A state audit found that California still has work to do to streamline transfer processes between community colleges and its public universities.
California state auditor Grant Parks noted in the audit report that most transfer students who applied to the University of California and California State University systems gained admission to at least one campus. However, only about a fifth of students who began community college from 2017 to 2019 intending to transfer did so within four years. The audit also found disparities. Four-year transfer rates for Black and Latino students were lower than for community college students over all.
“The three systems could help increase transfer rates by improving the outreach and support they provide to transfer-intending students,” Parks wrote.
The variety of transfer requirements across the three systems is a hurdle for students, according to the report. It described the associate degree for transfer (A.D.T.), a set of guaranteed transfer pathways to the CSU system in different majors, as helpful, but the report noted that not every community college offers every A.D.T., not every CSU campus accepts all of them and the UC system has its own transfer pathways.
Parks suggested community colleges do more to help students develop clear academic plans to transfer, the three systems share transfer student data and the CSU and UC systems prioritize transfer students for competitive majors and campuses. The audit also recommended expanding A.D.T. pathways.
Jessie Ryan, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a California-based research and advocacy organization focused on closing equity gaps in higher ed, thanked the state auditor for “underscoring the urgent racial and ethnic equity imperative to take bold action to transform transfer.”
“Students are falling through the cracks of the transfer maze, and Black and Latinx students are alarmingly underrepresented in transfer preparation and admissions compared to their white and Asian peers,” she wrote in a statement. “We must act swiftly and courageously to build upon the promise and potential of the A.D.T. as we work to actualize racial and economic justice in higher education.”
