The Tackling Transfer Initiative
Project: Tackling Transfer Initiative | Partnership length: 2018 - 2021 | HCM Service Area Spotlight: Change Management Strategies | Portfolio Category: Postsecondary
HCM Strategists spearheaded the Tackling Transfer Initiative to create conditions for improvements in community college transfer that are scalable and measurable to achieve greater equity for students from low-income households and students of color.
OVERVIEW
From 2018 to 2021, the Tackling Transfer project set out to fix the transfer pipeline. Led by the HCM, Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) and Sova, the Tackling Transfer partnership incorporated policy, practice, research, and strategic communications from across three states — Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia — and across the country.
The transfer process has been broken as long as it has existed. One underlying issue is that, as students move across learning institutions and the workplace, the various learning experiences they accumulate along the way do not always neatly translate to degrees and credentials that have value for careers or further education. In fact, students can lose a third of their credits or more as they transfer, resulting in time and money wasted and prolonged delays to their career success and advancement.
Moreover, the transfer pipeline has done even worse by low-income students and Black, Indigenous and Latinx students, who are about half as likely to reach completion. While recent reforms have made incremental improvements, what is needed now, as our country faces one of the biggest crises of modern times, is a big fix. For colleges and universities to fully foster socioeconomic mobility, promote racial equity and develop America’s talent, a strong community college transfer pipeline is critical, especially with more than 8.7 million students enrolled nationally in community colleges.
We have seen transfer practices and policies improve across states and institutions. And yet one major challenge remains: few students who enter community college intending to get a bachelor’s degree ever do.
OUR WORK
Working with higher education leaders in Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia—three states with very different policy landscapes—the Tackling Transfer partners developed resources and tools drawing from research, policy, and practice to reform transfer systems and improve transfer student success at the state and institutional levels.
Convening a National Policy Advisory Board
As the policy lead, HCM Strategists convened the Tackinling Transfer Policy Advisory Board to challenge the status quo and make strong and clear recommendations for state transfer policy that will lead to equitable transfer student outcomes. The board leveraged the expertise of a dozen nationally recognized transfer champions whose careers have spanned community college and university executive leadership, state government, and policy research and advocacy.
Convening a National Policy Advisory Board
As the policy lead, HCM Strategists convened the Tackinling Transfer Policy Advisory Board to challenge the status quo and make strong and clear recommendations for state transfer policy that will lead to equitable transfer student outcomes. The board leveraged the expertise of a dozen nationally recognized transfer champions whose careers have spanned community college and university executive leadership, state government, and policy research and advocacy.
OUR IMPACT
In July 2021, the Board released a set of strong and clear recommendations for systems change, with an emphasis on state, system and federal policies, that dismantle inequitable transfer policies and build a new approach designed to center students and the recognition of their learning as they transfer across institutions and move through their varied lived, work and learning experiences beyond high school.
Driving Key Policy Perspectives
The Policy Advisory Board convened to drive the national discourse on transfer, helping to shift the narrative on transfer, elevate racial equity and respond to the needs of the moment. In addition to publications, board members sparked dialogue through public speaking engagements targeting key audiences of state policymakers, higher education systems leaders, postsecondary funders, and more.
To support the Policy Advisory Board’s work, HCM Strategists analyzed what policies states have adopted to facilitate student transfer, improve credit applicability and recognize student learning, and how these varied across states.
PARTNERS
Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, Sova
Tackling Transfer was made possible by generous support from four foundations: Ascendium Education Group, ECMC Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation.
PRESS
The Policy Advisory Board published three opinion editorials in summer 2020 in national media outlets that target higher education leaders and policymakers, including Diverse Issues in Higher Education, The Hill, and Route Fifty.
Additional Inside Higher Ed invited four of the board members to serve as expert panelists and presenters during its fall 2020 webcast series entitled "Can We Finally Fix Transfer?" Inside Higher Ed also invited Tackling Transfer to develop content for a dedicated column that provides an ongoing forum to drive national attention to transfer. The Policy Advisory Board members have written several pieces for the blog, including:
From California to Connecticut: Building the Will to Untangle Community College Transfer
Using Innovative Technologies to Improve Transfer Student Success
Don’t Blame Students for Institutional Barriers to Equitable Transfer Success
Opinion Editorial: “To Support Today’s Transfer Students, Take a Hard Look at State Policy,” by Danielle Zaragoza, Associate at HCM Strategists
Opinion Editorial: “As Higher Education Navigates a New Normal, Don’t Let Transfer Students Waste Time and Money” by Dr. Lara K. Couturier, Principal at HCM Strategists and Joshua Wyner, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program
Webcast: The Fall Enrollment Picture and Peril for Post-Traditional Students, an Inside Higher Education on-demand webcast with Juana H. Sanchez, Senior Associate at HCM Strategists
Blog: Adding College Transfer to the Biden Administration’s Agenda, a piece on Biden administration, affordability & transfer