“Reverse-transfer programs” help students earn associate degrees and boost graduation rates for community colleges, write Donna Ekal of the University of Texas at El Paso, and Paula M. Krebs of the University of Massachusetts at Boston in a Chronicle of Higher Education commentary.
When students transfer from community colleges before completing an associate degree, they’re counted as drop-outs. UTEP, U Mass-Boston and others “ensure that transfer students with significant credits from two-year colleges are awarded associate degrees once they have completed the necessary coursework at their new institutions.”
UTEP works with El Paso Community College to track students who qualify for an associate degree. Manual counting missed many eligible students. In 2009-10, an automated credit-transfer system identified 1,166 students eligible for associate degrees. Almost all were working-class Mexican-Americans earning the first college degrees in their families.
Up go the graduation rates at the community college, up goes the self-esteem of the newly credentialed student, and up goes the retention rate at the university: It’s the ultimate win-win situation.
Retention rates for transfer students have increased steadily since 2003-04, when UTEP set up a transfer-student center at the community college, joint training for academic advisers at both institutions and improved orientation for transfer students.
Most students at the University of Massachusetts at Boston transfer from local community colleges without associate degrees. The university is piloting a reverse-transfer program with Massasoit Community College.
The associate is a valuable credential in the job market, write Ekal and Krebs. “Many students who are employed full time while pursuing a bachelor’s would benefit from being able to demonstrate—and, indeed, to understand—that they have completed a course of study that has improved their writing, quantitative and critical-thinking skills.”
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