WASHINGTON – Community colleges and four-year universities can work together to improve the transfer experience for students, a data report from the U.S. Department of Education suggests.
The U.S. Department of Education released data on the institutions where transfer students have the highest graduation rates in each state, with New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia achieving the best results. At the other end were South Dakota, Delaware, Indiana, New Mexico, and Louisiana.
The report was announced in conjunction with a November summit that brought together hundreds of higher education leaders at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia.
Department of Education data highlighted a persistent problem of poor graduation outcomes among college transfer students.
While attending community colleges has become increasingly common for students in recent decades, schools have not adapted their practices to match that demand, said Josh Weiner, founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.
“When community colleges educated only a small percentage of Americans in the 1950s and earlier, there weren’t many students who started at a community college and then transferred to a four-year school,” Weiner said.
About 40% of all college students today attend community colleges, and most plan to earn a bachelor’s degree, Weiner said.
In a press release announcing the Northern Virginia summit and data report, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said increased support for student transportation is needed.
“Our current higher education system puts its foot down against community college students aspiring to four-year degrees — refusing to accept their credits, forcing them to repeat courses, and ultimately making their educational journeys longer and more expensive than they need to be.” . Cardona said in the press release.
Pairing to two- and four-year institutions
The Department of Education data also focuses on “pairs,” or community colleges and four-year institutions, which have the highest graduation rates for transfer students.
The report specifically highlights the “top performing” partnership between Northern Virginia Community College, known as NOVA, and George Mason University’s ADVANCE program. George Mason is a four-year public institution in Fairfax, Virginia.
The ADVANCE program, launched in 2018, aims to improve the transfer experience and graduation rates for students, said Jennifer Nelson, NOVA’s director of university transportation and initiatives.
Of the students who transferred from Nova to George Mason, 13% graduated with a bachelor’s degree within eight years, according to the Department of Education.
There are currently about 4,500 students in the ADVANCE program, said Jason Dodge, executive director of the ADVANCE program at George Mason University and NOVA.
When ADVANCE was first developed in 2017, four main goals were identified to help transition students, Nelson said. These goals “tend to be the hallmarks” of why students participate in the program, Nelson said.
First, the program seeks to increase the academic attainment of associate and bachelor’s degrees for transfer students, as “completion leads to completion,” Nelson said. Nelson said the program aims to reduce the amount of time spent earning a degree, as well as the cost of doing so.
Nelson said the program’s fourth goal is to increase support for transfer students, including academic advising.
ADVANCE’s collaboration between schools is what makes it special, Nelson and Dodge said.
“This is a 50/50 program,” Nelson said. “Every decision made regarding this program is a joint decision.”
Student transportation support
The ADVANCE program offers a “simplified admissions process” for community college students seeking to transfer from NOVA to George Mason, Nelson said.
Students join the program early in their time at Nova, before they have completed more than 30 credit hours, Nelson said. Transfer students can spend “as little as five minutes” completing ADVANCE’s free declaration form, Nelson said.
The final part of a student’s onboarding process is choosing a course of study or major, Nelson said. This pathway serves as a “guide” for transfer students as they work toward their associate degree and transition to George Mason University, Nelson said.
There is also no transfer application or application fee for students in the ADVANCE program, making the transition process “seamless” for students, Dodge said.
ADVANCE offers financial aid specifically to these transfer students, Dodge said, and has so far awarded more than $2 million in scholarships and grants to students participating in NOVA and GMU.
In addition to having an academic advisor and access to resources at both institutions, students in the ADVANCE program have a coach. This coach “serves as the primary point of contact for the student regarding the program,” Nelson said.
The coach helps make sure the student sticks to their course and takes the appropriate classes, Nelson said, and also helps connect students to resources at both institutions.
These certified coaches recognize “that what happens outside the classroom has a direct impact on a student’s ability to excel inside the classroom,” Nelson said.
Student data transfer patterns
Weiner said he sees “similar patterns” between his research with the Community College Research Center on National Student Clearinghouse data and Department of Education data.
Weiner said the data collected from the National Student Clearinghouse represents 90% of college students, which is more comprehensive than the Department of Education data report. He said the Department of Education data only represents students receiving financial aid.
Weiner was a presenter at NOVA’s November Department of Education Summit.
The first pattern is that both data sets show lower graduation rates for community college students who transfer to four-year universities, Weiner said.
The second pattern is “incredibly variable bachelor’s attainment rates between pairs of institutions,” Weiner said, and these differences exist even within state borders.
“This huge variation, even within countries, says what matters is institutional practice,” Weiner said.
Although state policies can make a difference, what’s troubling is that “some institutions perform radically better than others” within the same state, Weiner said. This is “concerning,” he said, because a student’s chance of graduating appears to be tied to the pair they attend.
If a transfer student attends two undergraduate schools with lower graduation rates, that student has “a very slim chance of earning a bachelor’s degree,” he said.
“It shouldn’t be a matter of luck in terms of where you go to community college, in terms of whether or not you end up getting a bachelor’s degree,” Weiner said.
Guaranteed success
After the Pell Grant program was created in the 1970s, community college enrollment “increased dramatically” after primarily serving as “access institutions,” Weiner said.
Despite this increase in community college enrollment rates, “colleges have not fundamentally changed their practices,” Weiner said.
Community colleges have since focused on helping students complete college, but “have not done as much work as they need to do to ensure that students succeed after graduation, and that they actually go on to earn the bachelor’s degree they came for.” “First place,” Weiner said.
Four-year universities have focused primarily on enrolling first-year students, even though “the number of community college students who are freshmen and sophomores in our country is as large as the number who start at four-year schools,” Weiner said.
“Our systems have not caught up with the reality of where students are entering college,” Weiner said.
Four-year universities also prioritize first-year students over transfer students when it comes to financial aid, Weiner said.
Steps to transfer student success
With the Center for Community College Research, Weiner studies colleges with high and improving success rates for transfer students.
He said that these schools demonstrated three characteristics that made this success possible. Colleges prioritize transfer students, creating specific programs of study that “span from community college to four-year school with clear course sequences and strong educational outcomes,” as well as offering counseling tailored to transfer students, Weiner said.
The first step to improving student transfer success is for leaders at community colleges and universities to come together and analyze transfer student population data, Weiner said.
Schools can prioritize transfer students by bringing together faculty from individual fields of study from two- and four-year colleges for joint discussions, Weiner said. This can help ensure these programs of study are “fully compatible” for a smooth transition from community college to four-year college, he said.
“They have to sit down and say, ‘Okay, we’re going to figure out exactly which courses students should take, and we’re going to work hard together to make sure that we’re aligned on our expectations for students and that we’re providing what students need,’” Weiner said.
Community colleges serve as an important gateway for many students to access higher education. However, for many community college students, transferring to a four-year institution to earn a bachelor’s degree can be a challenging and daunting task. In recent years, researchers have been focused on finding ways to support and enable more community college students to successfully complete a four-year degree. These efforts have the potential to not only benefit individual students, but also to further diversify and strengthen the overall talent pool of the workforce. This research is critical in addressing the barriers and obstacles that many community college students face in pursuing their education and career goals.