Improving the Transfer Handoff

The Critical Effort to Help Community-College Students Get a Four-Year Degree For decades, four-year colleges have relied on a steady stream of transfer students to fill their seats and diversify their enrollments. But all too often, those students have become discouraged as credits failed to transfer, financial aid runs out, and feelings of insecurity set in. As enrollment pressures and equity concerns have intensified, institutions are now finding that their own survival is more closely tied to the success of transfer students. Rather than waiting for community-college students to reach out to them, they’re joining with two-year colleges to recruit students early and smooth the path to a bachelor’s degree. This Chronicle issue brief analyzes which approaches are working and provides practical advice on how to eliminate the barriers standing in students’ way. Its focus is on the most common form of transfer — from two-year to four-year colleges— and includes the latest data to inform