“Transfer outcomes for students who start at community colleges are frankly deplorable,” Josh Wyner, vice president and executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, said in a phone interview on Friday.
The Transfer Playbook: Essential Practices for Two- and Four-Year Colleges, a report produced by the Aspen Institute and the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University takes a closer look at community college transfer outcomes. They found that when both two- and four-year schools take ownership of easing the transition between institutions for students, the results tend to be much better.
“Colleges have to start thinking about students before they arrive and after they leave,” Wyner said, adding that while colleges are typically concerned with enrollment, they are now also facing pressure to be accountable for student outcomes.
Although statistics indicate that many community college transfer students might not ever achieve their goal of a bachelors degree, some community colleges and universities are in fact serving transfer students well, the report found. CCRC and Aspen looked at community colleges in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Washington that have demonstrated particular success with their transfer student population.
Many states promote articulation agreements between two- and four-year schools, which are intended to ensure that credits earned at one institution will carry weight at institutions they later apply to or transfer to. The report found that in addition to statewide policies, strong relationships between community colleges and universities helped tailor course offerings and credit transfers to ensure that students were able to move between two- and four-year schools.
“We have often acted as though state policy alone can solve problems,” Wyner said. “I think what our research is showing is that institutional practice does as much, or more, as does state policy.”
