While nearly four out of every five community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, only 16 percent do so within six years. One oft-overlooked method to increase bachelor’s degree attainment among community college students is to strengthen transfer pathways between two-year and independent (i.e., private, not-for-profit) four-year institutions. Independent institutions often provide flexible degree options, personalized supports, and greater efficiency in credit transfer, all of which can help community college students complete a four-year degree. And as higher education faces an impending “enrollment cliff,” institutions will need to look beyond first-time-in-college students to keep enrollment numbers up and stay financially afloat. Building well-defined transfer pathways with community colleges is a promising way to achieve this goal.

Many independent institutions have taken steps to increase enrollment of community college transfer students, such as forming bilateral agreements with local two-year institutions. However, pursuing transfer work at the state or consortium level can create impact at scale and move the needle on access and success for community college transfer students at a much faster rate. To that end, the Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations began an initiative in 2020 to create statewide transfer pathways and increase the number of community college transfer students earning bachelor’s degrees at independent institutions that emphasize the liberal arts. The Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative provides funds for each participating state or region to pursue a variety of strategies to improve and expand transfer between community colleges and independent four-year institutions, including block transfer, discipline-specific transfer pathways, guaranteed admission, and reverse transfer.

From 2021 to 2025, Ithaka S+R served as the foundations’ independent evaluator, conducting a  mixed methods assessment of the initiative. Today, as part of our assessment, we are publishing the second and final version of the Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts, which draws on the experiences of a subset of states participating in the initiative to provide recommendations for independent four-year institutions—and their state or regional associations—seeking to increase community college transfer and completion on a consortial basis and in a manner that can be scaled to all community colleges in their state or region. Specifically, the playbook is intended to help independent colleges:

  1. Engage in collective goal setting for the initiative.
  2. Establish an infrastructure to support the initiative.
  3. Adopt a strategy for sustaining a successful transfer initiative for the long term.

The initial version of the playbook, published in 2022, drew on the experiences of grantees in the first six states that participated in the Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative. This final version expands and refines the insights and recommendations presented in the initial playbook, based on the experiences of 14 states: Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

The playbook features many recommendations for independent institutions and consortia, including:

  • Create personalized connections between campuses. Marketing to potential community college transfer students requires both centralized information sharing through online platforms and personalized outreach through face-to-face or other direct contact. Community college students often seek information from sources they trust, such as their own community college website or their counselor and transfer advisors. Establishing direct connections with community college students and staff will help keep independent college transfer pathways top of mind when students are examining their transfer options.
  • Communicate the benefits of attending an independent college. Institutions and state associations must demonstrate to community college students that transferring to independent institutions in the state is financially feasible and beneficial. Community college students and staff often assume that attending a private institution is too costly, which leads them to focus solely on public institutions. However, many independent institutions offer tailored and robust financial aid packages to low-income students and accept enough transfer credits that students can complete their degree in two years instead of three.
  • Include transfer priorities in institutional strategic plans. Institutional strategic plans are public documents that describe key focus areas and goals for an institution over several years, which guide institutional decision-making and operations. Including transfer-related goals into these plans affirms an institution’s commitment to improving transfer and ensures transfer-related efforts remain a priority during budget planning.

There may be some variation in how systems tackle transfer, but this work, at its core, is built on the willingness of institutions to consult with various stakeholders involved in student transfer across their partner institutions. It requires an openness to new ideas and compromises when necessary, as well as a commitment to maintaining this work over the long term. The collaboration between independent institutions and community colleges involved in the Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative have yielded valuable lessons on how to build successful transfer pathways at scale while prioritizing student success.

All resources related to our evaluation of the initiative, including materials from the quantitative workstream of the assessment, both playbooks, and other resources, are published on our landing page.

We welcome any engagement with this work and invite you to reach out via email to Bethany Lewis (bethany.lewis@ithaka.org).