On advice from a friend who transferred here, I contacted Joe Waranyuwat, Academic Advisor and Coordinator of Transfer Programs at UIUC (interview here). He was very helpful; giving me an outline of how the transfer process works here at UIUC and answering my questions about transfer students. I'd once again like to thank Mr. Waranyuwat for his time.
This week, I've been reading a lot on transfer students. I haven't been summarizing them formally, but I have added them to my bibliography. These papers focused on the process transfer students go through and how they fair at their new universities, and how community colleges can best help their students.
The second topic was addressed in Juan Carlos Calcagno, et. al's "Community College Student Success: What Institutional Characteristics Make a Difference?" Which compared individual student results based on the community college they attended. They found that smaller size and lower proportion of part-time faculty both correlated with higher success rates.
The first topic was addressed in a number of papers I read, one of which, "Academic Performance of Community College Transfer Students and 'Native' Students at a Large State University," was written by J. Conrad Glass Jr. and Anthony Harrington. It compared 100 transfer students and 100 'native" students all attending a 4-year public university students for 2 years starting junior year. Some transfer students saw gpa fall the first semester of junior year, but final grades were not statistically different from non-transfers. Transfer students were more likely to drop out and graduate late, but were in many ways similar to "native" students. The sample size, however, was quite small.
A more qualitative look at the process of transferring came from Barbara Townsend's "Community College Transfer Students: A Case Study of Survival," which interviewed community college students from one school who transferred to one 4-year university. The students mostly reported that they transferried on their own, with more help from the 4-year university than the community college. They found the academics more rigorous at the 4-year university, and many of their biggest wishes were that the community college would emphasize more writing.
Townsend worked with Nancy McNerny and Allen Arnold to produce a quantitative measurement of transfer students in "Will this Community College Transfer Student Succeed? Factors Affecting Transfer Student Performance," which followed transfer students from one community college to one 4-year university. They focused mainly on high school and community college performance as predictors, and found that both predict higher gpas at the 4-year university. But it also found that of the students, about 50% would not have been accepted based on high school performance alone, and many were able to achieve satisfactory gpas at the 4-year university.
From the readings this week, I think I have a few questions:
1. Part-time faculty correlate with lower success rates for students of community colleges. Is it justifiable for these colleges to increase tuition so they can higher full time staff, or would this expense not justify any improved results that might be seen?
2. The success of community college students still largely depends on background and academic preparation. But many community colleges employ open enrollment and have a mission of serving everyone. Is this mission hurting the students who end up moving on to 4-year colleges and would benefit from more rigorous teaching? Should community colleges be divided into those for students who want associates or below and those who want bachelors or above?
3. Transfer students face two types of challenges when arriving at new schools: social and academic. How are these problems different from "native" students? What can universities do to help transfer students meet these challenges?
4. As shown before, high school success is a huge indicator of college success. But some transfer students succeed at community colleges and 4-year universities despite shaky high school records. Is this the case of students under-performing in high school, but they know most of the information needed for college, they just don't signal so, or do they learn the gaps in their knowledge at community colleges that allow them to succeed at 4-year universities? Can community colleges take students who are not qualified for 4-year universities and transform them into students who are?
In part of what you wrote, there seems an implicit assumption that the 4-year college in the story entails a residential experience. Your question 3 seems to assume that. Is the social experience an issue at 4-year commuting campuses? Do you know in the studies that you looked at whether the 4-year schools are residential or not? It would be good to clarify on that issue.
ReplyDeleteLet me also take on just one question you asked. This is number 2 about community college mission. It would be good for this one to know the relative size of the two populations. Also, "want" is presumably a before the fact variable and it is unclear from how you wrote the question whether there are students who want a bachelors but never transfer to a four year institution. So you might puzzle on that a bit and ask whether what you should pose the question in a different way based on variables that are observed - those who transfer and those who don't.