WASHINGTON – LaChaun Anderson was not a stellar student in high school. At the community college level, she continued to struggle. But as a transfer student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Anderson turned things around, making the dean’s list and studying abroad in China.
During a conference hosted by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Thursday, Anderson said the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program (CSTEP) made all the difference.
CSTEP is one of eight transfer-student programs funded by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation as part of a larger initiative to increase the number of moderate- to low-income community college students matriculating into highly-selective colleges and universities. CSTEP guarantees low- and moderate-income students admission into UNC-Chapel Hill if they enroll at one of three local community colleges affiliated with the university and complete their program successfully.
Today, Anderson is the executive assistant to the CEO of Bennett Aerospace where she works on creating new international markets.
To highlight programs such as CSTEP, the foundation on Thursday released “Partnerships that Promote Success: The Evaluation of the Community College Transfer Initiative,” a study of successful programs and policies that have assisted talented lower‐income community college students to transfer to the nation’s most selective institutions. The study includes an evaluation of the foundation’s Community College Transfer Initiative (CCTI), which identifies effective practices to recognize high‐achieving lower‐income students in community colleges and improve their transfer experience to increase their likelihood of college success.
Over the last five years, the foundation has equipped nearly 2,000 students from across the country with the financial resources and institutional support they need to be successful at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Bucknell University, and Cornell University.
The eight institutions participating in the CCTI reportedly improved their ability to recruit qualified students and support their success, according to the foundation. The study revealed that the institutions enrolled the nearly 2,000 additional lower‐income community college students, exceeding the goals of the initiative. Among the CCTI students surveyed, 41 percent were the first in their family to attend a four‐year college, and many of them would not have considered attending a selective institution without the encouragement of CCTI programs.
