As four year colleges and universities look for ways to boost enrollment
and reach under represented students are growing number are focused
on community colleges transfer students who tend to be racially and
socioeconomically diverse at some of the nation's most selective
colleges. Transfer. Acceptance rates are now higher than first year
acceptance rates, but many community college students still struggle
with the transfer process and completing their degrees.
Special correspondent Harry Sreenivasan reports for our series Rethinking
college.
Being a transfer student comes with struggles. It's been a topic
on social media YouTube. Everyone is going to transfer well, there
are some problems with community college, and I feel like TIC talks,
one transferability and even an NBC sitcom to be attending tomorrow's
transfer ceremony to send off all the students leaving for so called
real schools. Community college transfer process is often a bumpy
ride.
Most students at a community college want to earn a bachelor's degree,
but very few do. According to the Community College Research Center
out of every 100 students that want to only 31 will transfer to a
four year institution, and only 14 will complete a bachelor's degree.
One of the biggest hurdles.
Transferring credits.
Students typically lose about 40% of their credits when they transfer
often do that, not taking the right course is for their majors or
the four year institution, not accepting their credits.
That hurdle and others mean very few transfer students only 8% are
able to successfully complete one of the cheapest routes to a bachelor's
degree two years at a community college and two years at a four year
institution.
25 year old Northern Virginia resident Jennifer Aguilar is on track
to do just that. I didn't actually have to fill out any applications
to come to George Mason. They did all of the paperwork for me. All
I had to do was just keep my good grades meet with my advisor sign
up for classes, and they just pretty much took care of the whole
thing. Aguilar graduated last spring with an associates degree from
Northern Virginia Community College or Nova. She is now in her first
semester at George Mason University and enrolled in a
A unique transfer partnership between the institutions called Advance.
Goal of the program is to help students like Aguiar, who want to
earn a bachelor's degree, but may face some challenges getting there.
I didn't think I would be attending George Mason. It feels really
unreal. To be honest, right out of high school. I did want to go
to college, but I just couldn't afford not even community college.
I just started working at various restaurants. And then it just got
to a point that I just told myself like I need to do something with
my life. I want to get an education have always had a dream of becoming
a psychologist, Advances a partnership between Nova and made launched
in the fall of 2018 Advance offers eligible Nova students automatic
Admission at George Mason while they're completing their associates
degree.
Every step of the way. The recent evening advanced students and their
families gathered for a welcome event on the George Mason campus
advances, one of a small but growing number of dual admission programs
around the country between two years and four year institutions designed
to ease the transfer process. But Nova and George Mason have implemented
a number of other supports as well, including 87 academic pathways
or majors that allow advanced student
Is to earn an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree in four
years.
That educational route saves advanced students about $15,000 compared
to students who spend four years at George Mason. Special Financial
Aid for advanced students helps reduce those costs even more
heart. Vance's about making transfer effective
is the president of Nova, the second largest community college in
the United States, with more than 75,000 students across six campuses.
When you look at our partnership with Mason even before it, Vance
We sent the majority of our transfer students to Mason.
When you looked at their ability to graduate within two years after
transferring to Mason, it wasn't what it should be. And so that's
really the nexus of advanced. We're really giving students that transparent
information, so they know right from the jump when they sign up exactly
what it's going to take to graduate in two years or less. And in
fact, more than 90% of the advanced students now do that.
The program, which is open to all Nova students who meet eligibility
criteria, including a two point oh GPA or higher has grown from about
150 students four years ago to 3300 Today about 40% are low income
and a majority are students of color.
83% of advanced students are still enrolled at Nova one year after
joining the program. That's 20 points higher than the national One
year retention rate for community college students. Nova students
in the program have access to the George Mason campus, and some take
classes there as part of their major
really had been here because of my previous Nova.
The experience. I felt really welcome here. I knew my way around
the library because I usually would spend my time there and to be
honest, like I feel like this is my home. Now we do have students
who are being integrated socially academically into the amazing culture
before making that hard transfer. Jason Dodge is the director of
the Advanced program. He and his team are employees of Nova and George
Mason.
The program is funded using state and tuition dollars from both institutions
and contributions from donors have moved from this idea of being
transferred, ready to be major ready. We know the differences between
being ready to transfer with an English degree like I did from a
community college to university in the differences with that, and
engineering are vastly different is that first year is crucial.
And so we've done a lot within that first year to bolster the services
that we have.
Those services include regular meetings with advanced coaches who
help students navigate courses and offer supports for challenges
outside of the classroom. So what did you do like in that moment
where Sabry Stewart is one of those coaches today she works with
more than 500 advanced students, But about 10 years ago she was a
student at Nova who found the transfer process difficult to navigate.
I was low income, so I really wanted to make sure
The money that was going towards my classes was going to count and
it would transfer to bachelor's degree. I work with a huge population
of low income students at Nova, and I think it's not only understanding
what that means from the financial aid standpoint, from a credit
standpoint, But from a life standpoint, I understand what it's like
for them to have to work to pay the bills.
Or to contribute financially to their family and the weight that
they carry with that.
One of the most important ways students are supported, is less visible.
We actually have enough courses to fill.
That pathway, collaborations and meetings. We needed to free up those
three credits and wanted to give them more hands on like the one
between Amy Richardson and assistant professor of engineering at
Nova and Colin Regal, an associate professor of mechanical engineering
at George Mason. These meetings have been essential.
That's, according to Gregory Washington, president of George Mason
University. But, he says it's not always easy requires people take
sit together in a room. It requires people on both ends to modify
classes.
To make them work together, So all of those hurdles are real ones.
But if we provide the proper pathway they actually can achieve and
they will be successful.
We can say that we've learned that Jennifer Aguilar says after she
graduates. She hopes to get a masters and possibly a PhD. There's
not a lot of psychologists that speak Spanish. I can bring out my
Spanish and help the community and just help people like me. George
Mason is currently expanding the advanced model to other community
colleges around the state.