Community college transfer face hardships amid transfer, graduation plans

Difficulty reaching counselors and struggles with resources are often occurrences for community students and such it’s the case for LATTC cosmetology student, Karreuche Clarkson.

Although she is often reminded that not dropping out and graduating should be the next step for her, she describes staying in college as a challenge.

“[My boss] talks of my plan and (about) what’s my next step… She tells me not to drop out. She tells me to graduate, even though I tell her it’s really challenging. I just feel like the program here it’s really unorganized, but I’m trying to hold through. I’m just trying to figure out my options because I do want to get my cosmetology license,” said Clarkson.

Community college students consistently face challenges in the transfer process to four-year institutions as there is a lack of resources and guidance provided to the students which continues to affect transfer rates negatively, according to the Aspen Institute. Although almost 2 million students enroll at community colleges in California every year with many having intentions of transferring to four-year institutions, fewer than one-third of the hopeful transfers actually succeed after six years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Tania LaViolet, the director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, credits the broken transfer system as one of the primary hurdles community college students face when attempting to transfer to a four-year institution.

“It’s just a really complex and possibly needlessly complex process... I think it’s something like 48 or 50% of students who intend to transfer don’t access transfer advising while in community college,” said LaViolet. “The pathways are not clear and then the guidance isn’t there for students to get the support to navigate those complex pathways. And so together, those things amount to an incredibly complex process that gets in the way of success for many deserving students.”

In addition to the flawed transfer system, the pandemic served as an exacerbating factor worsening the problems community college students faced when attempting to transfer. Of those students, those from low-income backgrounds faced disproportionate impacts with low transfer rates since community colleges historically act as a gateway to higher education for these students.

“What we know from the data is that lower-income students are the ones that are hardest hit by the broken transfer systems…So while I think the pandemic has driven attention to transfer, I hope it’s not momentary, because I think that fixing these systems over the long term will have (a) lasting and positive impact on communities across the country, particularly communities of color in lower-income communities,” said LaViolet.

USC facilitates the transfer process through programs like the Trojan Transfer Program and the Transfer Student Assembly with a reported 52% of transfer students in 2020-2021 enrolling in the university from community colleges.

“Being in the Trojan Transfer Program helped a lot because of the counselor that they [USC] provided… because the community college like counselors didn’t really do anything. But I think just staying on top of your workload and knowing the classes that you have to take. It is kind of up to you. So self-discipline helped a lot in that process,” said Cassidy Idenoshita.

After attending Pasadena City College and The American University in Paris, Idenoshita transferred to USC during her sophomore year.

“Just jumping into a four-year university was a little bit of a struggle, especially meeting people, and then the workload was a little bit heavier than the community college and the school in Paris. So I think there was a little bit of a struggle there, but I think throughout the years, using the USC community helped a lot to adjust to the new environment,” said Idenoshita.