Author: Ashley Woods

Interstate Passport Network Member Laramie County Community College in Wyoming works to raise awareness with its student by introducing Interstate Passport in its newest viewbook and by placing baseball card size informational materials on tables in student advising offices.

Interstate Passport® is excited to announce its upcoming webinar The Transfer Landscape in the U.S., starting at 1:00 PM Mountain on February 25, 2019.  This webinar will be presented by Doug Shapiro, executive research director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC). NSCRC publishes reports highlighting national student transfer patterns and how student mobility is related to persistence, stop-out, completion and time to degree. Shaprio’s webinar will review the latest results and what they reveal about transfer students today. In particular, what are the trends? Why is student mobility important? How many transfer students cross state lines? And how can you derive insights from this research to help students in your institution to be more successful?

Shapiro has conducted research in higher education for nearly twenty years. Prior to joining the NSCRC he held positions as director of institutional research at The New School (NY), and vice president for research and policy development at the Minnesota Private College Council. He holds an M.A. in mathematics, and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.

By Thomas B. Steen, PhD, Passport State Facilitator

Recently in Orlando, three of us “Passporters” participated in the United States’ largest gathering of student veterans. The Student Veterans of America’s (SVA) national conference is held annually to provide support and advice for students currently serving in one of the U.S. branches of service and for students who have completed their service. The basic aim of the SVA is to help military and veteran (M/V) students find quality educational opportunities and help them solve the particular problems that this group typically faces at our colleges and universities. Our team—Russ Chavez, Tony Flores, and I—had a wonderful chance at the conference to meet a large number of both veteran and military college students, as well as college and university administrators who work with M/V students.

We were there because many of you have expressed interest in reaching out to M/V students and, hopefully, attracting them to your institutions. As you probably know, the number of veterans is significant (about 4.1 million post-9/11 veterans now), and they come to higher education with substantial support-in-hand in the form of GI Bill benefits. Since most states are experiencing or anticipating a decrease in their traditional college-potential enrollees, reaching out to M/V students makes a lot of sense for institutions.

Interstate Passport Network (Network) institutions have a great deal of potential to connect with and serve M/V students. By taking advantage of the built-in collaboration that the Network provides, member schools and systems can develop procedures to attract and support past and current service members who want to enroll and earn degrees. A student who is currently in-service can earn a Passport and move on to the next post without needing to repeat general education requirements at the next college. Service members seeking promotion can use a Passport as a catalyst en route to the bachelor’s degree, either at the same institution or a different one in the Interstate Passport Network. Veterans, and their dependents, can take advantage of the benefits of the GI Bill to earn a Passport. Younger veterans, who went into service right after high school, can get a boost toward earning associate’s degrees at Network member institutions by completing the general education work in the Passport Block and also using their Passports to transfer to bachelor’s degree studies. Other veterans who have completed some college work, either before or during service, may be able to “get a leg up” by earning a Passport, thus decreasing time to degree.

As readers know, Interstate Passport was designed to help college students achieve success by simplifying procedures and reducing added general education requirements and unnecessary repetition of courses. The special focus of Interstate Passport is making transfer smoother and more successful for students. This is especially important for M/V students who transfer frequently due to deployments, assignment changes, and promotions. In that sense, Interstate Passport has much to offer the military-connected student, and it has much to offer to institutions that see themselves as military-friendly.

Some institutions may worry that M/V students may take more effort or lack the skills and knowledge to take on college work. However, the opposite is true. Veteran students achieve average higher GPAs than traditional students (veterans average GPA 3.35 vs. 2.94 for traditional students). Most veteran students have had a broader range of life experiences, are more likely to have experience in positions of responsibility and have worked in more diverse settings and with greater diversity of people than the college students who go directly from high school into college and have not done military service. With this level of potential for academic success and this wide experience, M/V students are surely worth the effort to reach out to and recruit to enroll in Interstate Passport Network institutions.

All of us in higher education today are looking for ways to strengthen and expand our student bodies. Reaching out to M/V students can be an excellent way to add both diversity and quality to the campus. M/V students come ready to study and ready to pay, and they clearly have the potential to be successful students. Interstate Passport Network institutions are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of M/V students. Network members make it easy to work with these students—Interstate Passport is in place, makes transfer smooth, and provides a success-oriented means to complete degrees on time…..something that all students need in today’s world.

Russ Chavez and Tony Flores direct veterans’ affairs offices at their institutions: Chavez at South Dakota State University and Flores at Utah State University. Steen is a consultant to  Interstate Passport staff. All are members of the Interstate Passport Network’s Military and Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee.

Miya Walker is the director of college relations, public affairs and governmental relations at Cerritos College in California and oversees the district’s external relations with local communities and governmental agencies in addition to the campus media, advertising, marketing and web administration. Walker also is the Interstate Passport campus marketing representative for Cerritos and facilitates the marketing and communication efforts of Interstate Passport at the campus. The role of the campus marketing representative is to help raise awareness about Interstate Passport and the benefits of earning a Passport to students, faculty and staff. Walker currently serves on the Interstate Passport Campus Marketing Advisory Committee and recently developed an Interstate Passport marketing campaign that targets students “where they are” and how they consume information. The campaign includes a video, social media posts, on campus collateral, and poster dioramas at public transit stops along the Los Angeles Metro Green Line frequented by Cerritos College students.

“With the majority of our students being first generation, it is important for us to utilize the right mix of marketing assets to spread the message,” says Walker. “We’ve tried to keep our marketing efforts relatively digestible and targeted so that our students don’t have to sift through the message to understand it. We’ve targeted spaces where our students gather like the use of public transit areas and social media to make students who are normally unfamiliar with higher education and the traditional college experience aware of the Interstate Passport program right where they are.”

Tom Krabacher is the chair and a faculty member of the Department of Geography at the California State University (CSU), Sacramento. For over 25 years he has instructed students in a variety of geography courses on topics covering climate, population, and demographics. For the past decade, Krabacher has also served on the statewide Academic Senate of the CSU, with responsibility for monitoring higher education legislation at the state level.

Krabacher initially became involved with Interstate Passport during the development phase of the Passport Learning Outcomes as the chair of the Natural Sciences Interstate Faculty Team. He is also the chair of the Interstate Faculty Team Chairs Committee which is convened annually to discuss the nine knowledge and skill areas and provide recommendations to the Passport Review Board. As Passport State Facilitator for the state of California, Krabacher works to raise awareness about the Interstate Passport through the state and has facilitated institutions becoming members of the Network.

As chair of Natural Sciences team, it was apparent “from the very beginning, the framework for Interstate Passport would be based on faculty-developed learning outcomes and proficiency criteria. This approach ensured that student competency in the subject matter would be a priority.  As a Passport State Facilitator, I find it very rewarding that I can speak directly to the importance of faculty involvement with Interstate Passport and the benefit for students when communicating with potential member institutions about joining the Interstate Passport Network.”

By Michael Torrens, director of institutional research and accreditation, Utah State University

My office has been spending time recently using the Interstate Passport’s newly expanded interactive website displaying student transfer data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The data, mapping, and visualizations have provided us with new insight into national patterns of undergraduate student transfer behavior and given us new appreciation for the value provided to students through state-wide participation in Interstate Passport. This work has uncovered some surprising details in the patterns both inside and outside of Utah, which are shared below.

First, a little detail: the Interstate Passport Network is the only nationwide network of accredited, nonprofit, public and private two- and four-year institutions dedicated to the block transfer of lower-division general education attainment based on multi-state faculty-developed learning outcomes and proficiency criteria. In Utah, the state higher education system has done a lot of work on general education articulation. Utah institutions have common course numbering and sequencing for general education courses, state-level essential learning outcomes for each area of general education, and excellent inter-institutional coordination. Given this, one might question why the Interstate Passport – which provides for block transfer of lower division general education – would be so valuable for our schools?

The reality is that our in-state general education planning and coordination can quickly break down with students who are transferring into Utah from other states, or for our own Utah students who seek to transfer to institutions in other states. In many cases, these students may be faced with having to repeat general education coursework for learning outcomes that they have already achieved in another state. There’s a wealth of research showing that a major cause of higher education student attrition is being forced to repeat (and pay for) prior course-work, and data shows that transfers between states (in and out) are increasing.

What patterns are visible on this website, and what might they mean for other states and institutions considering joining the Interstate Passport Network? Some of the details are quite well-known. The top five states (in terms of transfers into and out of the state) are: California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and Pennsylvania. But the details are interesting. Interstate transfers are only 17% of the volume of transfers that occur within the State of California, for example. But they represent almost half of that volume for Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Florida. It’s also interesting to go further down that list. The next five largest interstate transfer states (in and out) are: Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Minnesota. In Maryland, for students who started in the 2010 Cohort, 8,132 students either transferred out of the state or transferred from other states to institutions in Maryland. This was almost 96% of the volume of transfers within the state. For Minnesota, interstate transfer was 72% (6,483 students) of intra-state volume. For Virginia it was 56% (6,592 students) when compared to transfers within the state.

The statistics are even more stark when one reviews states with lower transfer volumes. There are ten states where interstate transfers in 2010 represented more than 100% of the volume of transfers within that state: Arizona (106%), Hawaii (101%), Idaho (110%), Montana (145%), New Hampshire (151%), New Mexico (107%), North Dakota (334%), South Dakota (165%), Vermont (223%), and West Virginia (181%).

Even though Utah doesn’t make the top-ten lists, we still have hundreds of our students that transfer out of the state (861 from the 2010 Cohort) and in (489 from the 2010 Cohort). It’s been quite valuable to explore the website, and uncover which states are the largest feeders and destinations for our students. While the expected patterns are present (transfers to and from surrounding states, and California), it turns out that Texas is a particularly important source and destination for Utah’s transfer students, and Florida and Virginia are also feeders and destinations for interstate transfer students.

I encourage you to explore the details for your state to better understand the potential value of block-transfer of general education and participating in the Interstate Passport Network for your students. There are thousands of students who could potentially benefit from block transfer of general education, not to mention the value that achieving general education as a milestone can have upon student motivation and persistence.