IHEP Offers Lessons for Schools to Improve Transfer Pathways

Although 80% of students who enroll in community colleges plan on getting a bachelor’s degree, only around 15% do so within six years. It’s a product of what seems like a perpetually leaky transfer process, in which, nationwide, 43% of credits are lost between schools. Minoritized students are particularly affected—they’re more likely to start at two-year institutions and less likely to wind up finishing a four-year program. Now, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), a nonpartisan nonprofit promoting post-secondary access and success, is publishing lessons learned from its ongoing attempts to build a better, more equitable transfer system.

Since 2021, IHEP has been piloting TransferBOOST (Bachelor’s Opportunity Options that are Straightforward and Transparent), an initiative that offers support to 24 two and four-year institutions in Arizona, Virginia, and Illinois in improving their transfer pathways.

Amanda Janice Roberson, director of research and policy at IHEPAmanda Janice Roberson, director of research and policy at IHEP“[It] provides space and capacity for institutions and states to focus in on transfer populations and really drive the change that we want to see,” said Amanda Janice Roberson, director of research and policy at IHEP.

IHEP helps the schools align their transfer processes with four principles: that credits earned at an institution will transfer and apply to a bachelor’s, that costs will be streamlined and not change over the course of the student’s path, that time-to-degree will be minimized, and that degree pathways will be clearly communicated.

IHEP’s briefings, released Tuesday, are designed to serve as a model for institutions and states looking to replicate the Institute’s TransferBOOST work. One of the strongest takeaways is the importance of partnerships—within institutions, between institutions, and between institutions and states.

IHEP found that when schools and states work together, they are best positioned to take advantage of the information that they have amassed. As part of TransferBOOST, state and institutional leaders were able to use disaggregated data to figure out how they could best focus their efforts and where students were getting stuck. Northern Arizona University (NAU), for example, examined why so few community college transfer students received scholarships that were meant for them and found that the requirement that students apply for the money two semesters before moving to NAU was an unhelpful barrier.

The briefings also emphasized the importance of clear, joint communications with students to avoid the confusion that often accompanies the transfer process. Unified communications, IHEP found, lend a sense of credibility to the pathways that they are promoting. TransferBOOST schools communicated in a variety of ways that showed unity, the briefings said, including letters co-written by the presidents of different schools, and regular visits by four-year transfer staff and faculty to two-year colleges to recruit and inform students.