Advancing Equitable Transfer
In the wake of the pandemic and ongoing racial injustice, creating equitable approaches to postsecondary pathways is essential.
We know that transfer between community colleges and four-year institutions is a key pathway towards economic and educational equity – but understanding how transfer works and who is supported by transfer is complex due to various pathways, policies and programs available to students.
In recent years, the Belk Center has worked with the University of North Carolina System Office to explore trends, outcomes and opportunities for two- and four-year institutions to better promote transfer practices that facilitate equitable outcomes various student populations, including, Black, American Indian and Latinx students, Pell Grant recipients, and students who transfer from a community college to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Our team has also closely examined the existing Comprehensive Articulation Agreement and how it could be improved in the future to achieve better and more efficient graduation rates and more equitable outcomes by race, gender and socioeconomic status.
View our Recent Work
The Belk Center constantly strives to identify and address the most pressing transfer questions with a primary aim of informing transfer policy decision-making in North Carolina.
- Enrollment and bachelor’s completion rates of NC community college students
- Are transfer and degree attainment rates equitable by race, gender, and socioeconomic status?
- Promising practices for transfer students transitioning to HBCUs
- How have the revisions to the Comprehensive Articulation agreement changed how long it takes for transfers to earn their bachelor’s? Is it reducing the number of “wasted” credits that don’t transfer to the four-year institution? And does that differ for different kinds of students?
- What differences exist in transfer outcomes for students in different majors, of who have completed different programs at the community college level? (Forthcoming.)
Dissertations
- Identifying effective partnerships between community college and universities.
- Characteristics of effective community college and university partnerships
- Is it time for further revisions to the Comprehensive Articulation Agreement?
- Experiences of low-income transfer students
10,000+ students
The number of students who transfer from a NC community college to a UNC System institution each year
2,000 students
The number of additional students estimated to transfer to one of North Carolina’s independent colleges and universities each year