … Having transfer students be a part of the way the universities are judged is a wonderful way of improving retention.”
Member of the Commission on Transfer Policy and Practice
The general lack of institutional incentives for both community colleges and four-year institutions impedes expansion of the transfer pathway, as does the multiplicity of transfer definitions, which makes accounting for progress difficult to measure. Despite the passage of 100 years in which transfer has been a part of the higher education landscape, few explicit and compelling incentives have been developed for either two- or four-year institutions to invest in a serious expansion of the transfer pathway (Carey & Aldeman, 2008).13 Worse, where metrics do exist, they are misapplied. While community colleges are often criticized for low transfer rates, it is a metric they do not control because four-year institutions are solely responsible for transfer admission practices. Finally, simply accounting for the number of transfer students in the pipeline is problematic. The most commonly referenced metric — the transfer rate — has no common definition across the U.S.
Federal Reporting Guidelines
Federal law requires colleges and universities to report enrollment rates, degree completions, and graduation rates, among other things, as part of its response to the Graduation Rate Survey (GRS) via the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).14 Specifically, two- and four-year institutions are required to report on cohorts of full-time, first-time degree- or certificate-seeking students who enter college in the fall of a given academic year and who graduate within 150 percent of the expected time to earn an award (three years for students entering community colleges and six years for students entering four-year colleges and universities). The current system does not account for part-time students or students who enter higher education in a term other than the fall. Moreover, students who transfer to another institution are considered non-graduates and are grouped as dropouts. The current reporting system was designed in 1990 for purposes other than how it is currently used, but as we discuss below, it is increasingly inadequate for the task of accounting for the wide variety of students who now attend two- and four-year institutions (Cook & Pullaro, 2010; Committee on Measures of Student Success, 2011, December).
- Community colleges. Community colleges enroll a significant number of students in academic terms other than the fall, perhaps as many as one-quarter of all enrollments. In addition, a significant portion of students, over 50 percent, enrolls in two-year institutions on a part-time basis (AACC, 2012). Moreover, community college students often take longer to complete their educational goals than the time allowed by the federal reporting time frame. Thus, from a national perspective, information collected by the U.S. Department of Education does not include a significant portion of students attending community colleges, let alone those who transfer (Cook & Pullaro, 2010, p. 28).
Despite the centrality of transfer for community colleges, these institutions almost never receive due credit for the commitment they make to the transfer process. While often criticized for not transferring enough students — despite the fact that four-year institutions control the admission process — they are rarely asked to report on the number of students they prepare for transfer, though that represents the major contribution of these institutions to this academic pathway. For example, if a four-year institution presents data on the completion rates of its transfer students (and not many do — more about that later), the community colleges that prepared those students rarely share in either the credit, if the completion rates are good or, to be fair, the blame, if students struggle academically.
While current data-gathering guidelines, especially at the federal level but also within states, attempt to measure transfer activity, they are often inconsistent, inappropriate, or unclear. For example, community colleges cannot identify transfer as a measure of institutional productivity (graduation), nor are they generally required to identify how well they prepare their students for transfer to a four-year institution. That’s because current reporting guidelines separate those students who graduate from a community college — students who completed a program during the tracking period — from those students who transfer — defined as students who moved to another institution without completing a program. Moreover, students who complete a certificate or degree at a community college and then transfer are not counted in the transfer-out rate.
Current federal regulations do include a definition for transfer preparation: “The successful completion of at least a two-year program that is acceptable for full credit toward a bachelor’s degree and qualifies a student for admission into the third year of a bachelor’s degree program” (Cook & Pullaro, 2010, p. 8, footnote 18). But this definition does not recognize those students who transfer in less than two years. It also does not address circumstances in which a four-year institution refuses to grant full credit for courses completed at a community college.15
- Four-year institutions. If community colleges are not recognized sufficiently for the work they do to prepare students for transfer, it is nonetheless a founding element of their institutional mission. Whether or not properly acknowledged by federal or state governments, transfer is understood by community college leaders and faculty to be one of their overriding objectives in serving students. Such a historical grounding, however, is not a part of the four-year institution’s experience. Many public four-year institutions were established prior to the founding of the first community college. As a result, transfer processes have been grafted, sometimes uneasily, to an already existing freshman admission structure at four-year colleges and universities. Without a campuswide appreciation that transfer students should be an integral part of an institution’s mission and strategic enrollment plan, efforts to mark the admission and progress of these students are challenging to initiate and difficult to sustain. And current reporting guidelines do not help. Similar to community colleges, the current data collection guidelines under IPEDS do not accurately represent the efforts of the four-year institution in providing a pathway to the baccalaureate (Cook & Pullaro, 2010, pp. 9 and 28). Under IPEDS regulations, a four-year institution that confers a bachelor’s degree on a student who has transferred from a community college receives no credit for this effort, because the transfer student was not part of the four-year institution’s original first-time, full-time cohort.16 Even if a four-year institution wished to tout its transfer efforts, it would need to keep its own books. IPEDS data are largely irrelevant.
Institutional Disincentives
Although current federal reporting requirements provide little incentive for four-year institutions to address the needs of transfer students, the mission of these institutions may also work at cross purposes regarding transfer. Research-oriented four-year institutions rarely see transfer students as an important part of the undergraduate enrollment strategy because such students do not directly support the research enterprise. Four-year research institutions partly support their graduate programs by enrolling large numbers of first-year students to sustain undergraduate survey classes, which, in turn, support graduate student teaching assistants. In a static enrollment environment, admitting more transfer students who enter the institution at the upper division means fewer freshman students available to enroll in the lower division.
Enrolling transfer students also requires four-year institutions to absorb substantial costs, surely a disincentive in times of austerity. Enrolling even a handful of transfer students requires a separate admission process, involving the articulation of courses with local or regional community colleges. Evaluating transfer applicants is also labor-intensive, requiring an analysis of whether a student is prepared for the upper division, as well as a determination of how a student’s community college course credit will be applied to the baccalaureate degree. Finally, four-year institutions are likely to incur greater financial aid costs because community college students, by virtue of the fact that they are more likely to come from low-income groups, often require substantial support. This is a special concern of private institutions. In order to admit greater numbers of transfer students, they face the prospect of increasing their discount rates, perhaps significantly, to provide aid to these students.
None of these issues alone prevents a four-year institution from recruiting and admitting students from community colleges. Indeed, many four-year colleges around the nation have invested significant time and resources toward the recruitment, admission, and enrollment of these students. The point here is that in the absence of explicit incentives — even ones that allow four-year institutions to receive simple recognition from federal, state, or local governments for the transfers they admit and graduate — the prospect that these institutions will increase significantly the number of community college students that they accommodate seems unlikely.
Performance Accountability Measures
The lack of incentives for expanding the transfer pathway has not stopped policymakers from devising accountability mechanisms to encourage — or mandate — increases in the number of students who transition from a community college to a four-year institution. Many state performance accountability systems include a measure of community college transfer rates (though, as we discuss in the next section, there is no common definition of such a rate). In addition, some states, such as California, Florida, Maryland, Oregon, and North Carolina, also measure post-transfer persistence and grade performance, requiring four-year colleges and universities to keep records of transfer student outcomes along with their native students (Dougherty, Hare, & Natow, 2009, p. 42).17 These efforts are often embedded within large-scale higher education restructuring efforts. For example, in 2006, Virginia implemented a law that allowed its public colleges and universities greater freedom in a variety of areas, such as purchasing, construction, and personnel, in return for achieving specific performance benchmarks (Leslie & Berdahl, 2008, pp. 309–328). One of these benchmarks required colleges and universities to “develop articulation agreements that have uniform application in all Virginia community colleges” (Leslie & Berdahl, 2008, p. 315) with the potential of reshaping the relationship between the state’s two- and four-year institutions. Less comprehensive, but equally high profile, accountability initiatives have been developed in Minnesota, Maryland, and other states that provide the public with a series of “dashboard indicators” measuring the extent to which higher education institutions have met their strategic goals (see, for example, Kirwan, 2007).
It is an open question whether the collection of accountability data has succeeded in providing two- and four-year institutions with sufficient incentive to improve performance, especially given the reluctance of states to link data collection to performance outcomes.18 Even so, it is not even clear that performance accountability mechanisms have any influence on institutional behavior. Researchers reviewing the entire empirical literature on this issue conclude that there is no clear evidence that performance funding increases the rates of traditional measures of institutional effectiveness, such as retention, completion, and graduation (Dougherty & Reddy, 2011, pp. 43–44). In a broad-based review of the efficacy of accountability systems on community colleges, researchers Dougherty and Hong (2006) concluded that, “there is no evident relationship between the strength of a state’s accountability system with respect to transfer and increases in the number of transfers” (p. 81).
Researchers identify at least three major problems with current accountability systems:
- The measures used to assess transfer progress are often inappropriate or poorly designed.
- Funding does not keep up with rising enrollments and is especially susceptible to changes in overall state funding.
- Variations in institutional capacity or context may create inequitable impacts. For example, a rural community college may be a considerable distance from a four-year college, thereby suppressing its transfer rate, though it is no fault of the institution (Dougherty & Hong, 2006, pp. 59, 81–82).
Despite the fact that traditional accountability measures have shown little impact on institutional outcomes, some researchers believe that such mechanisms have not been fully exploited and recommend that incentives be linked to base-budget allocations (Jenkins, 2011, p. 26). Such policies could be made operational by providing resources to colleges that graduate or transfer students rather than simply enrolling them or by providing incentives for the number of students that reach certain intermediate goals that have been shown to lead to greater transfer, such as credit accumulation and the completion of transfer-preparing curriculum (Jenkins, 2011, p. 27). Other proposals have called for rewarding institutions that prepare, transfer, and graduate students from educationally disadvantaged groups, such as low-income students.
Still, stricter or contingent accountability measures have downsides, perhaps leading to unintended, even pernicious, consequences. UCLA Researchers Arthur Cohen and Florence Brawer (2008) note the potential for “gaming the system” and cite instances in which “colleges have weakened their academic standards by reducing course requirements [in order to raise graduation and retention rates]” (p. 396). Worse, linking greater funding to institutional performance could be an incentive to create explicit policy-level changes, such as creating admission requirements at community colleges. Forcing these institutions to produce more transfer students could be an invitation to admit only students with certain academic credentials, essentially abrogating the distinctive open-door mission of these institutions. Indeed, the literature cited earlier concluded that performance funding may encourage unintended consequences, such as grade inflation, lowering of academic standards, reduced faculty voice in governance, and more restrictive student admission policies (Dougherty & Reddy, 2011).
Transfer Rates
Calculating a transfer rate may be one of the thorniest accountability issues facing two- and four -year institutions. Cohen and Brawer (2008) sum up the problem well:
“… since community college matriculants arguably are potential transfers until they either show up at a university or die … transfer rate calculations can never be fully reflective of student performance” (p. 65).
Measuring the effectiveness of the transfer pathway requires — at least — a common understanding of what we mean by transfer. But convergence on this issue is a long way off. Although the transfer rate is often identified as an appropriate accountability metric, there is virtually no common agreement about how a transfer rate should be calculated.
The obvious calculation is simple enough: Divide the number of students who transfer to a four-year college or university by the total number of students attending a community college. Such a calculation, however, is anathema to community college presidents everywhere. Counting all students in the equation, they argue, unfairly marks their institutions as failures because a good many students enter their colleges without an intention to transfer (Dougherty, 1994). They submit that a more reasonable calculation would include only those students who have enrolled at a community college with transfer as their goal. But this is where things start to unravel.
The presidents’ lament — not an unreasonable one — has led researchers and policymakers down a quixotic path to find the perfect transfer rate definition, a definition that compares the number of successful transfers to a predefined pool consisting only of those students who demonstrate an intention to transfer. Yet the effort to find a “true” transfer rate methodology has resulted in a maddening array of transfer definitions and transfer rates. In a 2001 analysis of transfer, for example, the U.S. Department of Education identified no fewer than eight different definitions, calculating transfer rates that ranged from 25 to 52 percent (Bradburn, Hurst, & Peng, 2001). In 2007, a study analyzing transfer in California presented six different calculations, resulting in transfer rates as low as 24 percent to a high of 67 percent (Horn & Lew, 2007). Table 3 presents a variety of transfer definitions and corresponding outcomes.
Ideally, a transfer rate calculation should include only students who intend to transfer to a four-year institution. On this, most agree. But how can we accurately assess transfer intentions for students?
Moreover, how are we to account for students who begin at a community college with intentions other than transfer but then change their minds? Community college advocates often speak of the transformative nature of their institutions, and there is research indicating that community colleges provide a net boost to student expectations (Adelman, 2005; Bailey, Jenkins, & Leinbach, 2006, p. 18). How should we measure the transfer expectations of late bloomers?
To circumvent the fluidity of students’ college plans and create a better-defined transfer pool, many researchers believe that students’ course-taking behaviors are more accurate barometers of transfer intentions. Students enrolled in transferable, academic courses, such as collegiate math and English composition, are seen as more likely candidates for transfer (see Table 3). But this definition has problems, too. There are few universal, transfer-specific courses. Granted, gatekeeper courses such as mathematics and English composition, are a central element in any transfer-going curriculum, but they are also essential for non-transfer majors, such as nursing, criminal justice, and computer technology, among others. Transfer requirements vary widely, as does the transferability of courses. What might be acceptable to one four-year institution may not be acceptable to another. Moreover, there is no single transfer core curriculum that all districts or states use to prepare students to transition from a community college to a four-year institution, given that different majors require different kinds of lower-division preparation.
Some have suggested that the transfer pool be restricted to those students who indicated both a desire to transfer (i.e., responded to a questionnaire or declared an academic major) and are enrolled in or completed transferable, academic courses (Bahr, Hom, & Perry, 2005). This has its own problems. Such a criterion restricts the transfer pool to a small puddle. While this definition identifies a pool of students almost certain to transfer, it also leaves out of the equation a significant number of students who end up transferring anyway. The Department of Education found that as the definition of transfer becomes more restrictive, the pool of students (1) looks more and more like the traditional college-going student; that is, young, white, and affluent; and (2) does not accurately account for a great number of students who successfully transfer (but who did not fall into the predefined transfer pool) (Bradburn, Hurst, & Peng, 2001). In other words, as the transfer denominator is refined, it accounts for fewer and fewer transfers with greater and greater accuracy. Although the transfer rate goes up, it neither accounts for the wide diversity of students attending community colleges nor accurately measures the true number of transfers. (Table 3 indicates the pool of students each transfer rate includes in its definition.)
Options for Educators and Policymakers
The muddled picture surrounding the use of incentives and performance accountability mechanisms do not provide unequivocal guidance on the ways in which two- and four-year institutions can be incentivized to boost transfer. Still, the importance of the transfer pathway should be emphasized through the identification of one or more metrics, along with others that are used to judge the effectiveness of higher education institutions.
As discussed earlier, holding community colleges accountable for the number of students that transfer is misplaced because these institutions have no control over the number of students that four-year colleges and universities admit. Preparing students for transfer would seem more appropriate, though that could be as slippery as current transfer rate definitions. In a review of performance accountability systems in 10 states, researchers found that while nine of the 10 states examined had a measure for transfer (however defined), only one state (California) had a measure for transfer readiness. These researchers make the point that this measure is underdeveloped but may be especially appropriate to community colleges (Dougherty, Hare, & Natow, 2009, p. 26). In California, students considered to be in the transfer cohort must have completed at least 12 credits and enrolled in at least one transfer-level math course and one transfer-level English course within six years of initial enrollment. This seems to be a minimal transfer-preparing definition, but the focus is nonetheless on the things that community colleges can control. Other states have linked transfer preparation to the completion of a specially designed transfer associate degree followed by enrollment at a four-year college and university (Moore, Shulock, & Jensen, 2009, p. 12). In Florida, community college students who have completed the transfer associate degree have higher rates of admission to state universities than freshman students (Moore et al., 2009, p. 15). Other proposals tie funding not to enrollment but to the completion of courses or specific milestones or momentum points (e.g., completing a specific number of credits in a specified time frame). This could be extended to help students become transfer ready though the completion of specific transferable courses, such as math or writing.
The accountability measures for four-year institutions are relatively straightforward. Simply reporting on the number and academic performance of transfer students — using the same metrics used for first-year students — would be a good beginning. But research indicates that only a few states (noted earlier) have measures of after-transfer performance such as retention or degree completion (Dougherty, Hare, & Natow, 2009). Doing so, however, would provide education leaders at four-year institutions with valuable information about the performance of these students in a variety of majors. This information would shine a light not only on the adequacy of preparation that students received at the sending institution but also about possible misalignments among two- and four-year academic programs.
Although statewide transfer metrics are relatively rare, some elements may prove useful for policymakers. California’s Master Plan for Higher Education (California State Department of Education, 1960), for example, mandates that the state’s two public four-year institutions, California State University and University of California, admit transfer students primarily from California’s community colleges. Moreover, the Master Plan requires that each system have a 60:40 ratio of upper- to lower-division students, although individual campuses in each system are allowed to determine the absolute number of transfer students to admit. Finally California law requires California State University and University of California to give first priority in admission to applicants from California community colleges over applicants from other institutions. Each of these elements signals the importance that state leaders and educators place on the transfer pathway.
Chapter 6: Complexity and Casualties
“What does the transfer pipeline look like — as a comprehensive structure? There is leakage at several points, which is really problematic. I don’t think we have a very good sense at all of how many credits get lost. I think there’s a tremendous leakage that undermines transfer ambitions.”
Member of the Commission on Transfer Policy and Practice
As noted in Chapter 3, far more students entering community colleges wish to transfer than actually do. Where do we lose those students who wish to transfer but are not successful? Is the failure primarily within community colleges or at the point of transfer to the four-year institution? Are the reasons primarily institution-centered or student-centered? What distinguishes successful students from unsuccessful ones? How can we encourage transfer ambition in students who might not otherwise be focused on this goal? Of course, there are a variety of reasons why students never transfer despite their intentions to do so, many completely out of the hands of two- and four-year institutions. Still, some institutional processes — combined with the complexity of transfer itself — leave students vulnerable to dropping out despite their best efforts to progress through the system.
Transfer Complexity
A major factor that contributes to student mortality in the transfer pipeline is the inherent complexity of the current process. Supplemental Report 3, Transfer as Academic Gauntlet: The Student Perspective, documents the journey that students are faced with in assessing the applicability of articulation agreements in planning for transfer.19 And that is just one part of the academic planning milieu for transfer students, who are also faced with having to develop different course programs in preparation for multiple transfer destinations.
Transfer complexity also results from a system that offers students extraordinary choice but insufficient guidance. Most community colleges offer a wide range of certificate, associate degree, and transfer opportunities. Similarly, four-year institutions have a wide variety of degree choices. Such opportunity is a hallmark of U.S. higher education, but it also comes at a cost.
For the transfer student, an array of abundant options opens up a world of possibilities but can also lead to confusion and indecision (Rosenbaum et al., 2006). College officials believe that students come to college with solid plans, but many do not, especially those students from underserved groups who lack essential college knowledge because parents or peers have no experience with the college-going process (GoldrickRab, 2007, p. 7; Rosenbaum et al., 2006).20 Moreover, given dwindling guidance resources, students find it more difficult than ever to obtain the information they need to assess reasonable pathways based on their interests and academic preparation.21 Finally, at most colleges, students are encouraged to explore their interests by enrolling in a variety of courses or programs. But the precision with which students must plan their transfer curriculum makes the exploration model especially problematic. “[T]his nondirective approach may work well for middle-class students who can afford four-years of college, it presents difficulties for many nontraditional students with a shorter time frame”(Rosenbaum et al., 2006, p. 118).22 Add to this the recent revision to the Pell Grant Program, in which student eligibility for these grants was limited to 12 academic terms, and the need for careful planning, especially among students from low-income backgrounds, becomes acute.
It is worth adding that the nondirective model does not work especially well for any student because it encourages the accumulation of credits without an organized structure and goal orientation central to effective transfer. Researchers have found that students who enter community college with an academic plan are more likely to complete their educational goals. In an analysis of student completion rates in California, Moore and Shulock (2011) discovered that about half of students who entered a specific and definable program of study at a community college within one year of college enrollment completed a certificate, degree, or transfer. Less than one-third of students who entered a program in their second year completed anything after six years (p. 8). In a national study of community college student intentions, Horn (2009) found that “strongly directed” students were more likely to complete their educational goals, including transfer to a four-year institution.
Insufficient Academic Guidance
The complexity of the transfer process, coupled with the multitude of programs and majors offered by two- and four-year institutions, only exacerbates what is already endemic in K–12 schools and colleges and universities: the lack of adequate guidance, especially for students who are most in need. These professionals are often the first to be cut in public institutions, an especially distressing fact at community colleges where the need for expert and sustained guidance is so great. Today, student caseloads per advisor range from 800 to 1,200 students, especially in public institutions (Scott-Clayton, 2011, p. 7). A recent analysis of transfer rates among students of color in California concluded that “strong transfer counseling is the sine qua non of community college transfer, yet it is wholly inadequate and this is not always because of resource limitations” (Gandara, Alvarado, Driscoll, & Orfield, 2012, p. 102). The study notes that some counseling centers close at 5 p.m., making it extremely difficult for part-time and evening students to avail themselves of what limited academic guidance was available on campus.
Insufficient guidance leads to at least two problems for transfer students:
- The perils of student-initiated guidance. Although most postsecondary institutions make academic advising available, students must almost always initiate the process. This is a problem, especially for students not versed in the academic culture of two- and four-year institutions (Rosenbaum et al., 2006, pp. 119–120). If a new student is unfamiliar with the culture of the institution — not an unreasonable assumption for many community college students — even knowing what questions to ask may be a challenge. Rosenbaum and his colleagues describe the dilemma for students especially well: “First, students must be aware of what kind of help they need and when they need it. Second, they must be informed about how and where to get it. Third, they must actually go get it. Fourth, students must seek this information well in advance” (Rosenbaum et al., 2006, pp. 119–120).
- Slow detection of costly choices. Given the myriad and sometimes confusing set of choices at two- and four-year institutions, students are likely to make mistakes in selecting courses that prepare them for transfer. Unfortunately, these mistakes are rarely detected until the student gets ready to transfer, and then students may have to spend additional time at the community college before being eligible for transfer. This was noted as far back as 1960 by Medsker in his national review of community college practices: “The two-year college that carelessly counsels students about course requirements in other institutions and about the most desirable pattern to follow in the junior college makes an error that is difficult to correct” (1960, p. 138).
Institutional Practices that Discourage Transfer
Both two- and four-year institutions employ policies and practices that inadvertently discourage students’ academic advancement. These include academic policies that reward students for academic behavior that may undermine progress, as well as institutional procedures and services — or the lack of them — that place unnecessary barriers between students and their educational goals.
- Putting the brakes on academic momentum. Clifford Adelman, while at the U.S. Department of Education, identified a number of activities that significantly influenced a student’s likelihood of completing a college degree (Adelman, 2005, 2006). These included accumulating college-level math credits, completing at least 20 credits in the first year of college, making strategic use of summer sessions to advance progress, staying continuously enrolled, and completing 80 percent of courses attempted.23 (See also Moore, Shulock, & Offenstein, 2009.) Adelman suggests that this cluster of activities provides students with the academic momentum they need to transfer and complete a four-year degree. These activities are not excessively ambitious, even for students attending college on a part-time basis. For example, completing 20 credits in a calendar year would require a student to complete two courses per term and make strategic use of summer sessions. In addition, Adelman discovered that students who stayed continuously enrolled — even part-time — were more likely to transfer than students who did not stay in school from term to term. This is an important finding for community college students because the majority of them are enrolled part-time. Institutions that support continuous enrollment, for students enrolled fulltime or part-time, are more likely to advance their students toward transfer and a four-year degree.
Adelman’s data also revealed that institutions were likely to have policies in place that undercut students’ academic momentum. For example, students who drop 20 percent or more of courses attempted are 50 percent less likely to complete their degree (Adelman, 2005). Yet many community colleges allow students to drop courses late in the academic term without penalty or, worse, withdraw completely from a term with no consequences on either their academic standing or subsequent enrollment. While these practices may be seen as accommodating the needs of a diverse student constituency, they bring students little benefit. Moreover, as described above, while community colleges allow part-time enrollment, they rarely enforce minimum progress requirements. However, if it is true that continuously enrolled students are more likely to complete degrees, it is possible that adherence to even a minimal standard of progress per academic year might encourage more students to make steadier progress toward transfer and a four-year degree.
- Erecting bureaucratic hurdles. It is a fact of institutional life in America that we all daily deal with bureaucratic complexity. Students entering higher education also must grapple with institutional complexity, but there are few places in our culture where there is so much of it: admission requirements, registration procedures, financial aid applications, and academic requirements, just to name a few. Of course, for students who want to transfer, the bureaucratic intrigue is magnified. Students need to learn the system quickly or face difficulties getting enrolled in classes, receiving financial aid, or finding a place to park. Just getting information is difficult, and they are often required to appear at several different offices to obtain advising, financial aid information, or to register for classes. That many students who attend community colleges do not fit the traditional mold of a college student only heightens this problem. Lacking complete college knowledge and the resources that make going to college possible, these students are often at the mercy of bureaucracies that may not be especially accommodating to the outside demands faced by these students, some as seemingly benign as automobile breakdowns but others more significant, such as work commitments, child care issues, parent illness, and financial need.24
- Program scheduling complexity. As transfer students attempt to prepare themselves for the varying requirements of four-year institutions, they are at the mercy of the people who schedule classes at the community college.
“Class schedules are driven by student demand rather than planned sequencing, and course schedules change every term, thus students cannot anticipate their class schedule from semester to semester. Given the vast array of course options that community colleges offer, administrators cannot create coordinated schedules for students. Students report that the courses they need to take are often scheduled at vastly different times of day and some are not offered for several semesters” (Rosenbaum et al., 2006, p. 127).
The need for systematized and predictable course schedules was recently highlighted by Complete College America as one way of assisting community college students. Through the use of block schedules, with fixed class meeting periods, students are better able to arrange work or family commitments around school (Complete College America, 2011, p. 9).
- Lack of interinstitutional communication. The lifeline for a successful transfer experience is accurate and timely information concerning academic preparation, but such information can be hard to find. If four-year institutional leaders are not focused on the transfer student experience, they will be unaware of the consequences of their curriculum decisions on transfer students. While adjustments to the curriculum are a necessary part of the academy, failure to communicate these changes creates dire situations for transfer students (Pussar & Levin, 2009, pp. 32–33).
Options for Educators and Policymakers
Are effective strategies available that address the complexity and lack of guidance that plagues the current transfer process? Research by the Community College Survey for Student Engagement (CCSSE, 2012) and others (Moore & Shulock, 2009) suggests effective strategies that, if made mandatory, might make a difference. Four-year institutions have long understood the importance of orientation programs, student success courses, and learning communities, although they are almost always designed for freshman students. Two-year institutions have also implemented these programs on their campuses. The problem is that most do not make participation mandatory for first-time college students (in the case of community colleges) and new transfer students (at four-year institutions). The CCSSE reports that while 96 percent of community colleges offer some kind of orientation program, only 38 percent make it mandatory for firsttime students. Eighty-three percent of community colleges also offer student success courses, but only 15 percent make it mandatory for first-time students (Gonzalez, 2012, p. A-20; CCSSE, 2012). No corresponding statistics are available for four-year institutions, but we suspect the same trends hold true. Institutions that do not make such interventions mandatory are attempting to accommodate the diverse needs of the community college students, and this is to be commended (especially for reentry students). But for first-time students, such interventions will pay important dividends in students’ college knowledge at both two- and four-year institutions. At community colleges, students assigned to an orientation or student success course will learn not only about the culture of the institution but the importance of planning for transfer — an essential behavior that marks students who successfully transfer versus those who do not. At four-year institutions, an orientation or student success course will introduce transfer students to a new academic culture, one that has its own expectations and oddities often divergent from that of the community college model (we discuss academic culture in Chapter 8). If transfer is to remain a complex pathway — and we suspect it will — there are nonetheless strategies to provide students with the knowledge they will need to navigate the process but only if institutions insist that students be armed with them.
Chapter 7: Problematic Financial Aid Policies and Practices
“There’s this perception of [community colleges] as low cost. This is because some families … focus only on the tuition and fees. They do not recognize all of the other education-related costs that are necessary, such as the cost of books and supplies, transportation, and the other expenses. So, when they come to the point of transferring and look at the cost of the four-year institution, there’s sticker shock …”
Member of the Commission on Transfer Policy and Practice
Higher education costs have been increasing astronomically. This is not a secret. And these costs hit almost all American families hard. In the last 25 years, costs have increased 400 percent, compared to only 150 percent for median family income (Orozco & Cauthen, 2009). According to the latest report from the College Board’s Trends in College Pricing, average tuition and fees increased again in 2010 for all segments of higher education. For community colleges, average tuition and fees increased 8.6 percent to $2,962. For public four-year colleges and universities, average tuition and fees increased 8.3 percent to $8,244, while average tuition and fees at private four-year institutions increased 4.5 percent to $28,500 (see Table 4) (College Board, 2011).
Although higher education costs at four-year institutions almost always receive greater media attention, tuition and fees at community colleges have been rising steadily over the past decade, greatly outpacing median family income. This is especially true in those states that rely most significantly on community colleges as a doorway of access to higher education (National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2011).25 In California, which enrolls one-quarter of all community college students, fees have increased nearly 80 percent in 10 years (National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2011, p. 5, Figure 1). Moreover, when costs of attendance are added to tuition and fees, students attending community colleges in 2011-12 can expect to pay, on average, $15,286 for one year (College Board, 2011).26
The decreasing affordability of the community colleges is alarming, especially so for those students who have the greatest difficulty in meeting college costs. Recent reports indicate that students from the lowest income groups are left with a significant amount of unmet financial need; one estimate places the figure at over $7,000 (Orozco & Mayo, 2010, p. 5). Dependent students from lower-middle income quartiles do not fare much better, facing nearly $5,500 in unmet need. When combined with rising costs at both community colleges and four-year institutions, transfer students are especially hard-hit. According to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance:
“Tuition and fees at public flagship universities, on average, are more than 2.5 times the tuition and fees at community colleges. … If [transfer] students already have unmet need at the community college level, they may become overwhelmed by these higher costs. Moreover, students who seek to transfer from a two-year to a four-year institution often find that less institutional aid is available to them because such funds are often targeted at recruiting first-time, full-time students” (p. 32).
Students respond to unmet need by working more hours per week than is optimal for college completion. Ironically, the relatively low-cost community colleges, along with these institutions’ liberal rules around part-time enrollment, make working a viable option. Yet, students who work more than 20 hours per week and attend college part-time are at greater risk of not completing their educational goals (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2008, September, pp. 7 and 9).
Students attending community colleges, with or without a transfer goal, face special financial aid challenges:
- Students attending a community college are more likely to come from low-income backgrounds. In 2007-08, nearly one-third of dependent students at public two-year colleges were from the lowest income quartile compared to 21 percent at public four-year institutions. In contrast, only 15 percent of students from the highest income quartile attended community colleges, compared to 29 percent in four-year institutions (Orozco & Cauthen, 2009, p. 4). In the most recent student cohorts analyzed for this project, which included only new, first-time, community college students, the proportion of students in the lowest income quartile was 26.1 percent in two-year colleges compared to 20.2 percent in four-year institutions.
- Community college students are less likely to apply for financial aid. It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of all students who do not apply for federal aid are from community colleges (Kantrowitz, 2009, p. 3). Students cite a number of reasons for not applying, including a belief that they were not eligible or did not need aid, an unwillingness to share personal information with the government, fears of accumulating debt, and a reluctance to complete what they viewed as forms that were too complex (Kantrowitz, 2011). Other researchers have noted that the complexity of the FAFSA rivals that of an income tax return and, as a result, discourages participation (Scott-Clayton, 2011; College Board, 2010).
- Even if students apply for financial aid, current federal policies are less likely to help students from low-income backgrounds. Financial aid policies have shifted nationally from an emphasis on grants toward loans. Two decades ago, nearly 60 percent of financial aid was in the form of grants, while only about 40 percent was in the form of loans. Today, these percentages are reversed (Kahlenberg, 2004, p. 4). Moreover, the purchasing power of the Pell Grant has declined significantly. Thirty years ago, the Pell Grant covered about threequarters of the costs associated with attending a four-year institution. Now it covers about one-third of the cost of attendance (Orozco & Cauthen, 2009, p. 5). Moreover, recent changes to the Pell Grant eligibility formula reduce the number of terms a student may be eligible for a grant from 18 full-time semesters to 12 full-time semesters (Association of Community College Trustees, 2012).
- State financial aid dollars have shifted from a primary focus on need to one focused on merit. According to the Education Trust, state grant funds awarded on factors other than need have grown three times faster than the rate for needbased aid (Education Trust, 2011, p. 2). Although merit aid rewards students for their academic accomplishments, these grants favor students in middle- and upper-income brackets who have college-going advantages often unknown to students from lower-income groups. Moreover, more money for merit scholarships siphons off already dwindling state dollars for need-based assistance (Education Trust, 2011; Orozco & Cauthen, 2009). Even where grant aid is available, states tend to award these resources to fouryear institution students over community college students, despite the fact that two-year institutions enroll more low-income students. A recent report notes that, on average, 46 percent of community college students receive a state grant compared to 57 percent of students attending a four-year institution (Orozco & Mayo, 2011, p. 6).27
- Community college students have less access to federally subsidized loans to fund college costs. About one million community college students in 31 states attend colleges that have blocked access to federally subsidized loans. This lack of access disproportionately affects African American and American Indian students (Project on Student Debt, 2011, p. 1). The rationale is laudable. Many community college leaders want to discourage students from taking on too much debt. The problem, however, is that for students who need the money, their only alternatives are far more expensive private loans or to work more hours at an outside job.
- Community college students, especially those from low-income backgrounds, prefer to work rather than take out loans. In 2007-08, 67 percent of all community college students under the age of 24 worked more than 21 hours per week, compared to 46 percent of students at public four-year institutions, and nearly 30 percent worked more than 36 hours per week compared to 15 percent of students at public four-year institutions (Orozco & Cauthen, 2009, p. 6, Table 4). While working one’s way through college is an honorable strategy, too many hours away from school wreaks havoc with student progress and completion rates. Research consistently reveals that working more than 20 hours per week has a negative impact on students’ persistence and academic achievement (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2008, September, pp. 7 and 9).
Unique Challenges Facing Transfer Students
“When students arrive at the four-year campus, they find there are other expenses, such as books and supplies that they may not have anticipated. The need for financial aid then becomes very critical to them. One of two things may happen as a result: If they’re really industrious, they’ll find a way to the financial aid office, which isn’t always easy, or they will simply drop out.”
Member of the Commission on Transfer Policy and Practice
The trends described above apply to all students attending community colleges, not just students who identify themselves as seeking a baccalaureate degree. While research is less plentiful about the specific effects of financial aid policies on students who identify themselves as seeking a four-year degree, several trends have been identified that undercut the ability of these students to fund their education and earn the baccalaureate degree:
- Rising tuition and fees at two- and four-year institutions also affect transfer students. As noted earlier, while rising costs at four-year institutions catch most of the media attention, costs are rising at community colleges, too. Admittedly, students who begin at a community college and then transfer will pay less in tuition and fees on average than students who begin at a fouryear institution. Still, these students face significant sticker shock once they transition to a four-year institution and research indicates that these students are especially sensitive to fluctuations in college prices (Medsker, 1960, p. 137; Rhoades, 2012). Average tuition and fees account for only 19 percent of expenses related to attendance at a community college compared to 38 percent at public four-year institutions (in-state students), 61 percent at public four-year institutions (out-of-state students), and 67 percent at private/independent institutions (College Board, 2011, p. 6 , Figure 1; Orozco & Mayo, 2010, p. 5). Students must have the resources not only to pay for tuition and fees but also for a variety of additional expenses, such as housing, textbooks, supplies, and transportation.28 If a community college is located in an expensive urban area, total costs can be substantial.
- Transfer students do not have an accurate estimate of the costs they will incur in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. Estimating one’s financial commitment will be largely dependent on whether the student transfers to a public or private institution and the extent to which that institution provides aid. Few community colleges and four-year institutions package students together or even supply information in which a student could estimate his or her total financial commitment to college and the likely aid to be received.
- Transfer students, like all students attending a community college, work more hours while attending school than students attending a four-year institution. Unlike other community college students, however, they may be penalized for this strategy when it comes to applying for financial aid at the four-year institution. A government analysis of this issue revealed that 28 percent of full-time community college students on the transfer track who were from the lowest income bracket ($0–$9,999) work 30 hours or more per week. Despite the fact that these students are clearly eligible for financial aid, they may be subject to a “work penalty,” which could make them ineligible for some federal financial aid due to the fact that their job-related assets, such as savings, give an inaccurate snapshot of their income level. While savings will and should be factored into the financial aid that is awarded, some four-year institutions assume the student will continue to be employed while attending the senior institution, an unlikely outcome because such schools generally require full-time enrollment. Most financial aid offices will make this adjustment, but only if a student makes them aware of it, requiring a level of financial sophistication students are unlikely to possess (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2008, September, pp. 8–9).
- Transfer students, like all students attending a community college, are less likely to apply for financial aid. Unlike other community college students, however, their reasons for doing so are somewhat different. Data show that among full-time community college students seeking transfer in the lowest income bracket, 28 percent of dependent students, 17 percent of independent students (with dependents), and 24 percent of independent students (without dependents) did not submit a FAFSA, despite the fact that they were most likely eligible for aid (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2008, September, p. 11). When asked why they did not apply, students said they did not think they would qualify for aid (39 percent) or that they did not need it (35 percent). Neither reason indicates a reluctance to participate in the financial aid process (only 6 percent of respondents indicated that they felt the form was too complex and only 2 percent indicated a reluctance to provide personal information). These answers imply that some transfer students have little understanding of the role and necessity of financial aid. At relatively low-cost community colleges, students can maneuver around the financial aid office by working or attending college part-time. However, at more costly four-year institutions (most of which frown upon part-time enrollment), this lack of understanding could prove perilous to their academic success (Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, 2008 September, p. 14).
- Transfer students are often last to be packaged by four-year institutions. Community college applicants to four-year institutions are usually evaluated after the freshman class has been assembled. Unless an institution has reserved financial aid specifically for transfer applicants, the kinds of aid that they will receive may be limited, perhaps including less grant aid and more loans (see Stainburn, 2011). A 2010 report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling indicated that nearly a quarter of the four-year colleges and universities it surveyed did not offer merit aid to transfer students (NACAC, 2010). These data, however, were based on a 2006 survey and more recent data are unavailable about whether the proportion of four-year institutions providing aid has changed. Students who transfer in the middle of the academic year (about one-quarter of all transfer students) are almost assuredly less likely to have access to state- and institutional-level support since four-year institutions package the great majority of their students in the fall term.
“What I would like to see is a comprehensive financial aid system. For years, I have wanted to do a four-year financial aid package in my system. Students’ financial positions do not change that significantly over time. When students start at a community college — and they are on the transfer track — there is no reason why they should not know what their financial aid package will look like for four years.”
Member of the Commission on Transfer Policy and Practice
Options for Educators and Policymakers
Current national and state budget shortfalls do not bode well for generous student financial aid packages in the near future. Still, while more support would be welcome, two- and four-year institutions might well improve transfer by recalibrating some current practices that undercut transfer student progress. One strategy is to help students understand their financial aid options across both institutions. The goal would be to help students see how certain kinds of financial aid can be leveraged in support of their education more effectively than relying on part-time enrollment or working more than 20 hours per week. In addition, four-year institutions can revise their outreach messages to high school and first-year community college students by helping them develop a financial aid estimate across four years of college. In addition, these institutions should reserve financial aid specifically for community college transfer students.
The recent implementation of “net price calculators” (NPC) at two- and four-year institutions may help community college transfer students understand their financial aid options across two institutions. In 2011, the federal government required all colleges and universities that receive Title IV federal student aid to post a NPC on their website, allowing current and prospective students an opportunity to calculate an estimated net price of attendance at a given institution based on individual financial information provided by students (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Although, current NPCs offer students estimates of net price based on enrollment at a single institution, the NPC framework offers community colleges and four-year institutions an opportunity to partner in the development of calculators that provide estimates of net cost across two institutions. In other words, with more advanced calculators, community college students could calculate not only their cost of attendance at the two-year institution but also at the four-year institution following transfer.
All of this suggests that financial aid policy for transfer students should be properly aligned with other elements essential to the process, such as articulation policies and enrollment management strategies. It is unreasonable, for instance, to require transfer students to enroll in college full-time if aid is not sufficient to maintain that level of commitment. For many community college students who are comfortable putting themselves through school by working at an outside job, the prospect of going into significant debt at a four-year institution is neither attractive financially nor compelling academically. However, federal work study awards might be appealing to these students.
Despite the added administrative aspects of the program (connecting students to appropriate jobs), it addresses the need of this constituency well by providing them with work, often in conjunction with a student’s academic interests; wedding them more closely to the campus community (because many jobs are on campus); and limiting the number of hours that can be worked. These and similar efforts may be especially powerful for community college students whose ability to earn a baccalaureate degree rests less in their classroom performances and more on their hourly wages, often working far more hours per week than is recommended for sustained academic achievement.
Chapter 10: Recommendations
The empirical and policy findings gleaned from this initiative invite the following set of recommendations. These recommendations are targeted to three sets of constituencies: state governments; two- and four-year institutions; and the research, policymaking and philanthropic communities. There are other players in the effort to improve transfer (such as the federal government’s role in collecting national college-going data) but these represent the primary influencers in strengthening this academic pathway. Each set of recommendations is centered on the main themes of this report: the shared responsibility of two- and four-year institutions to improve transfer, the importance of accountability mechanisms that incentivize institutions to enhance the transfer pathway, and the need to simplify the transfer process for students.
Recommendations in Brief (see Figure 1)
- For community college and four-year institution leaders:
Create a transfer-affirming culture that spans your respective campuses, providing a pathway for community college students to advance toward the associate and baccalaureate degrees. Develop partnerships, such as dual admission arrangements or transfer contracts, which provide students with an academic road map. Develop similar partnerships to help students understand their financial aid options. Share information with one another on student goals and intentions, student academic performance, course equivalencies, and changes in programs and requirements with the overarching intention of providing students with a simpler and more coherent transfer process.
- For community college leaders:
Honor and support the intentions of your new, first-time community college students, most of whom overwhelmingly want to earn a four-year degree, by making transfer and the associate degree the default curriculum, unless they opt for a different educational goal. Help students get a good start in higher education by providing them with a mandatory orientation program before their first term in college and/or a student success course in their first term, the product of each being a program of study leading to the associate degree and transfer. Require these students to make at least minimum progress toward their educational goal each term.
- For four-year institution leaders:
Establish an authentic and equal partnership with community colleges focused on transfer. Elevate transfer as a strategic, rather than tactical, objective of your institution’s enrollment plans. Evidence this by insisting that enrollment targets be separate from those developed for freshmen. Share the responsibility of preparing students for transfer by reaching out to community college students in their first year of college with information about academic preparation, financial aid, and credit transfer. Cultivate these students with the same intensity and commitment that you cultivate your high school prospects and demonstrate this commitment by providing them with first priority in the admission process over other transfer applicants.
- For state government leaders:
Create a coherent transfer strategic plan that aligns with the state’s overall higher education objectives. Incentivize the joint activity of community colleges and four-year institutions to serve community college transfer students, but also hold them accountable with reasonable and meaningful metrics that best assess what each type of institution does best.
- For research, not-for-profit and philanthropic organization leaders:
Develop research methodologies that allow policymakers to assess the capacity of the transfer pathway nationally. Create a definition of transfer that two- and four-year institutions can use to meaningfully assess their progress. Build Web-based college-search and other informational databases for community college students preparing for transfer that are at least as sophisticated as those for high school students preparing for college. Develop new evaluation methods that can measure students’ learning outcomes and thereby allow them to demonstrate competency in lieu of completing specific course work that may not have been articulated between any given two- and four-year institutions.
- Create transfer-affirming cultures:
Two- and four-year institutions should create environments in which transfer and transfer students are affirmed and supported in their pursuit of a baccalaureate degree.
The separate cultures of the university and the community college make it difficult to create a transfer-affirming environment that supports transfer students. Often times, the parochial interests of institutions surpass the needs of students who are then caught in an academic netherworld that is difficult to navigate and not of their making.
Although almost every community college considers transfer as a part of its institutional mission, exhortations in the college catalog are not enough. As described in Chapter 8, a transfer-affirming culture defines transfer as a shared responsibility between community colleges and four-year institutions, views transfer and the attainment of the baccalaureate degree as expected and attainable, offers curricula and academic support services that make transfer and degree completion possible, leverages the social capital that students bring to college in service to their educational goals, and includes transfer as an essential element of an institution’s mission and strategic vision.
For four-year institutions, creating such a culture will require four-year institutions to welcome prospective transfer students to their campus in ways as thoughtful as those developed for firstyear students. Different institutional contexts will lead to varied interventions. At minimum, however, the very programs that are currently valued and provided to first-year students on four-year campuses (such as orientation programs, timely advising, adequate housing, and access to the same academic majors that first-time students receive), should be calibrated for transfer students as well.
We propose a set of recommendations to be enacted collectively by two- and four-year institutions:
Establish interinstitutional partnerships that encourage student planning and preparation for transfer. Community college students must begin planning for transfer from the first day they enroll at a community college. The extent to which they are able to do this depends on the information and guidance they receive from two- and four-year institutions. Interinstitutional activities that promote student planning include the following:
- Link students early with prospective transfer destinations. Community colleges should share with four-year institutions (assuming students’ permission) the names and contact information of prospective transfer applicants who have indicated a transfer destination. Four-year institutions would then, in turn, reach out to these students early and often about the ways in which they can best prepare for transfer to the four-year campus.
- Provide dual enrollment opportunities. Where geography permits, community colleges and four-year institutions should implement dual-admission programs in which community college students are allowed to complete one or more courses at the four-year institution. Research indicates that these arrangements help students make a successful transition from a community college to a four-year institution. By completing one or more courses prior to transfer, prospective transfer students experience the academic culture of the receiving institution.
- Offer transfer contracts. Where geography does not permit, community colleges and four-year institutions should adopt the use of transfer contracts in which four-year institutions develop agreements with prospective community college students outlining the courses students must complete and the grades they must earn to be eligible for transfer. These arrangements have demonstrated success in helping students transfer to a four-year institution. The advantage of this arrangement is that students understand their expectations for transfer and four-year institutions are assured an enrollment stream of well-prepared students.
Establish interinstitutional partnerships that that provide community college students considering transfer with a comprehensive view of their financial aid opportunities as an undergraduate student. Few community colleges and four-year institutions supply information in which a student could estimate his or her total financial commitment to college and the likely aid to be received. Yet, a prospective transfer student’s understanding of how financial aid serves to support their education is essential, especially given the fact that so many community college students do not apply for aid, attend college part-time, and work more hours per week than is optimal for academic progress. Two- and four-year institutions must work collectively to provide a comprehensive view of the financial aid process. Such initiatives could come in a variety of forms, such as:
- Interinstitutional agreements that provide prospective transfer students with a guaranteed financial aid package for their undergraduate career, dependent upon a student’s academic progress, completion of a prescribed course of study, attainment of a specified minimum GPA, and financial need. These arrangements could be integrated with already established dualadmission programs, which provide students with a guarantee of admission presuming they complete an academic contract.
- Interinstitutional financial aid workshops (in person or online) and Web-based tools that prospective students and their families can access for information about financial aid opportunities — and challenges — that transfer students are likely to face. In the absence of explicit arrangements among two- and four-year institutions, financial aid experts should work on creating a curriculum that effectively highlights the financial aid process for a transfer student across two- and four-year institutions.
- Honor and support students’ transfer intentions:
Community colleges should make the transfer the default curriculum for all new, first-time community college students.
New students entering a community college for the first time want to transfer and earn the baccalaureate degree. We believe that community colleges should presume that students’ intentions are serious and, unless students indicate otherwise, admit them into a default transfer curriculum.
What would a “default” curriculum look like? Probably something very close to what it looks like now on community college campuses. We defer to two- and four-year faculty as to the number and type of courses a student should complete in the lower division to prepare for transfer. We suggest, however, that the structure of this transfer curriculum include the following:
The default transfer curriculum should be a definable program of study leading to an associate degree, with specific courses to be completed each term and an expectation that students will achieve at least minimum academic progress each term as defined by credits completed and earned GPA (these thresholds would be different for those attending college full-time or part-time). As described in Chapter 6, comprehensive community colleges offer a smorgasbord of courses and programs. This richness, however, can sometimes be a burden to first-time students who are unsure of their educational direction. Research indicates that students who enter a community college and enroll in a program of study within the first year are far more likely to complete their educational goals compared to students who lack a plan (Horn, 2009; Moore & Shulock, 2011). Moreover, an academic plan, even if a tentative one, encourages steady student academic progress. Whether students attend college full- or part-time, students who are continuously enrolled are more likely to achieve their education goals than students who stop in and out of school. Although not all students want to be continuously enrolled, new, first-time students should be provided with incentives to do so. Incentives could include priority enrollment, reduction or elimination of certain fees, and/or greater access to campus services.
The default transfer curriculum should include a mandatory orientation program and/or a student success course for all incoming, first-time, community college students. The current catchphrase among community college leaders is “students don’t do optional.” Although many colleges offer voluntary orientation programs, many students do not avail themselves of these opportunities despite research indicating the benefits of such programs. Higher education leaders are reluctant to make orientation mandatory believing that students (e.g., older students) attending their institutions may not require such intervention or cannot make time for such activities as the result of work responsibilities and family commitments. Nevertheless, given the importance of these programs in helping students get on the right track for transfer, we recommend that all new, first-time college students be required to complete an orientation program or a first-semester student success course. This student constituency is largely inexperienced with college life and likely to be the greatest beneficiaries of such interventions.
The default transfer curriculum should require students to identify a transfer destination(s) with the understanding that the institutions they identify would be notified of their interest and, in turn, would follow up with specific information about transfer. Students’ transfer plans are significantly affected by the admission requirements of the receiving institution. Students need sustained contact with prospective four-year institutions to assure that they are on the correct track for a timely transition to the receiving institution.
- Establish an authentic and equal partnership:
Four-year institutions’ admission, enrollment, and education of transfer students should be part of the campus mission and should be supported at the highest levels of administrative and faculty leadership. This should be made evident in the following ways:
Four-year institutions strategic enrollment plans should specify community college enrollment targets that are separate from freshmen enrollment targets. Freshmen enrollment targets play a powerful role in motivating an institution toward its strategic objectives. Targets for transfer students will do the same.
Four-year institutions should grant community college students applying for transfer first priority in the transfer admission process over other transfer applicants from four-year colleges and universities. Community college students must transfer to earn a baccalaureate degree. Whatever personally compelling reasons four-year institution students might have for transfer, they are still able to earn a four-year degree at their original institution. Obviously, this is not so for community college students.
Four-year institutions should publicize admission information for prospective transfer students in the same fashion that such information is provided to first-year students. At minimum, this information should include admission statistics for the previous academic year (e.g., the number of transfer applications received, the number admitted, and the number that enrolled) along with an academic profile of the entering transfer class (e.g., average number of credits accepted and average and range of admitted students’ GPAs). In addition, admission information should be provided, such as course and GPA requirements, assessment requirements, application deadlines, and credit limitations. Beyond these data points, four-year institutions must also convey information central to the transfer process.
Four-year institutions should create transparent transfer credit policies so that students know how to prepare for transfer while attending community college. Even if an explicit articulation agreement is not in place with one or more community colleges, four-year institutions that enroll transfer students have an obligation to provide guidance about the kinds of courses that are typically accepted for credit, the likely applicability of community college courses toward specific degree requirements (GE, major requirements, elective), required course components (e.g., lab section, studio), and any credit limitations.
Four-year institutions should complete a credit evaluation for all transfer students before they enroll at the four-year institution. Providing information about how a student’s community college courses do and do not transfer after the student has enrolled makes no sense educationally. Providing this information before a student first enrolls should be a minimal standard of quality for any transfer-receiving institution.
Four-year institutions should set aside financial aid resources for students applying as transfers from community colleges. Community college applicants to four-year institutions are almost always evaluated after the freshman class has been assembled. Unless an institution has reserved financial aid specifically for transfer applicants, these students are likely to receive less grant aid and more loans.
- Create a coherent statewide transfer strategic plan:
State governments should create a policymaking environment that supports transfer students and transfer-affirming cultures and aligns with the state’s overall higher education objectives.
State governments have a pivotal role to play in strengthening transfer, especially among public two- and four-year institutions. Not only can state leaders establish a policy framework that supports transfer, it is the only entity that can effectively arbitrate the competing needs of community colleges and four-year institutions, a necessary corrective to ensure that both types of institutions see transfer as a shared responsibility.
Creating a policy environment that supports transfer also requires that the state provide appropriate incentives to two- and four-year institutions for the work they do on behalf of transfer. Part of this environment will be the establishment of incentives for two- and four- year institutions to prepare more students for transfer and help them earn a four-year degree.
Finally, the state can create those conditions necessary for the development of a simpler or more student-friendly process. In the past, states have attempted to simplify the transfer process by systematizing curricula between two- and four-year institutions, such as implementing a common course numbering system, creating blanket GE articulation agreements, and/or mandating the admission of students to the four-year institution upon completion of an associate degree. These activities are surely necessary, but — and the evidence bears this out — insufficient to significantly boost transfer. Therefore, we recommend the following:
States should convene leaders of two- and four-year institutions in their own state and, where appropriate, in neighboring states as well to establish or advance a statewide or regional strategic higher education plan that involves transfer as one of its central components. For a pathway as complex as this one, there is no substitute for careful planning and coordination. Yet, in our informal review of 15 four-year institution strategic plans, we found that only one explicitly identified mechanisms to increase its enrollment of community college transfer students. The state, or regional state consortia, is the only entity that can encourage — or mandate — education leaders to come together for mutual engagement and collective action. The type and scope of such action will vary depending on the needs and educational characteristics of each state (e.g., presence of community colleges, size and complexity of the higher educational infrastructure), but should include the following:
- States should require that two- and four-year public institutions annually report statistics focusing on transfer. These reports should provide, at minimum, the number of students who were made transfer ready by community colleges, the number of students who successfully transferred to a four-year institution (including the proportion of transfer-ready students who made this transition), and the persistence and graduation rates of students after they transferred to a four-year institution.
- States should use the number or type of articulation agreements developed as a metric in evaluating the commitment of two- and four-year institutions toward transfer. Two- and four-year institutions are given almost no credit for the work they do in this regard, despite the labor-intensive and time-consuming aspects of this process.
States should insist that all statewide agreements adhere to a standardized format and be posted electronically for easy access by students and educators. Creating a standard form for the presentation of articulation information is an obvious way of creating a simpler articulation process. Also, given the sheer number of agreements that are generated, collecting this information in an electronic database that makes it easy for students to search for connections between and among institutions and courses is tailor-made for today’s Web technologies.
- Invest in applied research that addresses the needs of transfer students and transfer-affirming cultures:
The research, not-for-profit, and philanthropic communities are especially well-poised to identify and fund applied research projects that will advance the needs of transfer and transfer students. Community college students and the transfer pathway can benefit enormously from the contributions of these national organizations in the following ways.
Research entities should develop a model or models that allow education leaders, policymakers, and others to assess the capacity of the transfer pathway to accommodate community college students wishing to earn a baccalaureate degree. At this time, there is no accurate way to determine both the number of students who wish to transfer and the capacity of four-year institutions to absorb that number. This information is pivotal in the development of effective transfer policy.
Research entities should develop a definition of transfer that two- and four-year institutions can use to meaningfully assess their progress. As noted in Chapter 5, transfer rate definitions appear to flourish in direct proportion to the parochial needs of institutions, districts, and governments. The development of effective transfer policy requires a common measure of transfer
Organizations committed to student success should develop prototype Web- and printbased sources of information for prospective transfer students that are at least as robust as those provided for high school students preparing for college. There are dozens of books and websites designed for high school students to help prepare them for college, but almost none for community college students to help prepare for transfer. For example, there is no single source of information that tells students which four-year institutions actually admit students or the specific admission requirements of those institutions. Fortunately, the development of such resources is not difficult and would be an appropriate undertaking for educationally related organizations to address. Financial aid resources for transfer students should also be developed. Currently, two- and four-year institutions are required to make available to prospective students net price calculators revealing the actual cost of college attendance for a specific institution. The expansion of such calculators to serve transfer students would be a more complex undertaking but is well within the mission and purview of organizations focused on helping students prepare for college success.
Organizations expert in assessing student learning competencies should identify additional strategies for assessing the academic preparation of students for the upper division. Aligning courses and majors using articulation agreements is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Are there other ways of assessing transfer student readiness? Strategies might include the development of assessments that measure competency in specific transferable skills, such as quantitative reasoning, writing, and critical thinking; prior learning assessments; portfolios; or any combination of these indicators.
References
Notes
This report is based on research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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