Interstate Passport staff and representatives presented a live briefing on the initiative to the NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education on February 18. Interstate Passport: Streamlining Transfer for Increased Student Success, featured Anna Galas, director of academic leadership initiatives at WICHE; Michael Torrens, director of analysis, assessment and accreditation at Utah State University; and Sherry Simkins, division chair, Communications and Fine Arts at North Idaho College.
Galas shared information on the background and structure of the Passport and how it prevents credit loss for all students and institutions, as well as the current focus on transfer – and solutions like the Passport – due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Torrens discussed the data analysis conducted each year that tracks the progress of Passport earners to demonstrate their success. And, as North Idaho College recently became a member of the Interstate Passport Network, Simkins shared information on that process and the requirements for joining the Network.
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.
Interstate Passport is pleased to announce that ECMC Foundation has awarded the program a grant of $500,000 to support efforts to scale participation in the Interstate Passport Network. Over the two-year course of this project, staff will recruit and enroll 20 new member institutions, including at least 10 Minority-Serving Institutions, so that more students, particularly students of color and low-income students, will benefit as we continue to build the interstate transfer highway across the nation.
The grant will provide two-year membership subsidies for the 20 new member institutions and allow staff to expand capacity to support new member institutions through the implementation process and ongoing administration. Planning and recruitment activities for this grant began in November 2020. As of January 1, 2021, four institutions have signed letters of intent to join the Interstate Passport Network with support from this grant: Greenville Technical College in Greenville, South Carolina; Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida; Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Texas A & M University-Central Texas in Killeen, Texas.
If you are interested in joining us or would like to see particular MSIs or other institutions join the Network to support student transfer in and out of your institution, please contact Interstate Passport program manager, Sarah Leibrandt.
Based in Los Angeles, ECMC Foundation seeks to inspire and facilitate improvements that affect educational outcomes – especially among underserved populations – through evidence-based innovation.
The Student Transfer Destinations by State database, located on the Interstate Passport website, contains transfer data provided by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center on all 50 states. Data for the 2014 cohort was added to the database this fall, bringing the total number of cohorts to five.
The database contains information on the number of students at public institutions who transferred in the United States and its territories both in state and out of state for the 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 cohorts. Each cohort of students is made up of first-time students of any age who began their postsecondary studies in one of these years. Cohorts include both full-time and part-time students and exclude students who received any degree or certificate from a two- or four-year institution prior to 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014, respectively. By design, the data are intended to provide a snapshot of student transfer patterns in the U.S. and its outlying territories. While many students may transfer more than once, this database only tracks the first transfer.
Users are able to query which states their students transferred to, as well as which states incoming students transferred from, and if the sending and receiving institutions are two-year or four-year institutions. Data on in-state transfers are provided as well.
The database is a useful tool to determine patterns of transfer between states that may foster recruitment and cooperative efforts among institutions. NSC reports that 45 percent of transfer students will transfer more than once so the database offers important information to states and institutions on transfer students’ sending institutions or destinations.
Check out the movement of transfer students in your own state here.
A new book on student transfer published by The Gardner Institute and Stylus Publishing will be released on February 15, 2021. The Transfer Experience: A Handbook for Creating a More Equitable and Successful Postsecondary System goes beyond the limited view of transfer as simply articulating credits. It offers a variety of new perspectives, resources, models, and recommendations, “making the academic, civic, and social justice cases for improving transfer at both transfer-sending and transfer-receiving institutions.” Organized into four parts with 17 chapters penned by researchers, faculty, academic leaders and other experts on transfer from across the country, the handbook covers topics such as “Transfer in Context,” “Pathways, Transitions and Support,” “Teaching and Learning,” and “Transfer in Action.” The book also features an online compendium of 17 case studies, including one on the Interstate Passport written by Patricia Shea, senior advisor. The book is available to order now for delivery in February.
Written by Jane Sherman, Interstate Passport Consultant
We have long known that employers are looking more for important general skills and knowledge – i.e., competencies – in the employees they hire and promote than for specific occupational expertise (AACU, 2011).
Workplace Basics: The Competencies Employers Want, a new report from Anthony Carnevale and associates at Georgetown University, goes farther than earlier reports by including analyzing both general- and occupation-specific cognitive and physical competencies across the following nine different occupational areas:
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Managerial and Professional Office
Healthcare Professional and Technical
Education
Community Service and Arts
Blue-Collar
Sales and Office Support
Food and Personal Services
Healthcare Support
The report delves into the relative remunerative benefits of how intensely the highest rated competencies are utilized across each of the following nine broad occupational areas. For each of the occupational areas surveyed, the report also ranks the intensity with which the highest rated competencies are utilized at each education level: bachelor’s degree or higher; some college or associate’s degree; high school diploma or less.
The key finding from the Georgetown report is that “in the modern labor market, five cognitive competencies are in high demand across all occupational groups: (1) communication, (2) teamwork, (3) sales and customer service,* (4) leadership, and (5) problem-solving and complex thinking. Among the five. . . communication is dominant. . . and is associated with the highest earnings boosts across the labor market.”
What can this perspective contribute to our understanding of the value of Interstate Passport to students, institutions, and employers? Carnevale, et al. urge educators to “provide a curriculum that conveys both general and specific competencies” including those “associated with a general education in the liberal arts and sciences.” Employers are encouraged to more directly “make the case for education and workforce preparation that conveys the competencies that are in high demand.” And the authors call for policymakers to “support programs that allow students and workers to develop high-demand, high-reward competencies, particularly when they improve opportunity for underserved populations.” However, surveys have shown that employers do not believe that transcripts convey helpful information about graduates’ competencies (AACU, 2011).
Earning a Passport is intended to attest that a student has accomplished a general education level of achievement in the highly desired competencies found by Carnevale, et al., along with the competencies “associated with a general education in the liberal arts and sciences.” The Passport Learning Outcomes in each of the nine Passport learning areas define for students, employers, and policymakers the skills and knowledge that students who have earned a Passport will have achieved and can be expected to utilize when they enter the workforce.
For that reason, Interstate Passport can be an ideal vehicle to communicate to students, employers, and policymakers the high-demand cognitive competencies, along with general competencies in the liberal arts and sciences, that Passport earners will bring to their employment and further education. To serve this purpose, a Passport must be recognized as more than a notation at the bottom of a transcript. Rather, it must be widely known as successfully translating into a common language the many diverse approaches toward a common goal: students who have achieved the cognitive competencies and the liberal arts and sciences outcomes to be productive participants in the economy.
*Traditionally, sales and customer service might not rise to such a broad level of desirability, but here this competency specifically includes the ability to assess and meet the needs of customers/clients, but presumably more broadly also of patients/students/co-workers and employers.
References
Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (Project), Liberal Education and America’s Promise (Program), & Association of American Colleges and Universities. (2011). The LEAP vision for learning: Outcomes, practices, impact, and employers’ views. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Anthony Carnevale, Megan L. Fasules, and Kathryn Peltier Campbell. (2020). Workplace Basics: The Competencies Employers Want. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
Leila Shimokawa is the Director of Communications at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu where she is responsible for developing and implementing the campus’ strategic communications plan and overseeing crisis and emergency communications. UH West Oʻahu has an enrollment of 3,100 students and Leila works closely with the student affairs team to get messages to students on any topic or issue. “The campus is very collaborative and everyone works closely together,” says Leila. “It’s very much a team effort.”
Shimokawa also serves as chair of the Interstate Passport Campus Marketing/Communications Advisory Committee, which meets several times per year to share ideas, discuss concerns, identify strategies, and agree on recommendations for all campus marketing and communications representatives at Network member institutions. Additionally, she oversees communication about Interstate Passport on the UH West Oʻahu website and in the campus catalog and consults with other campus Network representatives on any issues of concern or recommendations from program staff.
UH West Oʻahu is one of the founding institutions of the Interstate Passport program. Faculty, registrars, and other campus representatives from UH West Oʻahu have been involved with developing and implementing Passport procedures since 2011, and awarding Passports since 2016. Leila noted that each person and department working on Interstate Passport has a good understanding of what the program is, how it benefits students, and what their responsibilities are. According to Shimokawa, Alan Rosenfeld, the UH West Oʻahu Passport Institutional Liaison, “really cemented the Interstate Passport on campus, making sure people were doing what they’re supposed to do and making sure channels of communication are open.”
The University of Hawaiʻi System had very good articulation practices between institutions before joining the Interstate Passport Network, which made integrating Interstate Passport fairly smooth. This year all 10 institutions in the system became members of the Interstate Passport Network, which means that Hawaiʻi students who earn a Passport and transfer to mainland schools will have an advantage in getting credits accepted. The Passport State Transfers by Destination database shows that students from Hawai’i transfer primarily to Western states – California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Arizona.
Hawaiʻi has not experienced the chaos of the COVID pandemic to the same extent as other states, but even so, Shimokawa reported that more than 90 percent of UH West Oʻahu classes have been conducted virtually this fall.
The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) recently released the second report in a series on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student transfer and mobility. This report presents a more complete picture of fall 2020 transfer patterns and shows sharp declines in enrollment and student mobility. As in the first report that came out this fall, NSC tracked the transfer and mobility pathways of students who enrolled in fall 2020, focusing on three student groups: first-time students; returning students (those who had a stop-out without undergraduate completion and re-enrolled in the current term); and continuing students (those who continued enrollment from the preceding term, with or without having earned an associate degree or certificate). Transfer and mobility were tracked across institutions, sectors, and states, including over summer terms and after a lapse of enrollment. The report shows that the decline in student transfer and mobility is “steep and widespread,” with significant demographic disparities.
Report Highlights:*
Fall transfer student enrollment fell 8.1 percent over last year, more than triple the drop in non-transfer students this fall (-2.4 percent).
Student mobility fell across all transfer pathways. Reverse transfers decreased the most (19.4 percent), followed by lateral transfers (-12.6 percent) and upward transfers (-0.7 percent).
Community colleges saw an 18.5 percent drop in freshmen, a 19.6 percent decline in reverse transfers, an 18.7 percent drop in returning students, and 7.2 percent fewer continuing students.
Four-year colleges experienced relatively smaller declines in transfer enrollment as well as overall enrollment during the pandemic.
Black and Hispanic transfer students have been impacted the most, particularly at community colleges, whereas Asian students made gains in the four-year college sector.
Male student mobility declined sharply during the pandemic, regardless of age.
While fewer students re-enrolled this fall after a stop-out, more opted for primarily online institutions this fall than they did pre-pandemic.
*Source: Causey, J., Harnack-Eber, A., Lang, R., Liu, Q., Ryu, M., and Shapiro, D. (December 2020), COVID-19 Transfer, Mobility, and Progress, Report No. 2, Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
NCS plans to release the third report in the series, with the first snapshot of Spring 2021 patterns, in March 2021.
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