Roughly 350,000 community college students received a personal email from UC President Janet Napolitano last week, encouraging them to begin thinking about the next stage of their education.
Her message: Just by starting at community college, students have taken the first step toward a world-class UC education.
The appeal was directed to all first-year community college students who indicated on their entrance applications that they want to pursue a four-year degree. More than 12,000 students who are military service veterans received a similar message informing them of a growing array of veterans services at UC.
UC leaders hope that by reaching students early in their studies with guidance and resources, they will be better equipped to focus their coursework for transfer. The outreach effort includes information about UC’s strong financial aid program, which can make a UC education highly affordable.
UC looks to enroll more transfer students
The personal outreach is part of an initiative to better serve transfer students that Napolitano launched shortly after assuming leadership of the UC system in 2013.
Already, about 30 percent of UC students start their education at community college, a proportion that by far exceeds that of most research universities.
The university is looking to enroll more transfer students as part of a goal to expand enrollment of California residents. UC has committed to enrolling 10,000 additional California residents over the next three years, about a third of which will be transfer students.
“Community college is a great way to prepare for a UC degree,” Napolitano told students in her letter.
Students can take many of the foundational courses they need for their UC degree at their community college, Napolitano informed students.
A clearer path to UC
The letter also refers students to new resources that can help them better plan their coursework to prepare them for transfer to a UC campus.
Credit: UC Institutional Research, 2014
Among these are new Transfer Pathways, course roadmaps that list the classes community college students need to take to be competitive applicants for transfer in popular majors to any UC campus.
The goal is to help students zero in more quickly on which classes they need to meet UC admission requirements so they spend less time taking courses that do not count toward transfer.
UC released Transfer Pathways for 10 majors in 2015; 11 more will be added this spring. Altogether, these will account for the majors pursued by two-thirds of all transfer students to UC.
A strong pipeline to UC from community college is central to UC’s mission to keep a world-class university education accessible to people across a wide range of backgrounds and life circumstances, Napolitano said.
Most transfer students come from neighborhoods and backgrounds that have traditionally been underrepresented in higher education, especially among those institutions in the top ranks. More than half of transfer students come from low-income communities or are among the first in their family to go to college.
These students not only do well at UC – graduating at a rate that slightly exceeds those who enter as freshman – they go on to do well in the workforce. They also often give back to their communities, serving as mentors and having an impact that goes far beyond their own achievements.