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First came the good news. After taking classes at a community college, Ricki Korba was admitted to California State University, Bakersfield, as a transfer student. But when she logged on to her student account, she got a gut punch: Most of her previous classes wouldn’t count.
The university rejected most of her science classes, she was told, because they were deemed less rigorous than those at Bakersfield — even though some used the same textbooks. Several other courses were rejected because Korba exceeded a cap on how many credits can be transferred.
Now Korba, a chemistry and music major, is retaking classes she already passed once. It will add a year to her studies, plus at least $20,000 in tuition and fees.
“It just feels like a waste of time,” said Korba, 23, of Sonora, California. “I thought I was supposed to be going to a CSU and starting hard classes and doing a bunch of cool labs.”
Every year, hundreds of thousands of students start at community colleges hoping to transfer to a university later. It’s advertised as a cheaper path to a bachelor’s degree, an education hack in a world of ever-rising tuition costs.
Yet the reality is rarely that simple. For some students, the transfer process becomes a maze so confusing it derails their college plans.
Among nearly 1 million students who started at a community college in 2016, just one in seven earned a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Saving the College Dream
This story is part of Saving the College Dream, a collaboration between AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, and The Seattle Times, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.
One of the biggest obstacles is known as credit loss — when students take classes that never end up counting toward a degree.
Sometimes it’s a result of poor advising. Without clear guidance from community colleges, students take courses they don’t need. Blame can also lie with four-year colleges, which have varying rules for evaluating transfer credits. Some are pickier than others.
The outcome, however, is often the same. Students take longer to finish their degrees, costing more in tuition. For many, the extra work becomes too much to bear. Ultimately, roughly half of community college students drop out.
“It’s completely defeating for some students,” said Jessie Ryan, vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a research group. “These systems have been designed to work for colleges and educators, but they haven’t been designed to work for students.”
Among nearly 1 million students who started at a community college in 2016, just one in seven earned a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse.
The search for solutions has yielded scattered success. In many states, colleges and universities have formed partnerships to make sure certain classes transfer. More than a dozen states have adopted common class numbering systems to create consistency across schools.
Still, problems remain frustratingly common.
A recent study at the City University of New York system found, among students who transferred from a community college to a bachelor’s program, nearly half lost at least some work. On average, those students lost the equivalent of almost a full semester.
“The pipeline from community college to a bachelor’s degree is a very leaky pipeline,” said Alexandra Logue, one of the researchers and a former provost at the CUNY system. The outcomes are worst among Black, Hispanic and low-income students, who are more likely to start at community colleges, she said.
Related: ‘The reckoning is here’: More than a third of community college students have vanished
Korba thought she was taking the right classes at Columbia College, a community college in Sonora. She worked with a counselor and used an online catalog that shows which courses were supposed to transfer to CSU schools.
But when officials at Bakersfield reviewed the transcript, they said most of her classes wouldn’t count toward her major.
University officials declined to comment on Korba’s case, but they said a small number of transfer credits can fall into a “gray area” and require extra review. Dwayne Cantrell, Bakersfield’s chief enrollment officer, said credit loss is rare, and many classes from California community colleges automatically get accepted.
Facing an extra year of school, Korba likely will run out of financial aid before she graduates. She’s making plans to go part-time in school and work longer hours so she can afford tuition and rent. But she wonders how long she can juggle it all.
“The pipeline from community college to a bachelor’s degree is a very leaky pipeline.”
Alexandra Logue, a former provost at the CUNY system
“I worry how much more interested I’ll be in school than just focusing on getting money from a job,” she said.
Stories like Korba’s aren’t uncommon, especially in California, which has long struggled to connect its 116 community colleges to more than 30 public universities.
Mea Montañez will graduate from San Francisco State University in May, but only after retaking nearly a year’s worth of classes she already passed at a community college. The school didn’t accept her classes in psychology — her major — because they weren’t considered a match.
“I’m taking the classes and I’m like, ‘This is exactly what I took,’” said Montañez, 34. “If anything, it was much more challenging at the community college level.”
University officials said classes can look the same on paper, but the details of what’s taught don’t always line up. Still, they acknowledged room for improvement.
“Credit loss happens, but it’s something we’ve been working hard on for a long time,” said Lori Beth Way, dean of undergraduate education at SFSU.
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When students transfer to any school, their transcripts often get reviewed by faculty. For instance, biology professors would decide whether a biology class from another school should count.
But those judgments can be colored by stigma — some faculty look down at community colleges — and by financial incentives, said Logue, of CUNY. Refusing credits, she said, means students must take more classes at their own school. Faculty also sometimes hold a higher standard for accepting a class toward a major than just accepting it as a general requirement.
“That’s money, and it keeps people’s jobs,” she said. “But it’s a very short-sighted viewpoint.”
“It’s completely defeating for some students. These systems have been designed to work for colleges and educators, but they haven’t been designed to work for students.”
Jessie Ryan, vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a research group.
Some states have intervened to take subjectivity out of the process. Under a new Maryland rule, a class must be accepted if it shares 70 percent of the learning objectives with a comparable class. If credits are denied, students and community colleges must receive an explanation.
California made strides with a 2010 law requiring community colleges to offer special associate degrees that guarantee admission to a CSU campus. A 2021 law will put all eligible students on that track unless they opt out, and create a set of general education classes that must be accepted at all state universities.
Two Virginia colleges have gone further. From their first day on campus, students at Northern Virginia Community College are offered a direct path to a bachelor’s at nearby George Mason University. Students receive dual admission at both schools, and they can choose from 87 academic pathways that tell them exactly which classes they need.
Known as Advance, the program is designed to minimize credit loss and increase graduation rates. George Mason is working on expanding the model to other community colleges.
“Students understand from Day One what they are required to take,” said Jason Dodge, director of the program. “They know the rug is not going to slip out from under them along the way.”
This story is part of Saving the College Dream, a collaboration between AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, and The Seattle Times, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.
Preaching to the choir. While my CC has pathways for transfer students that seem good, I can’t speak for all of them or everyone, I know for a fact I can’t attend any of my school’s partners. I relied on financial aid for CC, and managed to attend purely because of my financial aid. That doesn’t extend to any of my local universities though. NAU and UofA both accepted me, only to place my education behind a paywall that forced me to reject both of their offers. If the cost of attendance wasn’t enough then comes in graduation requirements, and since I have been trying to work abroad and chose to be a Japanese major I have to account for the added cost of studying abroad. What was roughly $30,000 per year, $60,000 for both, could easily balloon to the mid-70s or low 80s just for two years of school. Would you accept that many student loans?
I genuinely do not know if I will be able to finish college, and the past two years of school are filled with nothing but regret. I could have been working and saving money to pay for a larger university, but here I am with nothing. Am I the fool for attending CC, or am I the fool for thinking that I can even go to college?
Fun fact for whoever reads this: I graduated top 10% of my high school. I was on the free lunch program until the state redefined poor. I could only afford to apply to the universities that offer free applications. My elementary school and high school were both Title 1 schools. Neither of my parents finished high school. But here I am, the refuse of academia who can’t go anywhere.
These colleges in Cali are all about the money. I experienced the same problem when I transferred from a community college to a CSU. I thought I was going to learn something new. I had to take most of the same classes again. The only difference between CSU & community college is the tuition. I’m not even excited about getting a Bachelor’s degree anymore.
California State colleges and UC has a guaranteed admission program for community college students and no one looks down on them. What’s more likely is either the students did not make sure a class would transfer before, expected too many credits to transfer or the “not transferring” classes are because of major requirements, not general education requirements. A college degree is worth something and students need to be willing to work for it and pay for it. The article does not say if the extra year the students spent meant it took 3, 4 or 5 years to graduate. However it’s very reasonable to expect it to take at least 2 years to complete a degree at a Cal State or UC after community college. Those colleges are right to ensure that students starting at community college earned the same degree as students who attended 4 years. They should not reduce their standards. We need to encourage students to learn the material and work for their degree instead of playing the victim and demanding exceptions to the graduation requirements. Inclusivity does not mean watering down the requirements for some!
Still saved a few thousand bucks and a few credits, pity you lost a year from bad transfer advising
Thank you Rachael Harralson! This article was extremely skewed against the CC system. I am shocked to hear that half of all students lose transfer classes. So much so I’d loves citation since none are provided in this article that makes me question the validity of this article. I’d also like to mention that the one in seven don’t get a bachelors… most CC students don’t WANT a bachelors. They are mostly CTE students getting degrees in dental hygiene or mortuary science or automotive tech or aviation or or or… many things! I would also mention every CC needs to do their Student Learning Outcomes to transfer. Some colleges do better than others. My CC I work at is number one in the state at transferable classes. While I’d much prefer a college system more like Canada’s, this is the system we have and students have to choose their classes and colleges carefully, just like they need to choose four year colleges carefully. It matters where you go, and students should already know that IMO.
The first hit of my Google search “california community college transfer courses” was the Assist site.
Why does a long article about CA transfers cite a small dual enrollment program in Virginia between one 4 year college and one community college but completely ignores CA’s robust Assist program (https://assist.org/) which features transfer agreements and direct course articulation between all CA CCCs, CSUs, and UCs? This is the agreement for Chemistry between Columbia College and CSU Bakersfield: https://assist.org/transfer/report/26512541
Here it is for music:
https://assist.org/transfer/report/26512518
It took me 2 minutes on the Assist site to pull down both reports.
1) The article refers to community colleges as a waste of time and focuses mostly on California. There is more to the country than CA.
2) Community colleges offer classes that are career prep and or remedial. These types of classes rarely ever transfer. If the lowest class your university offers in math is say Pre-calc, all the courses a student takes at a community college to get ready for pre-calc will not transfer. So sorry, your hs level pre-algebra, algebra 1 and 2 won’t make the cut.
3) I tell my students to take 60cr of classes that transfer into their program of choice, not the university. You might need to take 80cr at the comm coll, but, starting as a Junior is worth it.
4) Some community college class are harder than university classes because they will have 1 course that covers everything at all the other universities. University students might do a selection 10 chapters from a book. The comm coll will do 12 chapter from that same book, just so the class transfers everywhere.
5) Some universities have really dumb transfer policies. In my state, Wayne State University used to deny transfer of all foreign language classes. One friend took 4 semesters of Spanish in comm coll and spoke Arabic natively at home. She was told her 4 classes didn’t count and she needed to retake a foreign language! A coworker took enough Japanese to have a minor in it from another university, transferred to WSU and was denied any of it. He was told he needed to start over. Both took a language 101 class and quit.
6) When it comes to classes at most comm college vs universities, you can use the same book, same material sometimes even the same prof. Trying to claim the comm coll was inferior to get more money out of students clearly doesn’t work. If most students drop out, the university wasted time and money of the student, money from the govt, and failed to get all the money it could have.