Community colleges offer students points of entry to a better way of life, and one of the most significant ways they do so is through low-cost accrual of college credit that can be applied to a bachelor's degree upon transfer to a four-year college or university. Most students who attend community college intend to transfer; in fact, in a 2022…

Better understanding of how students achieve vertical transfer is vital for advancing equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. Among the many sources of barriers, delays, and complexities demonstrated in previous research as influencing vertical transfer outcomes, the transfer admission process has been generally…

More than half of community college students nationwide intend to pursue a four-year degree; however, in Texas only one in four community college students transfer to four-year institutions successfully. Among students who do transfer to a Texas four-year institution, roughly 60 percent go on to graduate with a bachelor's degree. The result is…

Background: The potential for broadening participation in engineering among Black undergraduates via transfer pathways is considerable, given their large share of the community college population. By understanding the opportunities and challenges presented within the context of transfer, this potential can be realized. Purpose/hypothesis: The goal…

The transfer between two-year and four-year colleges is a critical path to baccalaureate attainment. Yet students face a number of barriers in transfer pathways, including a lack of coherent coordination and articulation between their community colleges and four-year institutions, resulting in excess units and increased time to degree. In this…

Objective: Community college transfer pathways are critical for advancing gender equity in STEM. Yet, community college students are often ignored within studies of women's participation in undergraduate computing. In a first effort to address this gap in the literature, this paper explores the composition of transfer-intending computing students…

The General Appropriations Act, Senate Bill 1, Article III, Special Provisions, Section 45, 89th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, for the 2026-27 biennium directs the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB or Coordinating Board) to submit an annual report that presents the goals and practices of Texas public general academic…

Native American college students in the United States face significant educational disparities. However, there has been limited research on how they demonstrate resilience within their communities. This research study explored the experiences of Native American community college students enrolled in transfer programs while also considering the…

Objective/Research Question: This practitioner-scholar study investigated perceptions and experiences of community college students who transferred upon completion of their associate degree programs in Colorado, a state with multiple state-level transfer policies. Each student participated in a cohort-based transfer support program offered at…

Objective: Although most community college students intend to transfer to a 4-year college, few ultimately do. We sought to assess how student experiences of the Exploring Transfer (ET) program influenced transfer rates. The ET program was offered by a private, 4-year liberal arts college. Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional survey of…

The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to investigate the success of students who use transfer articulation agreements to transfer from any of the 13 community colleges in Tennessee to one of the state's public, four-year, locally governed institutions to complete a bachelor's degree. Data were collected from five 4-year public…

The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) and the state's 28 public colleges and universities have collaborated over the last fifteen years to make easier and more transparent the process of transferring from a community college to a bachelor's degree program in one of the state's public colleges or universities. In this report, we…