These 2-Year and 4-Year College Partnerships Keep Students From Falling Through the Cracks

Four out of five students who come to Northern Virginia Community College are seeking degrees it doesn’t offer. That’s where its partner, George Mason University, steps in.

The partnership makes it possible for students wanting a bachelor’s degree to save money by starting out at the community college, commonly called NOVA. The pairing was highlighted on Monday as one of the nation’s most successful transfer partnerships at the annual convention here of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Such role models are in great demand at a time when so many transfer students — and the credits they’ve earned — are falling through the cracks.

More than a third of college students transfer at least once, but 43 percent of the credits they earn are lost in the process, according to a report issued last year by the federal Government Accountability Office.

Helping Transfer Students

Colleges are simplifying the steps from community college to four-year degree.

• Transfer Students Deserve Better Road Maps
• Clearing the Path for Transfer Students
• The Transfer Experience: a Student Perspective

When credits are lost, students often take on more debt and spend more time retaking courses. They may use up the federal loans they’re eligible for or just get discouraged and drop out.

That’s one reason that while 80 percent of students attending community colleges say they’d like a bachelor’s degree, only 14 percent have one six years later, according to Josh Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.

When students take far more credits than they need to graduate, “that is inefficient not just for students, but for taxpayers,” Wyner said. Lawmakers who are already skeptical about the value of a college degree could use that against the institutions come budget time and reward those that make the process smoother for students, he said.

The NOVA-George Mason partnership offers a single point of entry for admissions, advising, and financial aid. Students starting out at NOVA are assigned success coaches who stick with them through graduation. Students declare a major from the start so all of their courses will count, and they won’t waste time and money taking a lot of classes they don’t need to graduate.

The requirements for a major at George Mason and the corresponding courses at Nova are all spelled out on the transfer website. About half of George Mason’s incoming class are community-college transfers, and the transfer students’ graduation rates are slightly higher than those who start out at the four-year college, according to officials from the two institutions.

The other model partnership highlighted at the conference is between the Maricopa Community College system and Arizona State University. Students entering that transfer pathway are also assigned to “success coaches” from the start, and get a personal welcome as “future Sun Devils.” An adviser also calls them to make sure they are comfortable with the online tools they’ll need to stay on track.

Successful transfer options are becoming increasingly important as more jobs that might have called for an associate degree in the past now require at least a bachelor’s. Whether because of credential creep or the recognition that many of today’s jobs require more sophisticated skills, an associate degree doesn’t carry the weight it once did, some community-college educators say. That presents challenges for the two-year colleges whose bread and butter is the two-year degree.

Scott Ralls, president of NOVA, urged community-college leaders who want to improve transfer rates to join with at least one committed four-year university. “To make it work, you need a willing partner,” he said. “You can’t tango by yourself.”

Streamlining the transfer process doesn’t mean that every credit earned at a community college should transfer. Someone who wants to major in engineering, for instance, has to take sufficiently rigorous prerequisite courses at the community college, said Maria Hesse, vice provost for academic partnerships at Arizona State. “We have legislators who want to distill it down to sound bites — make any associate degree half of a B.A.” The amount of planning and coordination involved in crafting a transferrable major, panelists said, is far more complex, and available to far too few students.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.