Two years ago, more than half of the California transfer students admitted to UCLA came from less than 10 percent of the state’s community colleges.
University of California officials have taken notice of the issue of disproportionate transfer rates to the UC from community colleges. At their bimonthly board meeting on Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents will hear from the UC Transfer Action Team, which is made up of administrators and faculty, on ways the UC can improve its outreach to transfer students in colleges with low transfer rates.
Across the UC in 2012, about 36 percent of transfer students came from just 10 community colleges. Three quarters of transfer students come from about one-third of the state’s community colleges.
“The main thing is to get moving,” UC President Janet Napolitano said at the November regents meeting, when she announced the creation of the UC Transfer Action Team. “(Improving the transfer process) is good for UC as it moves some students through the university more quickly, without any sacrifice to the quality of their education.”
Officials said there are a few reasons why the UC accepts so many students from just a few community colleges.
Community colleges closer to a UC campus tend to send more students to that campus because of their proximity to it, said Daniel Nannini, transfer center director at Santa Monica College. Nearly 17 percent of UCLA’s transfer students came from Santa Monica College in 2013, although it makes up about 2 percent of students in the community college system. Santa Monica College historically has been UCLA’s biggest source of transfer students.
Community colleges also differ in the transfer resources they provide students.
Santa Monica College has the largest counseling department among California community colleges, Nannini said. At the college, each academic department has a counselor students can go to, in addition to counselors who can provide general one-on-one counseling.
“We set that goal (of being a transfer institution) 25 years ago and we put resources into making that goal year in and year out,” Nannini said. “When you put the resource behind the goal, (you) get the result.”
Although community colleges get just over half of their funding from the state, they receive about 30 percent of their funding from local municipalities, according to the California Postsecondary Education Commission’s fiscal profiles in 2010.
More affluent municipalities in California, such as Santa Monica, were able to weather the cut in state funding during the Great Recession. Since community colleges that send the most students to the UC are in more affluent municipalities, colleges like Santa Monica College were able to keep providing transfer resources to their students.
Community colleges in more affluent municipalities also draw more students who are close to being UC-eligible, said Colleen Moore, a research specialist at the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at California State University Sacramento.
Different community colleges also have different goals for their students. Some colleges may focus more on training students for a career instead of getting them to a four-year university, Moore said.
Gary Clark, admissions director for UCLA, said UCLA makes an effort to reach out to students in colleges with low transfer rates. UCLA admissions representatives visit about 40 community colleges in Southern California and in the Bay Area on a monthly basis, Clark said. UCLA representatives also regularly holds regional transfer “Bruin Days” in areas such as Merced or Fresno, which may be difficult for UCLA representatives to visit regularly, he said.
Of students who entered California community colleges in 2007, about 40 percent transferred within six years, and less than 5 percent of students transferred within two years. Moore said having a uniform requirement between different universities and campuses would help students have more options in choosing where to transfer.
The UC regents will discuss transfer students at their meeting on Wednesday in Sacramento at 9:30 a.m.