Money magazine ranks CSUCI fourth best college in nation for transfer students


Finances, family obligations and a number of other reasons compel millions of students to choose to spend two years at a community college before transferring to a four-year university like Cal State Channel Islands in Camarillo.

The steps CSUCI has taken to streamline the process for transfer students prompted Money magazine to rate the school the fourth best college in the nation for transfer student success.

Money pulled colleges from the 727 institutions listed in its 2018 Best Colleges ranking, eliminating colleges that ranked in the bottom half and anywhere transfer students in the fall of 2017 comprised less than 15 percent of enrollment.

Unlike most of the other colleges in the top 10, transfer students can enroll at Channel Islands starting in the fall or spring semester. More than 50 percent of students who enrolled in the fall of 2017 were transfer students, the largest share of any of the colleges in Money’s top 10.

“We’re working with Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura community colleges and Santa Barbara City College. What we did was build an intentional partnership with the common goal of building a regional transfer pipeline,” said Amanda Quintero, associate vice provost for student success and community engagement.

One of the most important issues to address was credit transfer. A 2014 report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that students who transferred lost an average of 13 credits.

The community colleges and CSUCI worked to align their curriculum requirements so that credits transferred smoothly while also assuring that students got their foundational classes at the community college.

The partners created an annual transfer success summit for all community college and CSUCI faculty to determine what the barriers and challenges were from the teaching perspective and how they could work together to create a seamless transfer pipeline.

The sociology and communication programs have a high transfer rate, so mini-grants were arranged for each program so that faculty could make their academic program seamless for transfer students.

CSUCI hosts an annual daylong Transfer Success Student Academy in the fall in which new transfer students attend sessions on financial aid, have meetings with faculty from each major to discuss career strategy and information on the Associate Degree for Transfer and the Transfer Admission Guarantee programs.

In 2018, CSUCI launched Transfer Boot Camp, a one-day event in which transfer students met with faculty, peer mentors and advisors so that participants left with an understanding of academic support, peer mentoring and other resources to have a plan for success in their first semester at CSUCI.

The goal is to have transfer students “to and through” the university so once they arrive on campus they have opportunities to enroll in courses such as the UNIV 349 Transfer Year Seminar, which supports transfer student transition to upper division courses and familiarizes them with the campus and all of the resources available to them.