Dear colleagues,

The third week of October is National Transfer Student Week, a celebration initiated by our partners at the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students. It is a time when we take special pleasure in celebrating some of our most resilient and tenacious students. Their educational road is unique and often challenging.

Before coming to ECMC Foundation, I served for more than six years as president of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, a coalition of 50 community colleges serving 700,000 students. Community colleges represent a transformative entity in U.S. higher education. Although these institutions have a broad mission, one of their most important aims is to serve as a gateway to the bachelor’s degree for students who might not otherwise have access to this important postsecondary credential. That’s due to the “transfer function,” an unglamorous term for one of the most progressive educational experiments in U.S. public education. In almost no other postsecondary setting can individuals, regardless of their educational background, economic circumstances or geographic locale, work toward a four-year degree. Although some higher education sectors celebrate the selectivity of their admissions requirements—for many applicants, a Metro ticket with no value—community colleges punch the tickets of all comers with a promise that is limited only by a student’s aspirations.

The history of the transfer process is well over a century old, with the establishment of the first community college in 1901. Since that time, individuals from diverse racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds have attended these institutions in large numbers, attracted by their relatively low cost, open admission requirements and geographic accessibility. Today, more than a third of all undergraduates attend a community college. It is a record of success that is sometimes unheralded but powers a significant number of students toward brighter futures.

For all this success, however, the national conversation about the transfer function is muted. Part of that is due, perhaps, to a more volatile conversation about the value of the traditional four-year degree. Yet I fear that it runs deeper than that. Recent data by the Aspen Institute and the Community College Research Center shows that only about 16% of students who begin college at two-year institutions transferred and earned a bachelor’s degree in six years. This figure is only two percentage points higher than a similar study conducted a decade ago.

This data prompted a necessary conversation about the transfer function. If transfer advocates at two- and four-year institutions are candid with themselves, I believe we can agree that the transfer process has never reached its potential in propelling community college students toward a four-year degree. Some data suggests that as many as 80% of first-time students entering a community college wish to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. That only 16% are successful cannot be seen as anything other than disappointing, given the aspirations of so many individuals.

The reasons for these disappointing findings are well documented—and, I hasten to add—often emanate far beyond the campus borders of any given community college. Four-year colleges, for example, are often the unrecognized “silent partner” with community colleges but whose devotion to these students, with some notable exceptions, has been curiously overlooked. (A moment’s reflection reveals that four-year institutions, not community colleges, control the admissions process for the bachelor’s degree. As noted in the previously linked article, “Transfer works—or not—to the degree that four-year institutions recruit, admit and serve community-college students.”) But more and more four-year institutions, including some storied names among highly selective liberal arts institutions, are taking the lead in building roadmaps to the bachelor’s degree for these students. See our latest blog post for a description of Vassar College’s “Exploring Transfer” project.

At ECMC Foundation, we believe community college transfer students face a key intersection of challenges in higher education; challenges we are working to address. For example, community college students report among the highest levels of food insecurity. One in five community college students have dependent children, a student constituency whose needs have only recently been acknowledged by philanthropy. In addition, about 3.4 million students are attending rural community and Tribal colleges around the country, regions where postsecondary options are often extremely limited. Community colleges are also among the most racially and ethnically diverse postsecondary institutions in the nation, constituencies that have often not been well served by traditional postsecondary education institutions.

I am honored to lead an organization that understands the multiple talents, responsibilities and needs of postsecondary students, as represented by our Initiatives, strategically responsive grantmaking and our Education Innovation Ventures investments. Transfer students have led the way in helping us understand how our current postsecondary structures often fail to serve students farthest from educational opportunity.

As we celebrate Transfer Students Week, we should also honor the transfer advocates around the country who work hard to smooth this pathway to the bachelor’s degree. First, by acknowledging that despite the low national transfer rate, there are scores of places where transfer is working well. Community college and four-year institutional leaders there are galvanized by the enrollment potential that the transfer function offers their institutions, but especially by the diversity of the students in this pipeline who bring extraordinary lived experiences to their campuses.

Second, we should cheer state higher education leaders who have led the way in streamlining the transfer process across their public community colleges and four-year institutions. These efforts include the development of guaranteed student pathways in Maine that simplify a student’s journey between two- and four-year institutions and the development of new online resources in New York that show students how their earned credits will transfer to other postsecondary institutions.

Finally, we should celebrate our students who are determined to make a success of their transfer journey. Transfer students are part of, not separate from, the rich diversity of undergraduates currently enrolled in colleges and universities around the country. Their goal of a bachelor’s degree is no less important than others seeking credentials and degrees to better their lives, their families and their communities. Let’s celebrate them now and all year.

 Sincerely,

Jacob Fraire
President
ECMC Foundation