Community College Research Initiatives

January 16, 2018

HPTP Data Note 1: Characteristics of Successful Transfer Partnerships

As costs of higher education increase, enrollment in community college and plans to transfer are increasingly common. The partnership between two and four-year institutions plays a role in how accessible and effective the transfer process is for students. In 2018, CCRI started a study on High-Performing Transfer Partnerships (HPTP) that advances knowledge about transfer, and provides colleges and universities with resources to strengthen their partnerships.

HPTP is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is Data Note 1, the first of nine briefs that summarize research findings from the project as it has progressed. For this first study, researchers conducted a review of existing literature on transfer collaboration. They found that the common characteristics of collaboration fell into into three broad categories: culture, policy and practice. Each one is outlined below.

CULTURE

  • Presidential/leadership support for partnership practices
  • Transfer-affirming messaging at both partner institutions
  • Trust built between institutional partners • Presence on partner institution campus
  • Strong, non-hierarchical, collaborative relationships between faculty & staff at partner institutions
  • Shared responsibility & accountability between partner institutions for student success
  • Shared commitment to continually assess and adapt to student needs

POLICY

  • Policies to ensure curricular rigor & alignment between institutions
  • Budgetary support for transfer practices
  • Formalized credit arrangements (program maps/articulation agreements)
  • Shared polices to help students navigate financial aid processes across both institutions
  • Transparent transfer credit policies
  • Transfer targets and admissions preferences

PRACTICE

  • Regular one-on-one meetings between senior leaders at partner institutions
  • Regular conversations between senior academic and student services administrators at partner institutions
  • Frequent collaboration between faculty, advising staff, & financial aid counselors at partner institutions
  • Collaborative cross-campus recruitment and programming
  • Faculty involvement in admission process, articulation, and design and implementation of partnership practices
  • Data sharing about transfer outcomes for assessment, planning, and improvement

For more information on this study and its findings, download the full Data Note below.

Download Data Note 1

This Data Note is part of CCRI’s High-Performing Partnerships Study (HPTP) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The study focuses on how higher performing transfer collaborations between two and four-year colleges and universities work on the ground. Researchers identified high-performing partnership pairs from a dataset collected for the national initiative on reverse credit transfer called Credit When It’s Due (CWID). Read the full series of Data Notes and more about the project here.