You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Many community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, but institutional barriers often prevent successful transfer and completion.
ferrantraite/E+/Getty Images
Community college students make up 40 percent of enrollment in U.S. higher education, and 80 percent of those students want to go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. However, only around 16 percent of those students will be successful in completing a four-year degree within six years after transferring.
Transfer students often lose credits when continuing to their bachelor’s degree, slowing their progress toward graduation and increasing the costs associated with higher education. Transfer advocates recognize the need for state and institutional interventions (both at the two- and four-year level) to improve processes and promote degree attainment.
In this episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with researchers from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Aurely Garcia Tulloch and Tatiana Velasco Rodriguez, to learn more about CCRC’s current projects to improve transfer across the country. Later, hear from Pamela Johnston, dean of career and academic planning at Tallahassee State College, about how the institution has revised its advising process to make registration, transfer planning and working with an adviser more seamless for students.
An edited version of the conversation appears below.
Listen to previous episodes of Voices of Student Success here.
Inside Higher Ed: Can you talk about the state of upward transfer in the U.S.? What are some of those challenges or opportunities to support upward transfer?
Velasco: I want to start by providing some key metrics on transfer from community college to four-year institutions. According to survey data, about 80 percent of community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree. And mainly the way to do that is to transfer to a four-year institution. But even though 80 percent of students aspire to earn a bachelor’s, only 33 percent of students are effectively transferring to a four-year institution within six years from their start at the community college.
Not only that, but in total, from all the community college students who started in the fall 2015, only 16 percent of them were able to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years [after transferring]. These numbers are really low. Students not only are unable to transfer, but even among those who do get to transfer to a four-year institution, only half of them are able to earn a bachelor’s degree.
And what’s more surprising from the analysis that we recently did, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, is that when we disaggregate this data for specific subgroups of students historically underrepresented among bachelor’s completers, such as low-income, Black and Hispanic students, we find that the rate at which these students complete bachelor’s degrees is even lower.
If the national level is 16 percent for community college students, for low-income students that percentage is 11 percent. For Black students, that percentage is 9 percent. And for older adults, which many people tend to think they’re not pursuing necessarily a bachelor’s, their bachelor’s completion rate is 9 percent.
One thing that I’ll say is that these numbers are low, but they have been low for a while. When we compare the bachelor’s completion of community college students who started in fall 2015 with that of students who started in 2014, ’13, all the way back to 2007, we find that those numbers have barely moved. The rate of students who go from a community college to a four-year institution has stayed in about a third for all that time. And the bachelor completion has stayed around that 15 percent for all those years. So these numbers are really low.
Inside Higher Ed: I do want to [ask], we often look at that as the transfer pathway is broken or there’s something that’s happening [preventing] students from earning that goal. But there is also a secondary path where students are going, “Maybe I just want my associate’s” or “Maybe I just want a certificate and that’s a better option for me.” Where do you see the student choice versus the institutional barriers preventing that goal?
Velasco: To me, the most telling statistic around that—and that’s a great question and you’ll see that question popping up a lot—is that, even among those students who transfer, their bachelor completion rate is [50 percent]. Six years [after] transferring, only 59 percent of students have completed a degree. These are students who are effectively looking to complete a bachelor’s, because they did all the transfer process to get into the four-year institution and yet they’re not completing their degree.
So yes, I think that there can be a lot of discretion on what type of degree students are pursuing. But even among those who we do know want to earn a bachelor, we do not see that degree completion happening.
In terms of opportunities—at least from a data point of view, and Aurely will be able to speak more about the field and how that looks like—what we do see is that there is a lot of variation and movement in terms of which students get to transfer and to complete bachelor’s degrees.
One of the major things at the postsecondary education level in general that reflects also among transfer students is that those students who have some prior enrollment—that is students who, at some point, while they were in high school, took some college-level courses—they tend to do much better in terms of their transfer metrics and their bachelor completion metrics.
This is not saying that dual enrollment has a positive effect. But it does speak about the potential of dual enrollment, because even though these students are very different, in terms of many characteristics, to the traditional students, they do have stronger outcomes. They do represent an opportunity to expand bachelor completion rate for all students.
There is another piece, and I want to kind of like benchmark these in this way that is really important. In this report, but in general … when we think about community college transfers, upward transfer, it has been usually the case that we think about the community college responsibility in transfer. We don’t focus as much on what happens at the four-year institution. But one thing that we did in this more recent research is that we were able to focus on what happens to community college students once they get to the four-year institution.
And what we find is that, once the students are enrolled to the four-year institutions, they’re not doing as well, either—they’re lacking the support that they need.
There are specific types of institutions, in particular, that aren’t helping their students as much. For example, while students at minority-serving institutions tend to do better in terms of their chances to complete a bachelor’s degree, students who transfer to for-profit institutions or to predominantly online institutions do worse, much worse, relative to the national average.
We think that this speaks to the callout that we need to make and the call to action that we need to make to four-year institutions, to keep them accountable on the transfer outcomes and the support that they offer to their transfer students.
Another thing that we saw that we think is really valuable is, students who are transferring with an award from the community college—that being an associate’s degree or a certificate—these students have much stronger outcomes when it comes to their bachelor completion.
They transfer at higher rates, and they also have much higher chances to complete a degree. And, again, while this is not to say this is the causal effect of earning an award, we do think that this points to the importance of having milestones for students who are on the transfer pathway, so that they can earn a degree while they are at a community college that can then translate the award or degree towards a bachelor degree once they transferred to the four-year.
So in other words, this is definitely a signal of how important it is to lay out a pathway that has clear mind milestones in the transfer process.
And then the last thing that I’ll say from the numbers and the national-level findings on transfer is that that there is a small but noteworthy number of community colleges where transfer students not only get strong outcomes relative to the national average, but at these community colleges, these transfer outcomes are true for all the students at the institution and for these historically underrepresented groups as well—for the low income, [the] Hispanic students, Black [students].
The reason why this is so important to us is because we do think that this points to the fact that this is not rocket science; this can be done. Colleges can figure out how to serve their students well and how to help them achieve the outcomes that they’re pursuing. Even for these groups that have been traditionally underrepresented among bachelor’s completers, we use this data to try to figure out: What are the institutions that are doing well? Can we visit them? Can we give them a call and figure out what are they doing that is working so well? Aurely can speak more about that about what we learned once we visited these institutions.
Garcia Tulloch: To bounce off of [what] Tati was saying, we did see some, I want to say, like, shining lights among the data. And in partnership with the Aspen Institute, I was able to visit a ton of community college and four-year institutions that intentionally were serving students who were underrepresented in transfer a lot better, those being low-income [students], Black students and Hispanic students.
Based on my perception, I’m going to provide a little bit of my reactions and some things that I saw that were really awesome that these institutions were doing.
The first thing that I saw was how these institutions were really addressing students’ basic needs in transfer. Not only were they focused on how the student was experiencing their academic side of transfer, they were also focused holistically on the student.
We visited one community college, which, through the funding that came out of COVID to higher education institutions, they were able to start the student advocacy center. Through that center, they were able to support students by making a food pantry where they were able to shop on their own, they had showers, they had support for homeless students, they had mental health support—there was a lot there that was going on. And then we also saw some really awesome, culturally relevant support for students.
So not only just addressing the academic student experience, the student experience when it comes to basic needs, but addressing that each student comes with a different journey and a different path.
Being able to support them culturally is just as important as supporting their transfer journey. We saw this through the adoption of appreciative advising models where they would ask students about, “Hey, let’s get to know you better. Let’s not just do academic advising; let’s see who you are as a person.”
Community colleges and four-years were starting to hire staff that were reflective of the student body and their experiences. We even saw staff that were previous transfer students coming back and talking about their journey. There was also just a general awareness and openness to share in transfer experiences from staff to student on campus.
We also saw between these two- and four-years, there was great structured collaboration between the two [institutions]. At one of these sites, we actually saw a two-year and a four-year co-located on the same campus.
One hallway, they had all of the community colleges resources—the financial aid, advising, etc. And then down the next hallway, all the four-year resources in the similar format were there. Students were able to just one-stop shop, visit all of the community college resources and then be like, “Hey, I want to transfer here. Let me just hop over to the other hallway.” It was really improving the ability to transfer and trying to reduce that friction [point] among students.
We also saw along this collaboration route that presidents were having regular meetings to discuss transfer. So there was a top-down approach, like it was already priority for presidents but now it was a priority for everyone at the institution and they made sure to be very data-informed in the conversations that they were having. Not only are we talking about transfer, but let’s look at transfer for certain demographics, let’s be able to disaggregate things.
We had one president who, he was able to navigate his own transfer dashboard that was shared throughout the institution on his own. He was like, “I’m well trained, I know how to do it.”
We also saw advisers on four-year campuses and vice versa, so a bunch of shared advising models. And really this mindset shift of not only community colleges being held accountable, like Tati was saying, for transfer, but these four-years are just as important and they need to provide these resources on both ends.
We also saw four-year plans, which we love talking about, that were regularly updated, which is super important. Even to speak on my experience, if it wasn’t for a plan that could actually outline from a two-year to four-year what [courses] actually need to get done and completed, then I would have probably had a lot more credit loss. I know a lot of students are aided with that.
We also just saw leadership making transfer a priority in their strategic plans. It was written out as transfer being an institutional priority in order to build back enrollment in order to support students better In order to get students to a better pathway to whatever postsecondary or career goals they have.
The last awesome thing that I saw was some really cool advising practices. We saw checkpoint advising, which started from zero credits, so it started zero, 15, 30, 45, 60 [credits] at community colleges. I will say we didn’t see this as much at four-years. But I would really love to see them also continue checkpoint advising, because students are able to know from their adviser what they need to do next and learn about key milestones such as internships and what they need to do to be able to transfer successfully. We also saw mandatory professional development between advisers on four-year plans, on expectations for what students should know, with certain credit markers. That advising mandatory professional development was even extended down to faculty and other staff members.
Inside Higher Ed: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the exciting part about these interventions, a lot of them are pretty low cost. Like, offering professional development for your staff or having a president who is super engaged and excited about transfer. Those are things that any institution can model and can take back home with them and just increase that support and recognition of the transfer process. I think part of it is just visibility and making sure that your campus knows that this is an issue and this is something that everybody should be working towards, whether you’re faculty, staff or administrator.
As Garcia Tulloch mentioned, comprehensive and compassionate advising can play a key role in promoting transfer student success. Tallahassee State College is one institution that’s adopted a new advising model that incorporates technology and relationship-building into its approach, helping ease the transfer process and equip the student to make informed decisions when registering for classes. Pamela Johnston from Tallahassee State College shares how her institution supports upward transfer through advising.
Inside Higher Ed: What does advising look like at Tallahassee College? And I also want to note, you were recently a community college, but now you’re a state college. What does that look like, too?
Johnston: July 1 we became a state college since the advent of our bachelor’s degrees. We’re primarily still a transfer institution, primarily general transfer degrees. We have about 2,000 students in the associate of science degrees, and that includes health care. Primarily, though we’re made up of the associate of arts degree for transfer, we have about 10,000 of those students.
Inside Higher Ed: When it comes to helping students get ready to transfer, obviously, that’s a big part of their decision to come to your college. What are those conversations look like from the jump when it comes to onboarding students and talking about what that next step could be?
Johnston: Many institutions may do a variation of what we do. We’ve now affectionately branded our advising program “app to cap,” which is application to graduation advising, and it literally starts 15 minutes after any student submits an application.
As soon as a student submits an application, they will be assigned overnight in an academic adviser. Every student, every A.S. student, every A.A. student, and then communication nudges begin to happen. There’s outreach from advisers. Essentially, a student will get an adviser right from jump, as you say, and keep that adviser until graduation. So they continually build a relationship with this person.
Our advisers nudge them as needed. Really our biggest tool and our biggest carrot is we do academic plans based on their transfer institution and their intended major. And it’s live, it’s not a check sheet, it’s not a degree audit, it’s literally a plan that is customized, sitting with each student and getting them the classes when they want them in a particular term. Then the students can literally register from that plan every single semester. It’s two clicks.
Inside Higher Ed: Within the advising model, students have a personal adviser who is with them throughout their entire college experience. What does that look like?
Johnston: When the first-time-in-college students get there, they get their adviser. The very first thing the during the summer, they will meet with advisers, and it may not be their assigned adviser because of the volume. But those conversations are “Here are your first four required courses, and then we’re going to set up an appointment for you to come in and build your plan the rest of the way.” It can change; it can morph into other things. But it’s really, we build it upon the appreciative advising model. So it’s holistic, it’s wraparound, it’s to talk about classes, talk about registration, talk about majors, talk about careers and alternate planning. It runs the gamut.
Inside Higher Ed: The other cool thing is that the degree map actually partners to the transfer agreement that they need for their desired four-year institution as well. But what does that look like? And what does it take on the institutional side to make sure that those degree maps line up and the articulation agreements are up-to-date?
Johnston: We’re really fortunate to have a close partnership with Florida State University, FAMU [Florida A&M University] and, basically, collaboratively, they build us these academic suggested courses maps, what students should take when, what course it is at Florida State or Florida A&M and what it is at Tallahassee State College. Then we build the plans based upon that. So when it changes at the four-year, it changes here. Now we’re four-year, but then it changes for that two-year degree. It takes a great deal. And we’re very fortunate with our colleagues at these major institutions here in town, in Tallahassee.
Inside Higher Ed: We know students like to change their major; often they’re not sure what they want to major in when they come in, especially for an associate’s degree program. They might want that flexibility. How does the college seek to accommodate that and ensure that this degree map is something they can modify if and when they want to?
Johnston: The tool that we use allows the students to do it, but the students really prefer to come in and have a conversation with it.
Eighty-seven percent of our students, or almost 10,000 of them, have customized plans. So we have different points during the year where there are different mechanisms for students to talk to either their specific adviser or any adviser. So that’s how we deal with the breadth of the workload, because there’s a lot of students.
These plans, we build them, we named them and the students can go in, they can change them if they wish. They usually don’t, though; they come in and they say, “Oh, do I have to take math where we put it this time?” “Well, no, but if you want to go to this school, you have a lot of math you better do, so we can’t move that.” “OK.” That’s that negotiation. It’s a living, breathing [document]. It’s a dynamic process. It’s not “Here’s a sheet; check them off as you go.” It’s not that. I guess it could be. But that’s not why we’ve been successful.
Inside Higher Ed: That’s something with transfer, credit loss and time to degree are some of the major obstacles. And so something like this seems like it would have a really positive benefit, not only for the institution to make sure that students are [graduating] on time, but the student themselves to make sure that they’re getting what they need in the time and way that they need. What is in the student response to this new advising model and how have they reacted?
Johnston: They love it. Because when we first started it, those [first-time-in-college students] are now [in their] second semester, [and] they still have that plan. Then in their third semester, they still have that plan. Then the next group comes in, so it compounds, right, with the assistance compounds there.
It gives them purpose; it helps them understand what they have to do at a major institution and what they can do here for affordability, for staying on the pathway. If they want to change their path to a different career path, we can help them do that, too. We revamp their plan, but they’re coming in on a consistent basis, in a timely manner, and they’re registering for the correct things. So they’re not having to, “Oh, I took the wrong thing?” Well, no, because it’s right there in the plan. The students love it. We do [surveys]; our students’ satisfaction is upwards of 92 percent as far as the students that are satisfied with the model and their interactions with our advisers.
Inside Higher Ed: When you’re planning this far out, is there ever a hiccup where maybe that class isn’t offered? Who’s all involved to make sure you can plan three or four semesters out?
Johnston: Because it’s a two-year degree, the general education courses are what they are. Our tool knows, [it] is a smart tool, so it knows what catalog year that student is on, so the correct offerings will always be there. So that’s one thing.
If the prereqs change at the major institution, we know that because we meet with our counterparts. And then when the students come in, because they come in on a regular basis, they can get messaged and say, “Hey, your plan has changed” if we find out first or they come in.
Is there any hiccups? Only when the students try to do it themselves. That’s when the hiccups happen. Our tool also lets us know who did what when. So we can see what that flow was, we can see what has happened.
Inside Higher Ed: I’m sure it also empowers your advisers to help have those conversations [with students] ahead of time, too. And be like, “Hey, you probably need this, be careful” or give them those heads-up and warnings because that’s something students say: “Oh, I didn’t know. That’s something that nobody told me about.” How has that conversation shifted with this new model?
Johnston: We have those conversations all the time. You know, it’s not as much as we did when it was the drop-in, when nobody really did tell them. Since 2021, somebody has told them—they have a plan, [and] if they choose to do something different, we have a record of that as well.
And we take copious advising notes, so I can track what happens, what a student was told, what a student was told when; if the student went off track, I can tell when that has happened and it’s live. And so when a student maybe isn’t successful, or decides to do something other than what was advised, we can see that. And I can share that with them. And usually it’s either crickets, or it’s “Oh, yeah, no, I remember that.” And then we go forward with it.
It’s like, OK, this happened. It’s not fatal. I mean, we don’t have fatal situations—I’m not going to say anymore, but I can’t remember a fatal situation because of the way we do this. We’re proactive. They have an adviser; they can see an adviser year-round in a variety of ways.
Inside Higher Ed: And it seems great to be equipped with that data, not only to tell the student but also from the college level to say, “OK, how many students are getting caught up on these hiccups?” How has the college used that data, if at all, to make broader institutional decisions?
Johnston: This was part of the reason we developed the tools and developed this model, because I get asked [that] question as well: “How do you know?”
And so, we know students are being seen, because they have academic plans. Each student does. I also take that and can inform our partner institutions. “Hey, listen, this is what the interest is. These are our top majors; here they come, hopefully.”
Because they have stats and data that they have to report as well being a transfer institution, so we also manage our traffic here in the advising center, we manage our auto communications based upon this—what are we seeing are the zero-credit to 15-credit students? Are they not registering quick enough? OK, we’ve got to get messages out to them. Let’s go, let’s do that.
I love it. It’s empowered our advisers. Our advisers know who those students at risk are because we can run that as well. And communication goes out and interventions happen because of that; it’s just—I get pretty excited about it, if you can’t tell.
Inside Higher Ed: If you had to give advice or insight to another institution that’s looking to change up their advising model, what has worked really well, or what’s something that you would share?
Johnston: I’ve talked about this at NACADA [the Global Community for Academic Advising]. And I’ve talked about this to other institutions that have reached out. It’s really, don’t be afraid do case management, do caseloads, doesn’t matter how big you are.
Our advisers have large caseloads, but you have to have the technology. Invest in whatever technology that has communication, that has a dynamic academic planning tool that enables students to register from that academic plan—those things will completely change the student’s journey and the professional staff. I mean, we’re busy, and I think [everyone] comes through advising. If we had an easy button, maybe that would be something. But it’s those things, go ahead and have case management—and many, many places do—but choose a tool or develop a tool where academic plans can be built, and it’s tied to registration with a communication plan and nudges to get students to come in all year, instead of two weeks before courses begin, in a nutshell.
Listen to previous episodes of Voices of Student Success here.
