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  • Improve community college transfer with dual admissions, clearer pathways, say college leaders

    Improve community college transfer with dual admissions, clearer pathways, say college leaders


    Fresno City College campus.

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo/EdSource

    Creating a more streamlined transfer pathway and expanding initiatives such as dual enrollment and dual admissions could help increase the number of California students who successfully transfer from community college to a university, officials from the state’s public higher education segments said Tuesday.

    “The key is that across all three of our systems, that we have a more unified process for designing pathways and programs together … so that these pathways naturally flow from the community college system into the CSU, into the UC,” Aisha Lowe, an executive vice chancellor for California’s community college system, said during a panel discussion hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California.

    The panel, which also included representatives from the University of California and California State University systems, came on the heels of a PPIC report that found that few students who wish to transfer from a community college to a UC or Cal State campus are successful in doing so. 

    The report also found that there are big racial and regional disparities in transfer students. For example, Black and Latino students as well as students from the San Joaquin Valley and Inland Empire are less likely than their peers to transfer successfully.

    But the state is taking steps that officials expect will improve the transfer process, which critics say is overly complex. Students considering transferring to a UC or Cal State often have to contend with different course requirements, depending on the campus, even in the same major.

    Currently, top lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom are in agreement on the framework of a new pilot transfer program between the community colleges and UC, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, told EdSource on Monday. Under Assembly Bill 1291, transfer students earning an associate degree for transfer would get priority admission, first to UCLA in select majors and later to additional campuses. Proponents say that solution will help streamline the transfer process because students earning an associate degree for transfer can already get a guaranteed spot in the Cal State system.

    UC has not yet formally endorsed the new bill, but McCarty said UC was involved in the negotiations that resulted in the legislation.

    Yvette Gullatt, UC’s vice president for graduate and undergraduate affairs, said during Tuesday’s panel that UC sees the associate degree for transfer “as an opportunity to enhance transfer, particularly” at community colleges where few students successfully transfer.

    “There’s always opportunity to explore more ways that ADTs can benefit students at UC, and you’ll hear more from us soon about some ways we plan to do that,” she added.

    California is also in the process of expanding both dual enrollment, in which high school students take college courses, and dual admission programs, which guarantee high school graduates a future spot at a UC or Cal State after they first attend a community college.

    The new statewide chancellor for the community college system, Sonya Christian, has said she wants every ninth grader to enroll in a college course through dual enrollment.

    Lowe said Christian’s plan could help improve the likelihood that students eventually attend a community college and transfer to a UC or Cal State campus by “getting them on that pathway” earlier in their academic career.

    “​​Helping them to get some of their transfer requirements done while they’re still in high school, exposing them to financial aid and the FAFSA and that process while they’re still in high school,” she added. “So we’re working on rolling out a comprehensive program around dual enrollment because we think that that’s going to continue to be an important lever.”

    At the same time, new pilot programs in dual admission at both UC and Cal State are going into effect this fall. The programs are open to students who weren’t admitted to the system where they are applying for dual admission. Both segments will guarantee eligible students a spot in their chosen major and at their chosen campus, so long as they meet all their requirements. Not all majors are available and, in the case of UC, not all campuses are participating. More information about the programs can be found here for UC and here for Cal State.

    Laura Massa, interim associate vice chancellor at Cal State, said during Tuesday’s panel that about 2,500 prospective students already have created an account on the portal for that system’s dual admissions program.

    Dual admission has the potential to be a “very promising practice,” said Marisol Cuellar Mejia, one of the authors of the PPIC report and moderator of Tuesday’s panel, in an interview.

    “It makes things more streamlined because from the beginning you know exactly where you are going, and then you avoid any duplication of courses or anything like that,” she said. “We are curious to see what it’s going to look like with these pilots.”





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  • To make dual enrollment more equitable, bring the college experience to high school

    To make dual enrollment more equitable, bring the college experience to high school


    Justice Spears is a senior at Sacramento Charter High School, who is enrolled in the Panther Pipeline Program.

    Credit: Arrows Digital / St. HOPE Public Schools

    College enrollment was declining even before the pandemic. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “the overall college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds decreased from 41% in 2010 to 38% in 2021.” In 2021, the college enrollment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was highest for Asian students (60%) compared to 37% for Black students and 33% for Hispanic students.

    One important way to increase college attendance is through dual enrollment programs in which high school students take college classes and receive college credit. According to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California, participation in dual enrollment programs is associated with higher high school completion, college readiness and higher academic achievement.

    While the benefits of dual enrollment are clear, not all students have the bandwidth to take college classes on top of their high school coursework. In order to reduce barriers and increase access to college-level courses, we have taken dual enrollment one step further at St. HOPE Public Schools. Our Panther Pipeline program brings the college experience to our high school campus. Through our partnership with the Los Rios Community College District, college professors come to Sacramento Charter High School and teach our juniors and seniors in person. Scholars enrolled in the Panther Pipeline program take rigorous college courses and receive both high school and college credit.

    This program is unique because our scholars do not have to leave our high school campus to take college courses. Two days a week, college professors come to Sac High to teach in person, and the other three days, scholars complete their college work in class with their Sac High instructional aide. By bringing college to our scholars and allowing them to receive both high and college credit we are making dual enrollment more accessible and an option for scholars who may not otherwise be able to take high school and college classes at the same time.

    The benefits of bringing college courses to our scholars are far-reaching. Our student population is predominantly low-income minority students, and many of our scholars are the first in their families to go to college. By exposing them to college before they need to apply in fall of their senior year, we hope to spark their interest in pursuing higher education and expand their worldview of what opportunities are available in college. Providing our upperclassmen with multiple college course offerings while they are in high school helps them home in on what major they may want to pursue in college as well as think about what career might be the best fit for them.

    Dual enrollment programs provide students with an opportunity to graduate from high school with college credits, which helps them save money on college tuition by reducing the number of college classes they need to graduate. High school juniors enrolled in our dual enrollment program could potentially take four college courses before they graduate from high school, saving them time and money while in college.

    Bringing college classes to our high school campus also helps reduce transportation barriers for students who may not be able to travel to a college campus. Many of our scholars have after-school commitments — jobs, sports, and responsibilities at home — that might prevent them from taking courses at a college campus, but when they are part of their high school day, those barriers are removed.

    An important part of our dual enrollment program is that it provides students with a multitiered system of support. We have high school teachers who help students navigate and manage their college coursework, and students have access to the Los Rios College campuses, facilities and tutoring resources. This is critical for preparing students for university-level expectations and ensuring they have the study skills to succeed in college.

    As we collectively work on increasing access to college and career pathways, I encourage high schools around the state to offer dual enrollment programs that provide students with both high school and college credit. Taking college courses in addition to high school classes can be daunting, but combining college and high school credit is much more doable for many students, especially those we are trying to get into the college pipeline.

    •••

    Lisa Ruda is superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools, a tuition-free, college prep public charter school network in Sacramento.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Dual admission programs a tool for addressing state’s transfer challenges, panel says

    Dual admission programs a tool for addressing state’s transfer challenges, panel says


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7FKovXyWQ

    A group of education leaders and experts representing both community colleges and four-year universities agreed during EdSource’s Wednesday roundtable discussion that dual admission might be one of the most promising solutions to California’s broken transfer systems.

    About 2 million students are enrolled in the state’s 116 community colleges, yet just 10% of them transfer to a four-year university within two years, according to research from the Public Policy Institute of California, or PPIC.

    “At the end of the day, it’s really important for us to ensure that transfer is as seamless as possible, that students have the information they need upfront, that it’s actionable, that they’re able to take the courses they need and get through to transfer,” said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the PPIC Higher Education Center.

    Panelists at the roundtable — “Is dual admission a solution to California’s broken transfer system?” — agreed that dual admission should be available statewide for all interested students in order to ensure more seamless transfers.

    The roundtable included discussion of a state law passed in 2021 that sought to improve transfer rates in California. The postsecondary education trailer bill, or Assembly Bill 132, asked the University of California and required the California State University systems to create such programs for students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.”

    going deeper

    Visit the virtual event page for EdSource’s dual admission roundtable for more information about the speakers and a list of resources.

    Dual admission programs offer students guaranteed admission into certain four-year universities after completing a specific list of lower division courses at a community college. This is different from dual enrollment, a process in which students earn college credit while in high school.

    This law could potentially transform the state’s higher education pathways, given that California ranks 41st when it comes to high school graduates who enroll in a four-year university but third in its share who enroll in community college, according to Johnson.

    “What that means is that transfer students are critical to ensuring that California really provides a meaningful ladder of educational and economic mobility for our population,” Johnson said.

    While the state law calls for a pilot program, CSU’s dual admission program is permanent. It’s called the Transfer Success Pathway Program and launched in fall 2023 with an initial cohort of 2,000 students, said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management.

    “We purposely are creating a statewide system,” Grommo said. “We also know that students transfer or take courses at multiple community colleges, and we wanted all of that credit to be reflected in the system and for students to be able to accurately track how many units they’ve completed, what their transferable GPA is, and how they fulfill general education and major prerequisites so that they truly understand the courses that they need to transfer.”

    CSU’s program includes all campuses, though some of the most impacted majors are excluded, while UC’s program is limited to six of the nine campuses. CSU also goes beyond what’s required by law by offering dual admission to just about any student who was rejected or simply chose not to attend CSU.

    “Just for scale, there’s 162 community college students in the dual admission program for UC, and there’s 2,008 students in the dual admission program for CSU currently in the community colleges,” said panelist John Stanskas, vice chancellor for educational services and support at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

    Roundtable panelists also discussed existing programs that could be used as a model for more statewide access to dual admission.

    One such example is in the state of Virginia, where Northern Virginia Community College has a dual admission partnership with George Mason University, which sits just 5 miles away. One of the roundtable panelists, Jaden Todd, is a current student at the community college and shared his experience.

    A significant benefit of his dual admission program, called ADVANCE, has been the clarity of knowing exactly which classes he’d need to take at his current campus and at George Mason University after transferring. A clear understanding of the courses he’d be required to take was important, he said, as he decided whether to pursue computer science versus computer engineering.

    “The fact that I’m able to see not only what classes I need to take here at NOVA (Northern Virginia Community College) but also what it transfers to and what it transfers as, I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of the program,” said Todd, who is on track to transfer to George Mason University in one year.

    “I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my money, I don’t have to worry I’m wasting my time. … I don’t have to be a junior taking freshman classes because I didn’t know that this history class was a prereq for this other class.”

    Todd said he’s also benefited from having access to a second campus.

    “That’s something that I wouldn’t have if this ADVANCE program doesn’t exist because I have access to everything a GMU student has access to because I’m considered a GMU student, even though I’m at NOVA,” Todd said, referring to George Mason University.

    Some GMU resources available to Todd are their libraries, a lab with 3D printers, and access to their student clubs.

    One of the longstanding challenges that California community college students face when transferring to a CSU or UC is the need to align the courses on their transcripts with the courses they must take after transferring. It’s a challenge that NOVA and GMU avoided by clearly outlining required courses for students enrolled in ADVANCE, but one that students in Long Beach City College’s initial dual admission program often came up against.

    In its initial iteration of the program in 2008, Long Beach City College partnered with Long Beach Unified and CSU Long Beach to create the Long Beach College Promise. Understanding which courses students were required to take at each level of their higher education journey, however, “was almost like a maze that they were trying to demystify,” said panelist Nohel C. Corral, executive vice president of student services at Long Beach City College.

    In 2019, the college relaunched a revised version called Long Beach College Promise 2.0, Corral said.

    “We mapped the courses students would need to take in their first two years here at Long Beach City College and what it would look like in their last two years at California State University Long Beach,” Corral said. “And that required a lot of coordination between the instructional faculty at both Long Beach City College and at Long Beach State, in addition to counselors and advisers in both institutions.”

    The relaunched program included 38 students enrolled at Long Beach City College who were also given CSU Long Beach student identification cards with access to the CSU library, sporting events and career services, among other resources. The following year, the cohort included 162 students, which grew to 774 by the fall of 2021.

    “We’re still tracking them and collecting data to assess the transfer rates for those cohorts, but for that fall 2019 cohort, we saw significant transfer rates compared to other populations,” he said.

    The panelists agreed that geography may become a potential challenge in the development of dual admission programs statewide, given California’s size. They also agreed, however, that regional partnerships become crucial in those areas.

    Just last week, for example, Chico State announced a dual admission partnership with seven community colleges. Fresno State and Fresno City College also have a partnership; likewise, CSU Bakersfield has one with Bakersfield College.

    Corral suggested “starting off with the data and seeing where the students are transferring to, if you don’t have a local CSU in your direct vicinity, so that you can start those dialogues and start those engagements with those CSUs that your students are going to.”

    Stanskas, of the community colleges’ chancellor’s office, said that dual admission can be “especially important for our place-bound students who can’t go a hundred miles or 500 miles to a program. They have family; they have commitments; they have lives that they are unable to move that way.”

    Grommo said, “We would love to see every student that’s transitioning from high school and decides that the community college pathway is their pathway that they need to take, really enroll in the Transfer Success Pathway program so we can support them early in their process and help them through this transfer journey.”

    This story was updated to accurately reflect Jaden Todd’s name.





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  • Report: How dual enrollment in California compares with other states

    Report: How dual enrollment in California compares with other states


    Students attend Sociology 101 at Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy, one of several dual enrollment classes offered at the school in partnership with East Los Angeles College this semester.

    Credit: Kate Sequeira / EdSource

    A national report finds that dual enrollment can be a powerful strategy for addressing equity gaps in college enrollment and completion rates, but that the students who most need dual enrollment — Black, Latino and low-income students — still struggle to access it.

    The problem of limited access to dual enrollment is true in California, as well as the rest of the nation, according to a report released Monday night by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University.

    The study followed students who began taking dual enrollment courses in 2015, typically high school juniors or seniors, through 2021 using data from the National Student Clearinghouse. Researchers say this report is the first look at college outcomes for dual enrollment students after they graduate from high school with results broken down by race, income and gender — at both the state and national level.

    This report demonstrates how California’s dual enrollment students fare in college compared with other states through a data dashboard.

    For instance, it shows that California students earning college credit in high school are about as likely to enroll in college in the year after high school as other dually enrolled students across the country: 80% compared with 81% nationally. However, dual enrollment students in California are less likely to complete any kind of college degree in the four years after high school: 34% compared to 42% nationally.

    According to John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center who is one of the report’s authors, the report raises questions about why some states have much stronger outcomes or better access than others.

    The report shows that some dual enrollment programs have great outcomes but may not have much access, while others have great access but not great outcomes. The best programs, Fink said, have both — the ability to open the doors widely and offer support to ensure students are successful. 

    That’s the best way to “fully realize the potential of dual enrollment to broaden college access and attainment and equity,” Fink said.

    Caliifornia’s Black, Latino and low-income students in dual enrollment lag behind their counterparts on metrics such as college-going rates or college completion, according to the report. However, these same students are much more likely to do better after high school than those students who are not in dual enrollment.

    In California, 25% of Black students in dual enrollment courses were able to attain a bachelor’s degree, compared to 17% of those who had no dual enrollment. Likewise, 20% of Hispanic students in dual enrollment received a bachelor’s degree four years after graduating high school compared to 13% who were never dual enrolled.

    Black students tend to be underrepresented in dual enrollment nationally, but nationally the students that do enroll are more likely to attend four-year colleges, enroll in more selective colleges and major in STEM fields, which have high-earning potential.

    “The implication is that we need to address the issues around access to dual enrollment for Black students and increase the supports, because we see here what the potential is for increasing postsecondary access and attainment,” Fink said.

    The report does not have specific data on why one state might perform better than another, but Fink noted that policies such as charging for classes, requiring certain test scores and other administrative hoops can limit access to dual enrollment for groups who could most benefit.

    California was notable in that it relied much more heavily on community colleges for dual enrollment: 87% of its dually enrolled students are taking classes through community colleges compared with 72% nationally.

    Students who took dual enrollment courses in California were more likely to continue at a community college after high school, 41% compared to 30% for the rest of the country.

    The report found that dual enrollment programs offered by four-year universities tended to have better outcomes, but these institutions under-enrolled Black, Latino or low income students. These programs were more likely to be restrictive and have barriers, such as having more eligibility requirements and not offering transportation.

    The year that the study began following students — 2015– was an important one for dual enrollment in California. That was the year the state passed the College and Career Pathways Act, which made it easier for colleges and K-12 schools to work together to expand access to college courses for high school students. The legislation specifically named dual enrollment as a strategy to improve outcomes for students who struggle with academics or are at risk of dropping out.

    Dual enrollment more than doubled between 2015 and 2021 in California. Though California is the most populous state, its dual enrollment numbers in 2015 were just a fraction of Texas’. Other states with better developed dual enrollment programs in 2015 include Florida and Ohio.

    Fink noted that while a lot has changed in dual enrollment since 2015, research has demonstrated that many of the problems highlighted by this study remain, such as persistent gaps in access for students who are Black, Latino and low-income.

    An analysis of data by EdSource in 2022 found that Black and Latino students were disproportionately underrepresented in dual enrollment classes.





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