Researchers from the City University of New York (CUNY) have received a $550,000 award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to study what factors help or deter community college students who are interested in the humanities, transfer to four-year institutions.
The foundation award supports CUNY’s efforts to diminish the leaks in the community college to bachelor’s degree transfer pipeline, college officials said.
The researchers who will be conducting the study “Community College Students Majoring in the Humanities: Transfer and Obtainment of Bachelor’s Degrees”, include Drs. Alexandra Logue, a research professor at the Center for Advanced Study in Education at CUNY’s Graduate Center; Chet Jordan, assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at CUNY’s Guttman Community College; and Colin Chellman, university dean for institutional and policy research at CUNY.
Nationwide, over 80 percent of new students who begin their community college degree program say that their goal is a bachelor’s degree, but only 17 percent receive one six years later, according to Logue.
Within the CUNY system, that number falls to about 11 percent.
Several researchers have previously analyzed the relationship between a student’s major and their ability to smoothly transfer to a four-year institution. However, the focus of those studies have generally focused on students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
“There are actually a fair number of programs to help students transfer from community college to bachelor’s degree programs and finish their bachelor’s degrees, but there’s virtually nothing for students in the humanities,” Logue said, adding that it’s possible that humanities students are “having worse problems with this transition than are the STEM students, because there aren’t special programs for them.”
