Abstract
Community colleges are the first point of access to higher education for millions of students each year. While many students begin their college career at community college, most aspire to transfer to a 4-year institution and earn a bachelor’s degree (Horn & Skomsvold, 2011). According to the Beginning Postsecondary Student (BPS) study, which has been surveying first-time undergraduates since 1989, more than 70% of first-time community college students consistently expect to earn at least a bachelor’s degree.
While aspirations are high, few community college students realize their degree goals. Consistent data over the years illustrate that less than a quarter of community college students end up transferring to a 4-year institution within 5 years, and around 10% complete a bachelor’s degree (Horn & Skomsvold, 2011). Some community college students do not successfully transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree for several reasons: There is high attrition due to high rates of enrollment in developmental education, family and school responsibilities that pull them away from school, lack of integration into college life, and numerous other reasons (e.g., Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Horn & Nevill, 2006; Tinto, 1993).
Problems with credit mobility, or the transfer of credits from a sending to a receiving institution, present an additional barrier to degree completion for community college students (Doyle, 2006; Monaghan & Attewell, 2015). States and systems have implemented policies to support the transfer of credits; however, there is little evidence that growth in state and system transfer policies has led to improvement in bachelor’s degree completion for transfer students (G. Anderson, Sun, & Alfonso, 2006; Baker, 2016; Goldhaber, Gross, & DeBurgomaster, 2008; Gross & Goldhaber, 2009; Roksa & Keith, 2008). A better understanding of transfer policy across a wide range of postsecondary systems is needed to guide the design and implementation of future policies related to improving the bachelor’s degree completion of community college transfer students and achieving more equitable postsecondary outcomes. Thus, based on an analysis of policy documents and interview data from California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington, this study was guided by two questions:
In the following section, we begin with background on the issue of credit mobility and transfer policies and then describe our data, methodology, and key findings on transfer policy and implementation across a range of systems. We present a new framework for understanding the scope of credit mobility policies in a state or system as they pertain to helping community college students transfer and apply their credits to their program at a university. The two crosscutting themes of student uncertainty and advisor capacity emerged across the states and systems, preventing students from fully taking advantage of transfer policies and leading to credit loss. In the last section, we summarize our contributions to the literature and considerations for research, policy, and practice.
Literature Review
Background on Credit Mobility
Despite the presence of transfer policies at the state and institutional level, close to half of students who transfer from a community college to a public university experience some credit loss upon transfer. Using BPS data from different cohorts, Doyle (2006) and Monaghan and Attewell (2015) have studied the prevalence of credit loss for community college students and its relationship to bachelor’s degree attainment. Among the 1995/1996 cohort of community college transfer students, 56% were able to transfer all credits, while the remaining students lost some credits (Doyle, 2006). Similarly, among the 2003/2004 cohort, 58% of community college transfer students were able to transfer 90% or more of their college credits, while the remaining students lost some credits. For 14% of students, their transfer institution accepted less than 10% of their credits (Monaghan & Attewell, 2015).
The loss of credits during transfer is tied to low bachelor’s degree completion for community college students. Among the 1995/1996 cohort of community college transfer students, credit loss is associated with a 40 percentage point graduation gap: 82% of students who were able to transfer all of their credits graduated with a bachelor’s degree within 6 years of starting college, compared with 42% of students who lost any amount of credit (Doyle, 2006).
Among the 2003/2004 cohort, students who had all or most of their credits transfer had a 2.5 times greater likelihood of graduation than similar students who had less than half their credits transfer (Monaghan & Attewell, 2015).
Problems with credit mobility may also result in transfer students receiving elective credit instead of academic program credit for their community college courses because transfer credits do not apply to a major or degree program, which is referred to as degree program credit loss because students lose credits that they expected to apply toward a degree. Identifying the exact incidence of degree program credit loss is complex, and research has not yet examined degree program credit loss among students who leave college without a degree. One way to approximate degree program credit loss is to compare the number of credits earned by transfer students who earn a bachelor’s degree and native students who began their career at the university and earn a bachelor’s degree. At least three states have explored this issue and found that among students who earned a bachelor’s degree, transfer students had, on average, four more credits than native students in Washington (West, 2015), eight more credits than native students in Texas (Cullinane, 2014), and nine more credits than native students in Kentucky (Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, 2008). These findings suggest that transfer students tend to graduate with more credits than native students potentially because of degree program credit loss.
There is also qualitative evidence from a study in Indiana (Kadlec & Gupta, 2014) that illuminates student stories of losing credits they expected to apply to their degree program. Many of the nearly 170 transfer students from eight Indiana university campuses that participated in the study reported their credits transferred as excess elective credits, rather than degree program credits. The authors note that electives have lost their educational value for many transfer students and “instead the elective category is a kind of academic graveyard where students essentially bury all those courses that transfer but do not meet any specific requirements in the new institution” (Kadlec & Gupta, 2014, p. 7). Thus, both the outright loss of credits and degree program credit loss represent a waste of resources for individual students who spend time and money on college courses that do not count toward their degrees.
Trends in Transfer Policy That Support Credit Mobility
Articulation agreements between community colleges and universities date to the 1920s as most of the courses offered by the earliest community colleges were liberal arts transfer courses (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014). More recently, states and systems have developed more formal mechanisms to improve credit mobility through developing transfer policies that reach beyond institutional articulation agreements and apply to all public 4-year institutions in the state or system of higher education (Goldhaber et al., 2008; Mullin, 2012; Smith, 2010). Traditionally, these policies include a transferable common core that guarantees the transfer of general education credits between public institutions in a state or system, and a transfer associate’s degree that is designed to ensure transfer students enter as juniors. Some states and systems have developed articulation guides and common course-numbering that clarify for students which courses should be transferable and accepted across public institutions within the state or system. A national scan of transfer and articulation policies conducted by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) found that as of May 2014, 36 states have a transferable common core, 16 states use a common course-numbering system, and 36 states have a transfer associate’s degree (L. Anderson, 2016).
There is little evidence that growth in these state transfer policies, however, has led to improvement in bachelor’s degree completion for transfer students (G. Anderson et al., 2006; Goldhaber et al., 2008; Gross & Goldhaber, 2009; Roksa & Keith, 2008). The literature suggests two main reasons for this weak relationship between the adoption of statewide transfer policies and student outcomes. First, few students take advantage of the policies. In two state systems, only a small proportion of community college students in transfer-oriented programs completed the transferable common core (Hodara & Rodríguez, 2013). Nationally, only 29% of transfer students earn a certificate or associate’s degree prior to transferring (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Second, while a transferable common core and transfer associate’s degrees support the transfer of credits from one institution to another, they do not always guarantee the application of credits to a student’s degree program (Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015). Thus, students may still experience degree program credit loss, which may then impact their bachelor’s degree completion.
Given the limitations of traditional transfer policies, some states and systems have turned to a relatively new strategy to ensure credits transfer and apply to majors. Bachelor’s degree programs frequently have specific lower division prerequisite requirements to prepare students for upper division coursework. To make transfer more seamless for students, states and systems have developed system-wide agreements that specify the lower division courses required for upper division coursework in a major (Bailey et al., 2015). These major-specific transfer pathways allow students to complete their lower division courses at community college, and then transfer and apply their coursework to a major at any public 4-year institution in the state or system where they take their upper division major coursework. Rigorous evidence suggests that major-specific transfer pathway policies across the California State University (CSU) system, developed under the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, have led to an increase in students’ earning associate’s degrees, although they have not had a significant impact on transfer (Baker, 2016). In the “Findings” section, we explore how these major-specific transfer pathway policies differ across states and systems, and how stakeholders experience these policies at the campus level.
Data Collection and Analysis
Understanding Different Policy Approaches
This study began with a review of official transfer policy documents in each of the 10 states. 1 We studied transfer policies at the unit of the state with three exceptions. In Georgia, there are two public higher education systems: the University System of Georgia (USG), which includes 2-year and 4-year institutions, and the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), which only has 2-year institutions dedicated to adult education and career training programs with less of a focus on transfer. We looked most closely at USG transfer policies, which pertain mainly to USG 2-year institutions. New York has two public higher education systems that include universities and community colleges: State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY). California has two very different university systems: CSU and University of California (UC). We studied systems in New York and California separately. In total, we studied seven state-level transfer policies and five system-level transfer policies.
We completed the policy reviews using a template that ensured we collected comparable information for each state. In the template, we documented the higher education governance structure, 2- and 4-year system characteristics, all state or system-wide policies related to transfer, sources of information, key contacts in the state, and state data collection and reporting on transfer. We then transferred this information to a detailed matrix that compared each state and system’s policies related to articulated general education and pre-major courses between public institutions; transfer associate’s degrees; cross-system transparency and alignment; reverse transfer; and transfer incentives. We verified the policy reviews for accuracy at multiple points by cross-referencing them with the ECS Transfer and Articulation database and reviewing them during phone interviews with key stakeholders.
We used the matrix to identify traditional elements of transfer policy that support credit mobility, such as a common core, common course-numbering, and transfer associate’s degree. While knowing the general policy elements contained in transfer systems helps analysts, policymakers, and practitioners track the broad strokes of what states are doing and how systems change over time (see, for example, Smith, 2010), it is less useful for comparing how systems actually protect transfer students from losing credits toward their degree and accumulating excess elective credits. Thus, building off our initial matrix, we created another matrix that identified, for each state and system, the policies that guaranteed the transfer and application of general education and pre-major courses. This matrix revealed a clear pattern of differences across states and systems based on the institutional level—ranging from system-wide requirements to local institutional agreements—at which they provide the protections for the transfer and application of credits to upper division degree program requirements, policies that can be described as major-specific transfer pathways. We used this second matrix to develop a transfer policy framework that describes the scope of major-specific transfer pathways.
Understanding Implementation
Subsequent to the completion of the state policy reviews, we used a stratified purposeful sampling strategy to select expert respondents from each of the states (Patton, 2002). We conducted phone interviews with individuals from each state’s higher education offices and the system offices for the 2- and 3-year systems, where applicable. State- and system-level officials recommended institutional respondents who were familiar with transfer policies and worked directly with transfer students. We generally sought to interview respondents from at least one community college and a neighboring university in each state or system.
We also selected three site visit states to learn about transfer policy implementation in states that illustrate the three different policy approaches in our framework. Texas offers an example of transfer policy where institutions largely rely on articulation agreements. In contrast, Tennessee, with the 2010 passage of the Complete College Tennessee Act that led to the development of major-specific transfer pathways across 52 fields, represents a relatively recent and comprehensive approach to reforming statewide transfer policy. Washington, which has had Direct Transfer Agreements in place for more than 40 years, provides insights into well-established statewide transfer policies. During interviews, we asked respondents in all three states to recommend a community college and neighboring university that were typical, not exemplary, models of transfer. Among these recommendations, we then selected and reached out to a pair of institutions that served a large proportion of underrepresented students.
Student voice is a critical component of this study. At each institution, we held two student focus groups to learn about student experiences with transfer. At the community colleges, we spoke to students intending to transfer, and at universities, we spoke to students who had transferred from community college. Prior to each focus group, university student participants completed a brief survey to provide a sense of the number of credits they were able to transfer from their origin institution and apply to their degree. In each state, only one university student reported losing credits upon transfer. But nearly all students reported that a subset of credits that they expected to count toward their degree program transferred as elective credit. Many students referred to these as lost credits. Table 1 presents the number of systems, institutions, and individuals in this study.
Study Participants.
We analyzed interview data using typological analysis (Hatch, 2002; LeCompte & Preissle, 1993). All interviews were transcribed and entered into the ATLAS.ti software. Transcript quotes were then labeled according to broad themes that paralleled the interview protocol: institutional factors, policy strategies, policy implementation, student supports, challenges, and recommendations. This process facilitated data management, allowing us to easily sort and retrieve data for further analysis. Working with general themes individually, we coded transcript excerpts inductively for emerging patterns over multiple rounds of coding. One coder worked closely with the research team to ensure reliability in coding across interviews. Identified themes were documented in memos and matrices and across states, institutions, and respondent types. Multiple researchers reviewed analysis for contradictory and missing evidence. We then reviewed common themes to identify any differences in implementation across different transfer policy systems.
Findings
Comparing Credit Mobility Policies
The 12 states and systems we studied generally have comprehensive transfer policies (Table 2). For example, all have a system-wide common core that specifies the general education courses that transfer across the system, eight systems have transfer associate’s degrees, and seven have common course-numbering for at least their community colleges.
System-Level Transfer Policies.
Source. Authors’ policy review as of April 2016.
These policies have limitations in terms of supporting credit mobility, particularly when it comes to meeting lower division requirements for specific majors. For example, in three states and three state systems, respondents explained that certain majors, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), business, and health fields, have very specific general education course requirements, so completion of the common core does not guarantee all transferred general education credits will apply to a degree program. Similarly, in the states we studied, the general transfer associate’s degrees do not include prerequisites for all majors, so they only guarantee completion of general education requirements and junior standing in terms of the number of credits needed to enter as a junior, but not in terms of entering as a junior in a particular major.
To compare credit mobility policies that help students transfer and apply their community college credits, we identified if each state or system specified lower division courses that can be applied to courses in a major across the state or system. Table 3 presents the extent to which states and systems specify lower division pre-major courses that apply to particular programs across a state or system. Five states/systems specify all pre-major courses for nearly all majors. Four states/systems specify some pre-major courses. Three states do not specify any pre-major courses, or the transfer policy is out-of-date.
System-Level Major-Specific Transfer Pathway Policies.
Source. Authors’ policy review as of April 2016.
Note. USG = University System of Georgia; SUNY = State University of New York; CSU = California State University; UC = University of California; CUNY = City University of New York.
A New Categorization of Transfer Policy
Categorizing the scope of a state or system’s major-specific transfer pathway policies allows states and systems to be placed on a continuum. While this framework does not encompass the full breadth and complexity of a state or system’s transfer policies, it can be used to understand the scope of major-specific transfer pathways. On one end of the continuum are what we refer to as 2 + 2 systems, on the other end are institution-driven systems, and in the middle of the continuum are credit equivalency systems.
The 2 + 2 systems
The 2 + 2 systems specify all lower division courses for nearly all majors so that course credits are applied to programs of study consistently across the system. Thus, transfer pathways allow most students with an associate’s degree to meet all lower division general education and pre-major requirements before transfer, enter university ready for upper division coursework in their major, and earn a bachelor’s degree within 2 years, regardless of the receiving campus into which they transfer.
Two states, Florida and Tennessee, and three state systems, USG,
2
CSU, and SUNY, are 2 + 2 systems. Florida has the longest-standing 2 + 2 policies. Since 2010, the remaining states and systems have implemented 2 + 2 policies through agreeing on lower division coursework for nearly all majors at public colleges and universities. A Tennessee system official explained the benefits of the new Tennessee Transfer Pathways program over the former policies:
When you’re a student at community college and you’re pursuing, say, accounting, you don’t have to wonder any more whether any university will take those courses. You now know they do because they’re part of the pathway. Because in the old days you may be at one of our community colleges and the local university says, “Yeah, you’re good and, you know, we’ll take those courses.” However, you then transfer to a university across the state, and they say, “Well, no, sorry, you know, we have a different view of that, and we’re not going to take those.” You don’t have to worry about any more at all. Students who are in the pathways, it is certain that they will be accepted. I think that’s the biggest key, is that there’s no mystery anymore. It’s been worked out ahead of time.
Transfer students in Tennessee who had a clear idea about their program early on found that the Transfer Pathway program made transfer a seamless process, as described by two Tennessee transfer students:
I used the Tennessee Transfer Pathway. I just followed it to a T and applied. And I really liked it. It was pretty easy. I didn’t have any trouble with it. I had to have an advising appointment for each semester. I had to sit down and I had to talk to someone, and that was useful to me. You know, it was nice to have someone who could like give me a general direction or at least could help me figure out what I needed to do. But the Pathways thing has pretty much been pretty solid with me. It really has. I mean, it has its flaws, but at the same time it works for most people.
Credit equivalency systems
Credit equivalency systems contain policies for ensuring that lower division general education and some pre-major courses transfer and are uniformly applied to program requirements at all campuses across the system. Four-year institutions have some flexibility in specifying lower division major course requirements for all or some majors; students transferring with an associate’s degree may not always enter “major-ready” for upper division coursework.
Two states and two state systems are credit equivalency systems that either specify some pre-major courses for all (Ohio) or some majors (CUNY), or all pre-major courses for a subset of majors (UC and Washington). In 2010, Ohio updated their articulation and transfer policy, which includes discipline-specific transfer guides for nearly all majors; however, the guides do not guarantee students will transfer major-ready given differences in course requirements across institutions. In 2013, CUNY underwent a comprehensive transfer policy reform process and developed a transferable common core and three to five common pre-major courses for their 10 most popular majors. At the time of our study, UC was continuing to develop common pre-major courses for their most popular majors, called UC transfer paths. Beginning in 2003, Washington has developed transfer pathways that specify the lower division coursework for 11 majors in fields that have very specific, lower division, pre-major coursework. A Washington system official explains how these major-specific transfer pathways are different from the transfer associate degree:
I think the associate science transfer degree is a great improvement. That degree is much more useful for anyone entering the sciences than the Direct Transfer Agreement. In the past, we would admit students who were interested, for example, in being a biology major and who had the Direct Transfer Degree and they had their general eds out of the way, but they still had 2 years of prerequisites before they could enter the biology major because they did not have sufficient math and chemistry and physics. So the associate of science transfer makes it clear to community college students that those prerequisites are more important than meeting all of the general education requirements, and that’s a tremendous advantage to those students. It also saves time because those students arrive having completed the science prerequisites, and they’re major-ready in most of the areas if they complete that.
Institution-driven systems
In institution-driven systems, articulation agreements or institutional transfer pathways specify the lower division courses students need to take to transfer from a community college into specific programs at a 4-year institution ready to complete upper division courses.
Three states are institution-driven systems. North Carolina updated and approved its statewide Comprehensive Articulation Agreement in 2014, which includes a 30-credit common core guaranteed to transfer and junior status guarantee for transfer students who complete an associate’s degree program. However, individual university programs determine any major-specific coursework. A community college advisor estimated that advisors had to keep track of approximately 1,280 articulation agreements because there are 16 public universities and about 80 programs at each institution.
Texas has nine major pathways, called fields of study, which were established in 2002 and include common pre-major courses for nine majors (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 2014). However, respondents indicated that the fields of study had become outdated and were not used by students. Instead, all Texas public universities have articulation agreements with one or more area community colleges. Excluding Texas State University, on average, they maintain 38 active agreements. Texas State University, one of the largest institutions in the system, has an exceptionally high number of agreements: 3,090 agreements with 29 separate, 2-year institutions. A Texas state office described their system:
I think people are finally beginning to realize that it’s just too much to try to do articulation agreements because you have students that transfer all over the state. And you’ve got 100 programs or more. And if you’re a community college trying to do articulation agreements with 38 four-year institutions, and that’s just the public ones, and at the same time over 100 programs, it’s a pretty daunting task for anybody to try to keep up with it.
Kentucky has fewer agreements than North Carolina and Texas. Kentucky universities publish degree pathways in an online guide to help transfer students meet lower division requirements for majors. The number of pathways identified by each institution ranges from a high of 24 at the University of Louisville to none listed for Kentucky State. In the following section, we present findings on implementation of transfer policy across these different systems.
Implementation Findings
Student uncertainty
A common theme across all system types and states is that many students do not select a major and destination institution early enough in their community college career to avoid credit loss, and students also change their mind about their major. As discussed by college staff and students, community college students who delay major selection, change their major, do not know where they want to transfer, or pursue a general liberal arts degree may accumulate credits that do not apply to their degree program at university.
Major uncertainty also prevents students from fully taking advantage of seamless transfer policies available in 2 + 2 systems. In some states, stakeholders expressed doubts about transfer pathways as the correct lever for increasing community college students’ credit mobility because community college students must select a major early on. A university administrator from Tennessee explained that their new transfer pathways may not work for students who are indecisive about their major:
Theoretically if they entered as a first-year student at the community college knowing specifically they wanted to be a history major, they could come through the pathway and come here ready to be a junior history major. In reality, they may spend a semester or two semesters at the community college trying to figure out what they want to major in. So they enter the path late, or they enter the path already with credits accumulated that don’t apply. That’s where some of the difficulties come in. (Tennessee)
Another administrator in New York shared similar concerns:
The specific population that the seamless transfer requirement was designed to serve, namely, students coming from a SUNY community college with an associate’s degree and transferring into the same major, they are likely to move through pretty smoothly and graduate in 4 years. And that was really the impetus behind putting that requirement in place. I’m just not sure how many students that actually represents. (SUNY)
Similarly, a transfer student at a Tennessee university said he wished he knew what he wanted to major in from the “get-go,” so he could have taken advantage of a transfer pathway:
I would definitely say it makes it easier if you know what you would like to study at the 4-year because, well, you know, how I said I lost 11 credits? Some of that was definitely due to nonapplicability or nonequivalency. But if I had known from the get-go, then I could have gotten 60 hours completed in 2 years, and used the pathway program and transferred right in. It would have been far simpler than having to kind of work out, I guess, some of the kinks in terms of what would transfer and what wouldn’t.
Students’ experiences suggest that advising about the importance of selecting a major and transfer destination early on, or at least the trade-offs associated with not selecting them early on, is critical to ensuring that students can prepare to successfully transfer. Yet, community colleges may lack capacity to provide personalized support to students interested in transfer early in their career. Community college staff in every system and state discussed the challenge of insufficient advisors, and in the site visit states, many community college students intending to transfer and university transfer students described a largely self-directed transfer experience. In documenting the most common student supports across the institutions represented in this study, early and individualized advising for community college students who want to transfer was rarely mentioned. Common services for community college students who want to transfer included centers, events, and online course equivalency tools and transfer guides that advisors could direct students to or that students could access on their own. Many community colleges also partnered with university advisors to provide transfer advising on the community college campus, but these advisors were typically reserved for students who already knew which university they wanted to attend, and students had to take the initiative to meet with these advisors.
What was often missing was a process for community college students that could prevent credit loss by mapping out their degree pathway early in their college career, similar to the process described by an advisor from Florida State University (FSU):
Our biggest role is to help them identify if they are going to be an AA student and the university transfer institution and the degree path that they want at that university as quickly as possible. And we want to start them thinking about that at 18 hours and then by 30 hours be really solid so that we get them on the right path and particularly on the right science courses if they need a certain GPA and they need to know that early. Particularly in our case a vast majority of our students and I think 80% of our students transfer to FSU and we actually map FSU requirements with our students. This is the first semester, this is the second semester, this is the third, and this is the fourth, and we take those maps and show our students that these are the courses you need for FSU, so be sure to take these and take them in this order so that you do not have any trouble when you get there.
Thus, potential for degree program credit loss persists across all types of policy systems due to student uncertainty about their major and destination institution. While student uncertainty may be mitigated by individualized and early advising, community college staff may struggle to provide this service to students due to large caseloads and demands on their time.
Advisor capacity
The challenge of advising large numbers of students with a variety of needs is made even more difficult by the expansive knowledge base required to successfully advise transfer students. In particular, advisors in institution-driven systems described their systems as more complex than advisors in other states and systems due to the sheer number of articulation agreements. For example, a North Carolina community college advisor discussed how to manage all of the different program requirements and the importance of knowing how to access resources because it is impossible to know offhand the requirements for every program in the state:
I have an expansive spreadsheet with I think 30 tabs across the bottom, and each tab is a major at UNC Charlotte and each tab tells me yes or no to Associate’s Degree, this many hours, semester course work. Sixteen schools times an average of 80 programs per school. Let me be clear about a few things when I say that. The first thing is, do we have to memorize it? No. We have to know where to quickly find it. We become very well-versed at quickly finding it. Second of all, you have to have people at the college who know who to call at that 4-year school if something looks confusing, which it usually does for admission standards. I’m working with transfer advisors who know who to call. We have a whole separate document of who to call for what program.
Advising in institution-driven states may also be more resource-intensive. Community college advisors in Texas described drawing on transfer planning guides to advise students about which lower division courses transfer and apply to particular programs and specific universities, but it is cost-prohibitive to have a guide for every major and to keep all the guides up-to-date. As a result, advisors may be working with incomplete or incorrect information. Institution-driven systems may leave more room for error, as described by a Texas community college administrator:
One of the major complications when you do not have policy that’s aligned is that you have very customized advising. When you have very customized advising, there’s a lot of room for misinformation. And so much responsibility is left to the advisor to know about, not just the general transfer information, but to know a lot of information about the different requirements for the different disciplines. And advising often gets a bad rap, but we have a very complex system in place, that it’s not surprising that sometimes things that are not beneficial to the student to occur.
In sum, transfer advising is complex, and community college advisors may inadvertently provide incorrect information about which courses to take to transfer students because information about a university’s degree program requirements is hard to find, does not exist, or is outdated. This challenge may be particularly acute in institution-driven systems.
Contribution and Considerations
Our policy framework is unique in its focus on the scope of credit mobility policies in a state or system as they pertain to helping community college students transfer and apply their credits to their program at a university. The framework is the first categorization of ways in which states or systems implement major-specific transfer pathways, which can range from system-wide agreements for all, to some majors, to institutional articulation agreements. States and systems can use this framework to craft policy solutions related to helping students transfer and apply credits to avoid taking additional prerequisites, or accumulating excess credits.
Policy Considerations
Institution-driven systems
Institution-driven systems that want to develop more cohesion in lower division major requirements across the state may look to credit equivalency or 2 + 2 systems for examples of implementation processes and policies. For example, under credit equivalency systems, universities maintain flexibility in determining whether transfer students have met all lower division requirements and, thus, can enter major-ready. These policies may be more feasible to develop, implement, and maintain if they target only a subset of majors, such as the most popular majors (CUNY) or majors with the most specific lower division requirements (Washington).
The 2 + 2 systems
While 2 + 2 systems provide more clarity for students and advisors about credits that transfer and apply to specific majors across a state or system, to take advantage of these policies, students must select their major early on. A strategy that may support undecided students in 2 + 2 systems is the meta-major transfer pathway. For example, in Florida, system-wide, meta-major transfer pathways specify a set of agreed-upon general education and pre-major courses for a set of degree programs or majors in the same field at 4-year institutions in the state or system (Altstadt, 2014).
Practice Considerations
Institutions have set up a number of supports for community college students intending to transfer but we found these resources may not come early enough to be most useful for students, or they require students to be largely self-directed in the transfer process. Thus, across all transfer policy types, it is important to build the knowledge and capacity of community college advisors and students. States and systems might consider investing in resources and training for community college advisors to build their knowledge and ability to access the information needed to advise transfer students. Investments in advisor professional development and efficient processes at universities to expand and update transfer planning guides may be particularly important in institution-driven systems.
States and institutions can also support credit mobility by developing what we refer to as transfer college knowledge at critical milestones. A core component of college readiness is “college knowledge,” which includes contextual information around navigating college (Conley, 2007, p. 17). The concept of college knowledge does not currently include the specific types of skills and knowledge that students interested in transfer will need to successfully navigate the transfer process. While “Transfer Student Capital” describes how community college students accumulate knowledge to successfully navigate transfer (Laanan, Starobin, & Eggleston, 2010, p. 177), transfer college knowledge comprises what specific pieces of information students interested in transfer need to know. Across all systems, it is important for community college students interested in transfer to know things such as majors and programs that align with their career interests; optimal timeline for major selection to avoid accumulating excess credits; how and where to access transfer resources; if undecided, any drawbacks of pursuing general studies degree and any opportunities to explore multiple majors and avoid accumulating excess credits (e.g., meta-majors); colleges/universities offering chosen major; financial aid and admissions processes for transfer students; and policies and procedures to self-advocate for course/credit transfer.
Transfer college knowledge should also be somewhat tailored based on the transfer policies. In particular, in institution-driven and credit equivalency systems, community college students interested in transfer should also understand the importance of selecting universities they may be interested in early in their college career and understanding the specific major requirements at the universities.
We found little evidence that community colleges were talking to students who were interested in transfer about the transfer process early. Therefore, building transfer college knowledge should start in counseling sessions with high school students interested in starting their college career at community college and then should be embedded into community college orientation curriculum, first-year experience, and student success courses offered in the first term. Doing so will provide students with opportunities to explore selecting both a major and destination institution, as well as learn what is required to transfer major-ready into upper division coursework without excess credits.
Beyond focusing on building individual capacity, institutions may also want to examine to what extent their structures, policies, and practices promote transfer success. Prior research recommends that institutions create a “transfer receptive culture” in which an institution commits to providing the necessary supports to students to navigate the transfer process (Jain, Herrera, Bernal, & Solorzano, 2011, p. 255). A transfer culture may be particularly important for underrepresented college students because transfer supports and programs may need to be tailored based on students’ specific background and culture (Crisp & Nuñez, 2014; Pérez & Ceja, 2009). The Puente Project in California is considered a model for promoting a transfer culture that provides the necessary supports for underrepresented college students to successfully navigate transfer.
Conclusion
Our study highlights the complexities of navigating transfer for students, advisors, and other institutional actors across a broad range of systems, even those with long-standing or recently adopted system-wide, major-specific transfer pathways. State and system transfer policy reforms must be continuously evaluated to better understand both the complexities of implementation and the extent to which the policies are achieving their intended goals. The research by Baker (2016) is an excellent model of how to study the impact of major-specific transfer pathways, and should be extended to examine the impact of these policies on students’ credit mobility and bachelor’s degree completion. We also recommend that future regional and national research examine the extent to which there are differences in credit mobility and completion outcomes under 2 + 2, credit equivalency, and institution-driven systems. Continued qualitative research may also help in understanding the mechanisms underlying the effect of policy on student outcomes and how local-level interpretation of state- and system-level policies impacts transfer credit mobility.
Continuing to highlight effective ways to ensure transfer students do not lose the credits they earned or accumulate excess elective credits is essential to supporting the degree completion of millions of community college students each year, many of whom are the first in their families to go to college and who seek an affordable path to a bachelor’s degree and, ultimately, a gainful career.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This report is based on research funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.