When a student registers to study biotechnology at Virginia Western Community College, they’re not just signing up for one of the school’s newest concentrations. They’re also starting a path to a bachelor’s degree that college administrators hope can save them time and money.
It’s part of a statewide push to make the transition from community college to four-year university easier for transfer students, who have historically been overlooked in favor of incoming freshmen.
A piece of 2018 legislation required Virginia public colleges to streamline their articulation agreements with community colleges in an effort to increase efficiency and boost student success. Five years later, schools across the state are rapidly announcing transfer agreements that are hyper-focused on creating realistic, achievable paths to in-demand careers, rather than leaving students to figure out their own road to a four-year degree.
It will take years to determine how the new agreements impact graduation rates. But transfer data shows some promise for years to come.
“It got us talking about how we would more seamlessly transfer students without losing credits, without losing time,” Elizabeth Wilmer, vice president of academic and workforce solutions at Virginia Western, said of the initiative created by the legislation, known as Transfer VA.
Instead of agreements between individual pairs of schools determining what grades or recommendations are required for transfer admissions, there’s now just one set of standards for the state’s 23 community colleges and 15 public universities that guarantee a transfer student will be accepted. (Individual agreements still exist for private schools.)
The reforms also require four-year schools to work more closely with community colleges to develop pathways for students to follow through a specific program of study, from their first community college class to receiving their bachelor’s degree diploma.
It’s an investment not just in student success, but also in the long-term viability of higher education institutions facing declining enrollment and new skepticism about the value of a college degree in the modern workplace.
New agreements seek to reduce transfer obstacles
Transfer students can make up a third to half of incoming students at a lot of universities. “But they’re sort of hidden as a population,” said John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Transfer students often get less attention from advisors and less financial aid than students enrolling as freshmen.
While starting at a community college and finishing a bachelor’s degree somewhere else is a common route for many students hoping to save money on their education, relatively few of them reach the finish line.
Only about 16% of students who entered community college in 2015 with the goal of earning a bachelor’s degree actually transferred and graduated within six years, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. (College student success data lags because it tracks a student over six years, not four.)
And few students students who transfer from a community college to a four-year school successfully complete what’s known as the “2+2 sequence” to graduate in four years, Fink said. Many students transfer several times, setting themselves back further each time they do.
By the time they graduate, it’s common for a transfer student to have earned more than the 120 credits typically required for a bachelor’s degree, simply because of discrepancies between schools regarding which classes count toward their major.
The college transfer experience is so complex that it’s hard to determine exactly why these students struggle to earn their bachelor’s degrees, Fink explained. But time and cost are two obvious obstacles. Giving students a clear guide telling them how to complete their degree in the shortest amount of time can help reduce those barriers.
Students who successfully complete Virginia Western’s associate of science degree in science with the new biotechnology specialization are guaranteed admission to Radford University’s biology program to complete their bachelor’s degree.
Similar agreements have recently been signed by Mountain Gateway Community College and Old Dominion University for a cybersecurity pathway, as well as between Virginia Highlands Community College and the University of Virginia at Wise for students pursuing computer science, exercise science or education. Each agreement offers students a semester-by-semester guide to which classes they should take to earn their associate and then their bachelor’s degree.
Student outcome data lags, but some early benefits are obvious
Similar initiatives to create clearer articulation agreements have been launched in several states, including Tennessee, Washington, California and Ohio, driven largely by lawmakers’ frustrations with the time and money it takes to earn a college degree.
But those reforms are all relatively new. And the previously mentioned six-year window tracking whether students graduate makes it hard to know yet whether the reforms are working.
Transfer data from the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia shows that more students who transfer into public four-year universities are doing so immediately after obtaining their associate degree from a Virginia community college. In fall 2022, 46% of transfer students had just received their two-year degree before transferring, compared to 44% in 2017, the year prior to the Transfer Virginia launch.
At Radford, the improvement is more pronounced. In fall 2022, 39% of transfer students enrolled right after earning their associate degree, compared to 33% who did so in fall 2017.
Those rate increases may indicate that students are continuing their education — following that 2+2 format — rather than delaying enrollment at a four-year school. The revised, uniform guaranteed admission standards are likely a factor in the increase, alongside the clear articulation pathways.
One of Virginia’s neighbors offers some additional optimism. In 2014, North Carolina revised its articulation agreements for the 16 schools in the state system to create more structure for transfer students and reduce their degree completion time.
Data from the first four years following the revision shows that students graduated with two to five “extra” credits fewer than they had been prior to the implementation. For an in-state student, that could mean a savings of up to $1,500 in tuition alone, based on current costs per credit hour at the flagship campus in Chapel Hill.
Wilmer at Virginia Western said that even without data on the impact of the new articulation agreements, some of the benefits have been clear. Beyond having firm degree pathways to guide students and their advisors, she said faculty is more knowledgeable about what transferring really looks like. “Faculty have now met their counterparts across the state and know what’s happening,” in programs at different colleges, Wilmer said. Clearer expectations help instructors have “better conversations” about curriculum and how students can be successful.
At Radford University, new articulation agreements help the school anticipate transfer students’ needs before they arrive because there’s better communication with community colleges, said Bethany Usher, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.
“If we know they’re coming, we can start offering opportunities,” she said, like summer undergraduate research programs, that an incoming transfer student might otherwise miss out on. And enrollment in certain programs at the community college level can help Radford prepare to have enough space to meet interest in limited-access programs like nursing.
That foresight can help small schools like Radford stay competitive when it’s time for a student to consider their transfer options.
“Almost every student who comes to college now has some sort of credit,” Usher said, including incoming freshmen who obtained community college credit through dual enrollment in high school or from Advanced Placement courses. “We need to make sure Radford is a destination, with clear pathways” for students enrolling with some college-level experience, she said.
Commitment from college leadership to change the student experience is essential for improving graduation rates for transfer students, Fink said. It’s not enough for a college president to sign an agreement, but still leave students to find their own way to 120 credits and a diploma. Adding student advisors at both the community college and four-year levels can help, as can the creation of dual-admission programs that integrate students into the four-year campus even before they transfer.
Private universities aren’t required to set up major-specific transfer agreements, but many schools offer them in order to recruit and engage with transfer students.
Roanoke College announced a dual-admission program with Virginia Western in fall 2023. Dubbed Rapid Maroons, the program allows students to start classes at the community college while participating in clubs and intramural sports at Roanoke College’s Salem campus. Transit passes for Virginia Western students allows dual-admitted students to travel between the two campuses for free.
Ferrum College launched a program in 2020 that guarantees that transfer students with an associate’s degree will be able to graduate from Ferrum in two years.
The school already guaranteed admission to graduates of Virginia community college, but the “Ferrum Promise” program promotes individualized advising to ensure students could complete their bachelor’s degree efficiently. If a student follows Ferrum’s guidance and must continue past two years, the remaining courses are free.