Between 70% and 80% of students who start classes at community colleges plan to transfer to four-year universities. But only between 20% and 30% do.
In California, that number is closer to the lower end of that spectrum, a University of Wisconsin researcher told a room full of higher education representatives.
The leaders of California's three public higher education systems were among the attendees at the inaugural Strategic Transfer Summit, hosted at UC Merced in early November. The summit was aimed at highlighting the challenges students face in transferring from community colleges to four-year universities, and at finding ways to reduce or eliminate those hurdles.
"Students have to navigate multiple programs to transfer," said Xueli Wang, educational leadership professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "They find themselves wandering around the educational system."
Her research found that students failed to transfer to four-year colleges for a variety of reasons, including financial needs, loss of credits between institutions, family considerations and social isolation. She advocated a holistic approach, addressing all these issues, stabilizing institutional structures and "uncluttering" the path for these students.
Several current and former transfer students described their experiences making the transition to four-year universities.
"It was a little confusing," said Sebastian Lepe, who attends California State University, Stanislaus. But Lepe, a first-generation college student, said he had helpful professors at Hartnell College in Salinas. "They guided me into what classes I needed to take and pushed me, saying, 'Hey, this is what you've got to do.'"
Others didn't get the same level of guidance.
"My advisor said, 'What is this major?'" said Michael Schultz, a cognitive science student at UC Merced who attended Modesto Junior College. "I looked at the UC Merced website and had to go through that all by myself."
