Blog

In May 2016, Graduate NYC & NYC College Line are celebrating our first ever Transfer Awareness Month. Throughout the month, GNYC will share data and information to increase awareness about additional obstacles to college completion students face when transferring from a two-year to a four-year college. Consider the following:

• Nationally, nearly 40% of all first-time college students transfer to or enroll in a different institution at least once within 6 years of starting college and before earning a bachelor’s degree.
• The majority of transfers from two-year institutions do so before receiving a credential. 71% of students transfer to a four-year institution without a certificate or a degree.
• Transfer is an important means of increasing the diversity on four-year college campuses
• This issue has particular resonance within the CUNY system of community and senior colleges. Among CUNY’s four-year colleges, 2/3 of all entrants in an academic year are transfer students – double the number of first-time freshmen in the college.
• Whereas freshmen cohorts in CUNY’s bachelor’s programs have been flat or decreasing, transfer enrollment has increased by about 50% between 2000 and 2013.

This year, GNYC Research Fellow, Christina Ciocca, is conducting a study on transfer students at three CUNY four-year colleges. Stay tuned for this report, which will be released in the fall. Learn more about GNYC’s Forum on Transfer that took place in April 2016. Familiarize yourself with the obstacles to degree completion and how to better support transfer students in their pursuit of bachelor’s degrees through this new resource from the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University: The Transfer Playbook: Essential Practices for Two- and Four-Year Colleges