From 2016 to 2023, College Futures Foundation (College Futures) supported intersegmental transfer partnerships between California State University (CSU) campuses and California community colleges in their regions. The goal was to increase the number of students transferring from community colleges and completing bachelor’s degrees at the CSU. Recently, College Futures partnered with Education Insights Center (EdInsights) to engage five of these intersegmental transfer partnerships in a retrospective learning project to understand what it takes to develop strong and sustainable partnerships between segments critical to enabling smooth transfer for students.

EdInsights found that the most salient motivator for formalizing partnerships was to improve the transfer student experience through efforts such as holistic student supports (i.e., academic, social, and emotional) before and after transfer. The need for better data (e.g., transfer rates, full-time enrollments, and improving time to degree) was also a reinforcing factor in the need to improve the transfer student experience—and outcomes.

The five partnerships employed student-centered strategies to improve the transfer experience:

• Removing student barriers to transfer by improving clarity of the transfer process, increasing students’ access to a shared point of contact, and creating transfer-specific scholarships and/or employment opportunities.
• Changing policies, practices, and procedures to improve transfer students’ sense of belonging at the CSU campus (e.g., connecting with students prior to arrival at the CSU, creating programming, and establishing transfer centers).
• Collaborating on ways to share data and documents to improve the student experience.
• Engaging staff and faculty to create more transfer-receptive institutions.
• Identifying course and curricular misalignment and administrative barriers as persistent barriers to transfer for students.

Intersegmental partnerships’ success was attributed to the institutionalization of these strategies and the strong communication and relationship building between partner campuses.

“Intersegmental partnerships that place learners’ needs and aspirations at the center in solving long-standing challenges like inequitable transfer are critical for building effective and equitable postsecondary education systems,” says Elizabeth González, chief program and strategy officer at College Futures Foundation. “Learner-centered innovations remain top of mind as we live into our new strategy focused on attainment for economic mobility.”

Download the Transfer Partnerships Report from Education Insights Center