Supporting Transfer Students in Oregon

An Update of The Ford Family Foundation’s 2019 Report

Transferring from a community college to a four-year college or university provides an affordable pathway to a bachelor’s degree for rural Oregon students, but it can be difficult to navigate the pathway. Most students who begin their postsecondary career at a community college intend to transfer, yet nationally transfer rates and the percentage of transfer students who earn a bachelor’s degree are persistently low. Improving transfer outcomes requires changes to practice, policy and culture at the community college and university levels.

Building on the 2019 report available below, this research returns to the same six community colleges and universities to learn what has changed since then, how the pandemic has impacted the transfer landscape in Oregon, and what progress has been made on state policy initiatives intended to improve transfer outcomes.

While promising practices were often sustained at the institutional level, we found that little progress had been made toward the system-level recommendations from the 2019 report, although they remain relevant. Oregon has enacted several policies intended to create clear transfer pathways for students, but efforts have not yielded the hoped for results. Additionally, the pandemic exacerbated the heightened challenges for postsecondary institutions.

We hope that the Oregon higher education community uses this report to learn about promising practices that are being sustained and nurtured over time to strengthen transfer outcomes and to begin to take action to address the system-related barriers in the Oregon transfer landscape.

DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS

» Full report PDF