Category: Transfer News

Though institutions and organizations are working to improve student transfer, there are still challenges in particular around equity. Several reports from the Community Colleges Research Initiative on transfer partnerships provide insight and recommendations to address these challenges.

Recent articles in Education Dive and Inside Higher Ed examine how institutions are addressing equity at the local level for transfer students. The Education Dive article, 25 Illinois colleges team up to improve attainment, explains an initiative between 2-year and 4-year institutions in the state of Illinois.  And another select institution is accepting transfer students according to Inside Higher Ed article, CUNY’s honors college ends ban on transfer students.

Though institutions and organizations are working to improve student transfer, there are still challenges. Recent articles from Inside Higher Ed and the Brookings Institute provide insight on the challenges transfer students face.

Inside Higher Ed featured an article that touched upon various aspects of improving the transfer process for students and the challenges that are associated with making it happen. 

• Despite strong relationship with four-year institutions and successfully transferring students, two-year administrators are still searching for better solutions. Read ‘If I Had Known Then…‘
• A new report released by the Brookings Institution examines the barriers to community college graduation rates, including the data behind those barriers and provides recommendations on how to address those them. For more information read “Improving community college completion rates by addressing structural and motivational barriers.”

The National Student Clearinghouse recently released its third report on transfer and mobility. The report, Signature Report 15: Transfer and Mobility: A National View of Student Movement in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2011 Cohort, examines the transfer pathways of students who started postsecondary education in fall 2011. Analysis includes student enrollment patterns across different institutions, across state boundaries, and for the first time, dis-aggregations by race and ethnicity.

The data revealed that there were 2.8 million first time students in the fall 2011 cohort. Over one million (38.0 percent) of those students continued their academic studies at a different institution within the first six years. Interestingly, two-year institutions serve more than half of the cohort at 1.5 million but only 5.6 percent transfer with some type of credential from their starting institution. Of the one million transfer students, 27.2 percent transferred across state lines. Of students who transferred, Asian and White students were more likely to transfer than Black and Hispanic students. Click here for the full report.

An article, Public May Not Trust Higher Ed, but Employers Do, was included in the August issue of Inside Higher Ed, discusses the perspective that employers have of higher education and the skills that employers highly value when hiring new graduates. In particular, two skills identified are critical thinking and oral communication.

Both of these skills are part of the knowledge and skill areas which make up the Interstate Passport Learning Outcomes. Interstate Passport Network member institutions build Passport Blocks which are menus of courses that teach towards learning outcomes based on nine knowledge and skill areas. When a student completes the courses in the block with a minimum grade of C or better, the students earns a Passport, an early milestone of completion on the way to a credential. The student has also achieved competency in key skills and knowledge areas valued by employers.

More information about employers what employers are looking from college graduates can be found at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) recently released report by Hart Research Associates, “Fulfilling the American Dream: Liberal Education and the Future of Work.”

Why aren’t well qualified community college students transferring? Inside Higher Ed explores the variables affecting high achieving students at two-year institutions who are not transferring and how four-year institutions are adapting to the changing landscape of what defines a traditional student.

This past month several articles in the July issue of Insider Higher Ed addressed the changing landscape of student enrollment and the increasingly important role transfer students play.

• Diversity is on the rise with transfer students in the University of California System. Though statistics for incoming freshmen diversity remain the same, according to the article, Transfers Up at University of California Campuses, there is a demonstrated increase in the percentage of minority students who transferred into the system. Read more …
• Why aren’t well qualified students transferring?  This article explores the variables affecting high achieving students at two-year institutions who are not transferring and how four-year institutions are adapting to the changing landscape of what defines a traditional student. Read more…
• Learn how the American Talent Initiative proposes to reach out to the high-achieving, low- and moderate-income community college transfer student population. Read more…