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Obstacles confront community college students
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
A report from the nonprofit Jack Kent Cooke Foundation reveals what Eastern Gateway Community College President Laura Meeks has known for a long time.
“A student who graduates from a community college and then transfers to a four-year university does as well as or better than the student who goes directly to the university,” she said.
The foundation last month released the report titled “Breaking Down Walls: Increasing Access to Four-year College for High-Achieving Community College Students.”
It refers to National Student Clearinghouse data that found that 60 percent of community-college students who transfer earn their bachelor’s degrees within four years. That compares with 59 percent of students who begin at four-year universalities and earn their bachelor’s degrees within six years.
The report, however, also found more community-college students could succeed at four-year institutions if given the chance.
Transferring isn’t easy, it says, listing a lack of adequate transfer advising at the community colleges and confusing credit-transfer policies and limited financial aid at four-year schools.
Meeks said transferring is easy if students know where to go for help. A website, www.transferology.com, allows students to determine what courses will transfer.
Community-college advisers can also help, although Meeks acknowledges both two-and-four-year schools could do more.
“I have a recommendation,” said Meeks, who is retiring in July. “We work with YSU and Kent to help identify students who want to transfer and have hand-holding. When we know who wants to transfer, we give their name [to an adviser at the other institution] and help them. I’m not sure we’re doing as well as we should.”
EGCC’s transfer rates are growing, the college president said.
“In 2013, we had 118 students at all campuses who transferred,” Meeks said. “Forty of them went to Youngstown State, and 46 went to Kent and its branches. That’s most of them.”
Thirteen transferred to Ohio University and its branches, four to the University of Akron and five to Ohio State University with the others headed to other schools.
Both Meeks and the Cooke report cited the difficulties transfer students face upon enrolling at four-year colleges and universities as another challenge.
Meeks called it transfer shock.
For the first semester after transfer, student’s grade-point average drops a whole point, from a 3.5 for example, to a 2.5.
“But by time they graduate, they have the same GPA or better as the natives,” or students who enroll at the four-year college as freshmen, she said.
That shows their persistence, Meeks said.
Most credits transfer. Exceptions would be those from developmental education courses or courses in which a student earns lower than a C.
Still, if students don’t understand how the transfer process works, it may pose challenges, she said.
Colleges could do a better job of helping with that.
“We could make it easier for students,” Meeks said. “Most are going to YSU and Kent. If that’s true, why don’t we help them more by setting up a process that’s easier for them?”