Transfer Student Success
Literature surrounding transfer student success emphasizes the importance of transfer students’ input characteristics on their retention and persistence to degree completion. Additionally, there has been research on the ways in which student engagement within their institutions foster retention and persistence. Until recently, only a few studies focused on barriers within the institutional environment to student engagement (Chen, 2012; Miller, 2013; Nuñez & Yoshimi, 2017; Tobolowsky et al., 2014; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). This shift in research focus has highlighted institutional barriers that hinder student engagement, persistence to degree-completion and, consequently, retention. The following literature review serves as a platform to identify themes from research that highlight the input characteristics of the transfer student population, the environmental factors that affect their engagement, persistence, and retention, and the institutional barriers that may prevent the success of this population in college.
Input Characteristics
The transfer student population is comprised of students who differ vastly across their age, number and types of institutions attended, transferred and enrolled credit hours, academic preparation levels, personal commitments, housing, employment, and their social identities (Hoover, 2010; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). The transfer student mobility patterns include vertical (from two- to four-year institutions), lateral (between two-year or four-year institutions), reverse transfer (from four-year to two-year institutions), swirler (between multiple institutions), or thwarted students (unable to enter institutions or have credit articulation issues) (Aiken-Wisniewski, 2012; De Los Santos & Wright, 1989; Lee & Schneider, 2018). Transfer students’ time to degree completion typically includes an additional year on average compared to their non-transfer counterparts (Adelman, 2005; Enzi et al., 2005; Townsend & Wilson, 2009). Additionally, they may not always persist to degree completion (Townsend & Wilson, 2009). These characteristics and behaviors are unique to this population and understanding them and the ways they inform transfer student success at the institution could be valuable to institutional agents.
This population of students typically faces transfer shock, an initial decline in the student’s grade point average (GPA) in their first semester at the receiving institution (Tobolowsky et al., 2014; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012; Townsend & Wilson, 2009) and sometimes, transfer ecstasy, an initial increase in GPA (Laanan, 2001; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). Students new to the receiving institution struggle with developing a sense of belonging and community (Castro & Cortez, 2017; Jain et al., 2016; Nuñez & Yoshimi, 2017; Pichon, 2016; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012; Townley et al., 2013). Taken together, these factors affect both the social and academic integration of transfer students and their engagement in high-impact practices linked to increased student persistence to degree-completion and retention (Kuh, 2015). While it is necessary for institutions to understand and respond to student input characteristics, the institutional environment is also relevant to transfer students’ persistence and retention.
Environmental Factors Affecting Student Engagement
The institutional environment at the receiving institution, informed by the services and opportunities offered to the transfer student population, plays a crucial role in student engagement. It is therefore important for academic leaders to consider the ways that institutional personnel design and market programming and services for transfer students intentionally to promote successful introduction to the institutional environment while fostering engagement. Institutions must be intentional with these efforts as transfer students do not typically possess the capital required to navigate institutional cultures, policies, and procedures on their own. Secondly, intentional efforts require data specific to this population so that institutional agents can offer programming and services based on transfer student needs. A leading issue in obtaining this data lies in the aggregate ways that institutional agents collect and organize transfer student data with the general student data.
Capital to Navigate Institutions
Transfer students typically lack the social, cultural, and economic capital (Bourdieu, 1986/2002) required to successfully transfer their coursework to their receiving institutions (Quaye & Harper, 2015). Transfer students with multiple identities and facing challenges encounter structural differences between the institutions from and to which they transfer and confront articulation agreements that differ between institutions. Institutions must therefore consider the ways in which they assist students without the required capital to navigate their campus environments successfully.
Structural Differences. Institutions of higher education exhibit different structures, policies, and procedures based on their type and mission. Such types include public versus private, two- versus four-year, and research versus teaching institutions. The systems within these institutions consequently differ based on their individual mission, core values, and student learning outcomes. Students that do not possess the capital to address these fundamental differences cannot integrate and engage within the institution in ways that help them persist to degree completion. For instance, based on the organizational structure, Academic Affairs may house transfer student services, while at other institutions they may be under Enrollment Management or a combination of both. Some institutions may not have any services for transfer students beyond admission. Transfer students used to a certain structure may not be aware of the newer structures at other institutions, and encounter difficulty in finding institutional agents from the appropriate departments who can assist them (Tobolowsky et al., 2014; Townsend & Wilson, 2009).
Articulation Agreements. In many states, state-level governing entities of higher education such as the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education set up articulation agreements across state-system institutions. However, these agreements do not extend to out-of-state schools and rarely cover upper-division courses (Li, 2010). Additional policies within institutions such as required number of upper-level institution hours may pose additional limits on which courses transfer into a student’s degree plan at the receiving institutions (Enzi et al., 2005; Li, 2010; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). The ways in which courses transfer between institutions also vary based on internal policies affecting repeated courses, course rigor, pre-requisites, and other requirements. Transfer students can struggle to understand these agreements and sometimes take courses that will not transfer and subsequently delay their degree completion.
Transfer students cannot assume that institutional structure, policies, and procedures for transfer and enrollment will be the same across the institutions in which they enroll (Lee & Schneider, 2018). These differences pose unique challenges to this population such as transferability versus applicability of transfer course work (Senie, 2016), and notions on the part of the transfer students that the receiving institution will “take care of them” (Owens, 2010, p. 119). Institutional agents and resources that will allow transfer students to be successful at their receiving institutions are difficult to find for those students who lack transfer capital. Additionally, intersecting identities such as students’ ethnicity, cultural background, ability, gender, and fluency in language could also serve as informational and cultural barriers (Bensimon & Dowd, 2009; Castro & Cortez, 2017; Townley et al., 2013) as these students navigate new systems.
Aggregated Data
The second environmental factor is the way in which institutional data managers aggregate data pertaining to transfer students with that of continuing students in the institutions at large affecting institutional efforts to support this population. Townsend and Wilson (2009) found that most institutions focus on transfer students during their first semester as they transfer into the institution. Post-transfer, these students are “absorbed into the larger student population” and are no longer categorized as transfer students (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012, p. 404). Additionally, students who transfer out of an institution are considered “drop-outs” and are no longer tracked; attrition and transfer data are aggregated together by many institutions (Kearney et al., 1995). Data from minority and non-minority students are also not disaggregated causing a lapse in programming and institutional responses to specific student needs within this population (Crisp & Nuñez, 2014). Taken together, aggregate data informs institutional programming and high impact practices that may not be meaningful educational experiences for the academic and social integration of transfer students.
Most research on transfer student success and retention has focused on students’ input characteristics and their levels of integration and engagement within the institutional environment. However, applying a different lens by considering the barriers within the institution that do not support this student population will shed light on environmental factors that hinder transfer student success and retention.
Institutional Barriers
In their phenomenological study, Nuñez and Yoshimi (2017) identified three barriers in transfer students’ academic and social adjustment at the receiving institution: “using technical tools, interacting with supportive institutional agents, and actualizing academic purpose” (p. 183). Other scholars have also supported these themes, and extended the discussion to include informational and cultural barriers (Bensimon & Dowd, 2009) and opportunities for socially-oriented academic integration (Townsend & Wilson, 2009). Additionally, the lack of collaboration between institutions affects this population negatively (Chen, 2012; Tobolowsky et al., 2014).
Nuñez and Yoshimi (2017) found that students relied heavily on easily accessible sources of information, such as websites, and contacted institutional agents as a means to validate information already found online (Nuñez & Yoshimi, 2017). They primarily identified “articulation, accuracy, and currency of information” (p. 182) as problems with these institutional resources (Nuñez & Yoshimi, 2017). It would therefore be extremely beneficial for this student population if one location or website hosted all the up-to-date information related to transfer students and remained consistent with other resources.
The presence of institutional agents is further supported by research identifying the importance of academic advising, transfer counselors, virtual advisers, and peer mentors to this student population (Crisp & Nuñez, 2014; Lee & Schneider, 2018; Mooring & Mooring, 2016; Nuñez & Yoshimi, 2017; Owens, 2010; Pichon, 2016). These mentors include faculty and peers who support these students inside and outside the classroom fostering a sense of community and belonging through enhanced classroom experiences, educational quality, additional tutoring, workshops, and seminars (Mooring & Mooring, 2016; Pichon, 2016).
Nuñez and Yoshimi (2017) identified that the transfer students they interviewed focused more on academics than social events and found that their biggest challenges were in actualizing their academic goals. The students recognized the lack of a sense of belonging in their academic majors, lack of a social network, and other financial or familial barriers as preventing them from actualizing their academic goals. Upon transfer, there was a lack of institutional focus on these students helping them with academic integration in ways specific to this population.
Townsend and Wilson (2009) describe the importance of institutions providing academic integration opportunities as identified by the students they interviewed. Suggested initiatives include research opportunities to help foster relationships with professors, support systems with fellow students and peer mentors to facilitate learning, interest groups that brought transfer students together, and academic retention services specific to transfer students that are also covered through transfer student orientation for new transfer students.
Additional institutional barriers include a lack of collaboration between sending and receiving institutions (Chen, 2012; Owens, 2010; Senie, 2016). This could be due to the institutional governance structures, institutional culture, and the role of state and federal policies. Additionally, institutions consist of multiple departments with each unit focused on serving their own populations. This prevents access to centralized resources for transfer students with multiple identities.
While state policies may be aligned across institutions, the internal institutional culture within the various units at these institutions tend to be different (Senie, 2016). Subcultures form within various departments within an institution under a shared governance due to the diversity of beliefs, values, and assumptions made by its constituents (Senie, 2016). Changes to state governing bodies and policies related to higher education tend to be informed by structural and political theories while ignoring other organizational perspectives such as human, cultural, feminist and gendered, and organizational anarchy (Bolman & Deal, 2017; Kezar & Eckel, 2004; Manning, 2018). It is crucial for institutions to identify these governance structures and readily share this information through organizational charts and such for easy access to students.
Transfer students typically transfer from community colleges (two-year institutions) focused on associate degrees and vocational or workforce training while also facing pressures to reduce costs and increase college completion rates (Senie, 2016). The culture at these institutions can therefore vary considerably from four-year institutions with research and outreach goals. While articulation agreements instituted by state policies have aided in community colleges’ or feeder institutions’ goals, the outcomes for transfer students still depend vastly on institutional culture towards transfer, both at the sending and receiving institutions (Handel & Williams, 2012). Creating a culture within the institution that supports this population is therefore necessary.
For improved transfer student retention, institutional cultures must therefore change beginning with doing more at the receiving institution for this population. Jain et al. (2016) discuss the importance of creating a “transfer-receptive culture” at the receiving institution by shifting the focus from community colleges to 4-year institutions. The authors stress the importance of creating a culture that “ensures transfer students a sense of legitimacy as members of the university community” (Jain et al., 2016, p. 1014). Their framework for creating such a transfer-receptive culture includes five elements—placing high institutional priority on the transfer student population, providing information and resources focusing on the specific needs of transfer students, offering financial and academic support, acknowledging the lived experiences that students bring to campus, and creating a culture of assessment and evaluation that informs scholarship on transfer students (Jain et al., 2011). Addressing changes to the institution that are focused on these elements will create the receptive culture this population requires to be successful. To this end, it is also essential to consider centralizing information for this population.
It is important to centralize efforts and collaborate within and between institutions to provide the support these students need to transition and persist to degree completion (Tobolowsky et al., 2014). From an organizational perspective, it is also necessary that the institution pulls together funding resources from various “categories (academic support, instruction, and student services)…to strengthen institutional capacity” (Chen, 2012, p. 501). It is also crucial for institutions to revise policies, procedures, structures, and perceptions in ways that support this population of students if they are to see a rise in retention trends for this growing student population (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). By centralizing resources, institutions can support this population better than with individual efforts at departmental levels. It will also allow students access to required resources without being “handed off” to other departments.
In summary, transfer students with multiple identities navigate the higher education landscape differently than traditional first year students who graduate high school and immediately enroll in a four-year institution. Historically, higher education institutions were designed to cater to these traditional students. With increasing trends in transfer students attending multiple institutions, many of whom are first generation, international students, or from historically marginalized populations, shifting the culture of institutions towards being transfer-receptive is vital.
The survival of higher education institutions depends on the ability of institutions to change continuously and incrementally in response to innumerable external and internal conditions such as transfer mobility. To this end, it is crucial for change agents, or those who engage in change proactively, to create an institutional culture where organizational changemaking is ongoing, authentic, systematic, and challenges underlying assumptions of the institution’s values. They should ground their approach to changemaking in research related to change, in addition to obtaining knowledge in their specific area of interest to assess and understand drivers of change and reasons for resistance (Kezar, 2018). Using change theories to analyze and inform practice can direct change agents on ways to communicate their strategies to key constituents, obtain buy-in, and adapt their strategies to shifting situations (Kezar, 2018).
Change agents who wish to create a transfer-receptive culture will benefit from an understanding of the current awareness of transfer students and their needs among key constituents at their institutions. Accordingly, change agents could deliver theory-to-practice presentations to key constituents at the institution with information on supporting transfer students at their institutions. Such presentations, accompanied by a pre- and post-presentation survey component, could inform change agents on the key constituents’ awareness about transfer students, and increase their learning related to the retention of transfer students. The following section serves to illustrate such an endeavor.
