The University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu’s institutional research office has created a useful and handy dashboard on Interstate Passport earners at the institution. The number of Passports awarded each semester is reported, and each cohort includes data on educational level, division, student geographic origin, ethnicity, first generation, and gender. The dashboard also reports average-time-to-degree in years by degree for first-time freshmen and transfer students.
Alan Rosenfeld, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, notes that the Passport recipients look very much like typical UHWO students in terms of ethnicity, gender, time to degree, Pell status, and first-generation status. Moving forward the institution will examine possible correlations between Passport awards and key metrics such as retention and persistence.
We encourage other Interstate Passport members to consider creating such a tool that provides useful information to institutional researchers and students, as well as other Network members. Contact John Stanley, Director of Institutional Research at UHWO, for more information: jstanley@hawaii.edu.
The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and New Mexico State University (NMSU), in collaboration with its branch community colleges, have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant that will be the first step toward development of a STEM Passport. Specifically, WICHE and NMSU will use the $300,000 grant over a one-year period to test the feasibility of using sets of lower-division student learning outcomes (SLOs) as the basis of block transfer into engineering programs. Instead of accepting only specific courses when a student transfers, as most institutions currently do, students would be able to transfer lower-division courses mapped to the SLOs as a block into engineering programs.
When the natural science Passport Learning Outcomes were developed several years ago, a number of faculty members expressed the need for a Passport in STEM subject areas. This project will be the first to examine utilizing learning outcomes in a STEM field as a basis for block transfer to a baccalaureate degree path.
Research indicates that nearly half of STEM bachelor’s degree recipients attend a community college at some point in their college career and are often required to repeat courses when they transfer. These challenges are amplified forstudents of color and students from low-income backgrounds who may have difficulty navigating transfer in the face of complex university admission requirements.
WICHE and NMSU’s capacity-building project will lay the foundation for work that will lead to four broader impacts: 1) Improved transfer efficiency in engineering disciplines; 2) improved curriculums that result in improved student retention; 3) improved participation and persistence among students of color and students from low-income backgroundsin STEM; and 4) increased numbers of engineering graduates to contribute to the economy. Though the reform of transfer practices is challenging, WICHE and NMSU will encourage this work by leveraging mounting pressure for engineering programs to change in response to numerous external forces. Foremost among these forces are the lack of a sufficient number of engineering graduates to fill an expanding job market and the need for STEM degree programs to embrace greater numbers of historically underrepresented students.
To accomplish this work, NMSU will identify the student learning outcomes that are critical for students to complete a four-year electrical engineering degree and map those SLOs to visually depict their prerequisite course relationships and preferable course sequencing. The resulting SLO map will inform identification of a lower-division SLO block to simplify curricula, potentially improving degree progress and persistence for all students, not just transfer students. WICHE will conduct a literature review to further identify factors that inhibit transfers within STEM and engineering disciplines, and also recruit leaders of national organizations and two-year and four-year institutions representing at least four states to analyze and refine NMSU’s proof of concept and assess the feasibility of scaling NMSU’s work to additional institutions.
The project will be led by several principal investigators: Sarah Leibrandt, director of Academic Leadership Initiatives at WICHE, David Smith, associate provost for Curriculum and Assessment at NMSU, and Laura Boucheron, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NMSU. According to Dr. Boucheron, this work will enhance student success by reducing time to degree, mitigating the effects of “bottleneck” courses and increasing student awareness of the interconnected nature of engineering topics.
Work on the NSF project began this spring. See press announcement here.
David Coleman, Chief Executive Officer of The College Board, has recently joined over 200 higher education leaders of institutions, national organizations, associations, and accrediting agencies in signing WICHE’s Call to Action to help fix transfer for students nationwide. Interstate Passport issued this call last July in the midst of the COVID pandemic, as higher education institutions were suffering stark economic and enrollment declines. We continue to receive endorsements and new signatories to the initiative as the ramifications of the pandemic to transfer students continue to become apparent. The advisory group that oversees this effort – Colleagues for Interstate Passport’s Future – is co-chaired by Samuel Gingerich, former provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and Francisco Rodriguez, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District. The group meets quarterly to develop and implement strategies for expanding and solidifying Passport membership and to address the most pressing transfer issues facing colleges and universities. See the list of members of the advisory group and supporters of the Call to Action: http://interstatepassport.wiche.edu/changetransfer/.
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, April 21, 2021
This latest report from the National Student Clearinghouse is the third in a series that examines transfer patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year. Data show that, two months into the spring term, transfer enrollment is down 7.9 percent, a decline 3.8 times larger than last spring, which declined 2.1 percent. Declines are especially among community colleges with drop of 15.2 percent.
Highlights:
Students are less mobile along all transfer pathways, except for upward transfer where students grew three percent this spring over pre-pandemic levels. Both reverse and lateral transfer suffered steep enrollment declines of 21 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively.
Transfer enrollment decline is more evident among White and Black students than their Hispanic and Asian peers. Hispanic transfer enrollment currently shows the strongest growth in the public four-year sector.
With gender disparities growing across all age groups, transfer declines are larger for men, especially in upward transfer.
Transfer declined for continuing students at twice the rate of returning students this spring (-10.2 percent and -4.9 percent, respectively, from a year ago). Continuing students transferring to community colleges decreased 20.8 percent, ten times the pre-pandemic rate of decline.
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center launched this series on transfer immediately after colleges and universities shuttered campuses due to the pandemic last year. The data paint a clear picture of how different types of students and institutions have fared in the wake of school closures and job losses, and the resultant economic downturn.
This webinar presentation, part of the 2021-20 Alliance and Forum annual meeting virtual series, took place April 9, 2021. The session was moderated by Eric Leshinskie, Interim Provost at Maricopa Community Colleges and featured Aisha Lowe, Vice Chancellor of Educational Services, California Community Colleges; Michelle Marks, Chancellor, University of Colorado Denver; and Doug Shapiro, Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The panelists focused on strategies that all institutions can implement to improve the transfer process between community colleges and four-year institutions.
Equity Gaps Persist. Doug Shapiro presented the data compiled by NSC over the past year on enrollment and transfer rates, which are reported in NSC’s latest report, COVID-19: Transfer, Mobility and Progress, First Look Spring 2021.The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic defied expectations, with a slight decrease in enrollment among four-year institutions but a huge drop at community colleges. Shapiro noted that one of the most troubling effects of the pandemic is that it exposed and exacerbated the equity gaps that have always existed throughout our higher education system. The data reflect a view of transfer as students in distress. More disadvantaged students fell further behind. The existing gaps in equity and diversity in access to a bachelor’s degree, particularly for community college students, has grown wider during the pandemic.
Redesign higher education with transfer in mind. Michelle Marks of University of Colorado Denver (UCD) echoed this development: the impact of the pandemic on historically disadvantaged students is very real. Students have dropped out or stopped out primarily due to health or financial concerns – even before the pandemic college was becoming unaffordable for many students. Half of the students at UCD are transfers, aiming for that pathway to a bachelor’s degree. But the programs and efforts to streamline transfer have not been enough. As a member of the ACE task force on transfer, Marks shared the task force’s recommendations for improving transfer: prioritize credit for higher learning; improve transcript evaluation policies; utilize technology for efficiency and consistency; communicate clearly what credits will transfer and toward which degree pathway; assure quality advising; and partner with both sending and receiving institutions. Most importantly, embed transfer into the culture of higher education. Approach transfer from the perspective of the student. Create a system that values the range of experiences that students bring, from multiple institutions. Higher education institutions demonstrated adaptability when the pandemic struck. Marks urged institutions to use that innovation and strength in ways that will support all student educational journeys.
Innovation at the System Level. Aisha Lowe of the California Community Colleges (CCC) described the efforts underway to improve transfer in the vast CCC system of 2.1 million students attending 116 colleges. Rather than an initiative, guided pathways is the framework for aligning resources and programs to put students first. In place for four years, the framework operates under a set of vision goals and commitments. The system is preparing to shift to a student-centered funding formula, which will be dependent on the outcomes that an institution is achieving. In addition, the system has a number of transfer partners – state, regional and online – with transfer pathways articulated for each partner. Lowe reported that significant progress has been made in the number of students that earn AA degrees and transfer. But she noted that students still had to manage a complex system. More work is needed to streamline the hand-off to the system’s four-year partners.
Lowe also noted that students are not consulted enough on their experiences, goals and problems. Shapiro and Marks both agreed whole-heartedly. Their advice: listen to students. Reach out to them proactively with questions as well as information, advice and guidance. Lowe added that an ideological mind-shift is needed, particularly for state systems, one in which all institutions see all students as our students. The lines of demarcation between different institutions can be erased so that innovative policies can be implemented for all students.
Beverly Meinzer serves as the Institutional Liaison for the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville, and as the Passport State Facilitator for the state of Arkansas. She teaches Chemistry I and II and is the only full-time instructor in Physical Sciences. Beverly also helps with student orientation and serves on various campus committees. She has been at the college for 18 years.
UACCB was the first institution outside of the Rocky Mountain region to join the Interstate Passport Network, and Beverly has been involved every step of the way. She worked with faculty to map the Passport Learning Outcomes to the college’s learning outcomes and to identify proficiency criteria that faculty members use in their lessons.
Batesville is the oldest existing city in the state of Arkansas with a population today of 10,000 people. The school enrolls approximately 1,000 students and since January 2021, classes have been held on campus following social distancing guidelines. The college has been fortunate in not having too many students drop out since the pandemic started last year.
Like many Passport institutions, UACCB wants to improve its communication with students about the Interstate Passport and what it means for students who achieve it. Beverly related that a student who received a letter indicating she had earned the Passport was surprised – she didn’t know anything about the Passport. But she was very pleased to know she had earned it and more confident as a result. Especially in a rural community likes Batesville, students want their college courses and credentials to prepare them for good jobs. Beverly has heard from the four-year institutions that UACCB students are, in fact, very prepared. Beverly will continue to work with the advising center to promote the Passport and stress that the knowledge and skills provided through the coursework are extremely valuable to students who transfer to a four-year institution or seek employment.
Bio: Beverly Meinzer earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry at Arkansas (Lyon) College, and a Master of Science in Chemistry at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She is a chemistry faculty member at the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville, Arkansas (UACCB). At UACCB, Beverly is also active on campus committees, having served on the Curriculum and Faculty Affairs Committees. Previously, she did adjunct work at Jackson State Community College in Jackson, TN and worked for the State of Tennessee Department of Health Laboratory.
Registrars have the unique opportunity to engage with students throughout the college student life cycle: Meet Kathy Callies, registrar at Dakota State University
Kathy Callies serves as the registrar at Dakota State University (DSU) in Madison, South Dakota. DSU is the state’s designated information technology institution with an enrollment of roughly 2,000 students. The university offers a number of program options through which students can earn undergraduate certificates, associate degrees, bachelor’s, master’s or doctorates, either on campus or online. Kathy has been the registrar since 2014 and has held several positions at DSU since the late 1970s. She also has done considerable work in rural development and economic development.
South Dakota is one of seven states that was involved in developing the Interstate Passport starting in 2011. DSU has been a member of the Interstate Passport Network since 2016, and since then, Callies has been a member of Interstate Passport’s Registrar and Institutional Researcher Advisory Committee. In that capacity she works with her counterparts in other member states to develop the processes for data collection and reporting to the National Student Clearinghouse. The Advisory Committee continues to monitor and address issues and concerns for Network member registrars and institutional researchers.
In fall 2019 the SD Board of Regents migrated from Colleague to Ellucian’s Banner student information system. Migrations cause lots of detours and Passport was one of those for the DSU system. Kathy and her team have been working with National Student Clearinghouse to implement some of the advantages of academic progress reporting and are hoping to continue to move forward into the next levels next academic year.
Callies believes that Interstate Passport’s concept of learning outcomes rather than course-by-course articulation is profoundly powerful. The learning outcomes are developed and held by faculty to implement what has already been reviewed. Earning a Passport is one objective for students to accomplish and then build from. Callies urges registrars to not overlook incoming freshmen who come in with lots of credits from dual credit coursework, AP exams, etc. Earning a Passport is something very much within reach for these students and is a benefit for longer-term goals.
A final word from Kathy: “Registrars have the unique opportunity to engage with students even before they finalize their decision to enroll in our institutions – via shopper student evaluations, etc. – while we also have the privilege to continue to engage with students throughout their enrollment and hopefully to graduation from our institution and even beyond! I often share that I have an addiction to students. With today’s technology assets, those of us who love our rural settings find that we can reach far beyond what was possible just a few years ago. Students are not so confined by location as they may have once been and earning a Passport is another tool to help urge them forward to realize their potential.”
The Campaign for College Opportunity recently released a new research report on the social and economic reality faced by Black Californians. As noted by in the forward by Dr. J. Luke Wood,
“[Postsecondary] Institutions must foster concrete change that better enable our colleges and universities to provide a dignified experience to our Black students. While this has always been important, its criticality has been exposed by today’s dual pandemics—the pandemic of COVID-19 that has disproportionately impacted Black communities and the pandemic of anti-Blackness that has a unique strain of undervaluing and criminalizing Black lives and minds.”
This report examines measures related to college access for California’s Black high school students and the rates at which Black students, once enrolled in college, are supported in meeting their educational goals. Included are recommendations for California’s policymakers and education leaders to ensure that equity is at the heart of their work and to create a system of higher education in which Black students matter.
Report highlights*:
By the time California’s students arrive at the threshold of college, their inequitable experiences translate into significant disparities in the rates of college readiness and attendance by race/ethnicity.
As the largest higher education system in the state, the California Community Colleges serve the majority of undergraduate students across all racial and ethnic groups. In the 2018–2019 academic year, of the Black students enrolling in postsecondary education, 64 percent of Black undergraduates attended a community college; 6% enrolled in a University of California institution; 14% enrolled at a California State University institution.
In 2017, California legislators replaced no-credit remedial classes with college-level instruction at community colleges. This report suggests that that policy change has increased the number of Black community college students taking classes eligible for transfer to the University of California: “specifically, 48% of Black community college students “in 2019 completed transfer-level English, compared with 15% four years earlier.” At the same time, 27% of Black students “completed transfer-level math, up from 7% in 2015.”
Graduation rates for Black transfer students at California State University and University of California institutions have increased, but they are still lower than that of their white peers.
36 percent of Black transfer students graduate from CSUs in two years and 71 percent in four years
50 percent of Black transfer students graduate from the UCs in two years and over 80 percent in four years.
Select Report Recommendations for the state of California:
Commit to the state’s goal of ensuring that 60 percent of Black Californians in the workforce hold a degree or high-value credential by 2030;
Strengthen transfer and ensure equitable access to the Associate Degree for Transfer for Black community college students;
Develop a state-wide longitudinal data system so that policymakers and institution leaders and staff and ensure Black students are succeeding.
*Source: Reddy, Vikash and Michele Siqueiros. The State of Higher Education for Black Californians. Los Angeles, CA: The Campaign for College Opportunity, February 2021.
The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has recently released the 10th edition of Knocking at the College Door: Projections of U.S. High School Graduate Numbers Through 2037. Interstate Passport’s Sarah Leibrandt, program manager, interviewed two of the report’s authors, Colleen Falkenstern and Peace Bransberger, to learn more about the findings in the recent publication of Knockingat the College Door and what the implications of the projections mean for college enrollment and the importance of recruiting and supporting transfer students.
Sarah Leibrandt: Thank you very much for joining me today. I’d like to start by asking you, what is ‘Knocking at the College Door’?
Colleen Falkenstern:Knocking at the College Door:Projections of High School Graduates has been published every four years for nearly 40 years by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).This report provides detailed projections on high school graduate populations for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and selected U.S. territories and outlying areas, and includes details about the race/ethnicity of public-school graduates, and the number of private school graduates. Data was collected and analyzed from each individual state. The most recent edition includes actual high school graduate counts through the class of 2019 and then projections through the class of 2037.
These projections are used widely across a wide range of education stakeholders from policymakers to enrollment managers at the institutional level for short- and long-term planning in terms of capacity building and understanding who their future high school graduates are on college campuses.
Sarah Leibrandt: What trends can be found in the December 2020 edition of ‘Knocking at the College Door’?
Peace Bransberger: From the national perspective, the class of 2019 includes 3.8 million high school graduates. If recent patterns persist, the number of high school graduates could peak at 4 million by 2025. After 2025, the predictions suggest a decrease in the number of high school graduates (because of the decrease of one percent of babies born every year since the great recession). So, by the class of 2037, there could be 3.5 million high school graduates (or 11 percent fewer).
Colleen Falkenstern: There are variations across and within the regions in the U.S. For example, the Midwest and Northeast will both see declines in high school graduates. These regions are less diverse as it is; while they will see increases in high school graduates from nonwhite backgrounds, that will not be enough to offset the decline in white high school graduates. The trends look strikingly different here than in the south or west.
Peace Bransberger: The South is a growth region, and with several large states, is driving the national trend. The trend in the West, which contributes 24 percent of nation’s high school graduates, roughly mirrors the national trend but it varies by state. For example, two-thirds of the western states are expected to have 5-12 percent more graduates by peak and then rapidly lose graduates by as much as 22 percent fewer in New Mexico and 3 percent fewer in Colorado. Yet, other states in the West are on a trend to have more high school graduates than the national peak in 2025.
Knocking at the College Door allows us to look at the changing demographics in high school graduates through 2037. For example, there is a significant, new pattern emerging in the West in terms of demographics: there is an increasing number of Black public high school graduates (Washington, Arizona, and Nevada will see an increase of 42 percent or more). The Western states could also see a 24 percent increase in the number of Hispanic high school graduates in the next five years than they do now.
Sarah Leibrandt:What implications might these projections and changing demographics have for college enrollment?
Colleen Falkenstern: All colleges should consider the changing demographics of high school graduates. There are differences in the overall number of projected high school graduates across the country and there will be some institutions that will see significant drops in the number of students they have historically recruited for enrollment.
Peace Bransberger: Right, it is important for institutions to rethink where their “traditional” high school students are going to be available. While some states will not experience a decline in high school graduates, there will be a decreasing number of traditional-aged college students after 2025. But this does not mean students won’t be available. It is just that they might not be the ones your institution looked at before or served before, but there are large pockets of growth in each high school graduating class.
Sarah: Given this information, how might institutions (re)consider a focus on recruiting transfer students to increase enrollment?
Colleen Falkenstern: There is a lot of data in Knocking at the College Door. And it is easy to talk about the changing numbers and trendlines in the report from a clinical perspective. One of the values of Knocking is that it can help institutions think about what student services are needed now and in five years and in ten years, to ensure that the changing demographic of college students are well served. Behind all of these projections and trend lines are students with educational goals, and if transfer is part of their pathway to their career, it is important that institutions’ services are equipped to serve this changing population of high school graduates. It’s important that institutions are meeting the needs of their students.
Peace Bransberger: As regards to transfer, some populations of students, particularly students of color, are more likely to enroll in a two-year institution first. As I mentioned earlier, some regions will see an increase among high school graduates of color and a decrease among white students. Based on historic patterns of where students have enrolled, it is likely community colleges will see an increase in enrollment, particularly among students of color.
Transfer shouldn’t be seen as a way to increase enrollment numbers but rather as way to serve students. It’s important for institutions to make sure they are serving students who might arrive on campus via transfer. Interstate Passport is a great pathway for students looking to transfer between institutions because it makes it easy for students to transfer with their general education requirements out of the way.
Sarah Leibrandt: Thank both so much for your time! For those interested in learning more, the website for Knocking at the College Doorincludes data dashboards, state and region profiles, and reports.
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