Four-year institutions, as the recipients of community college transfers seeking their baccalaureate degrees, must become more proactive participants in the transfer process and conversation. Currently, enrollment management models and data reporting requirements allow four-year institutions to take a passive approach to the issue of transfer. As an issue that affects nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates, to the detriment of the vast majority of them, and the effects of which are visited disproportionally both on underrepresented minority and on low-income students, this passivity is increasingly problematic on a national level. A recent study shows that where a specific and intentional program of community college outreach, scholarship support, and advisement are applied at a highly-selective four-year institution, there are sharp and significant effects on the enrollment and demographic numbers of transfer students, while maintaining high levels of student success and institutional standards.
