Research says 80% of community-college students intend to transfer to complete a bachelor's degree, but only 14% do so within six years.
Transferring between institutions of higher education can be complicated, and when classes don't transfer, repeating them adds cost and consumes time.
In North Carolina, the state-run community college system has agreements in place that standardize class transfers with both the University of North Carolina system and in-state independent colleges and universities.
This year, common-course numbering was introduced between the UNC system and the state community colleges. Streamlining transferability between institutions will also help reduce student debt.
Eric Fotheringham is the director of community-college partnerships and adult-learner initiatives for the UNC system. He said the university system published an updated strategic plan last summer that made reducing student debt at graduation a priority.
"There were a couple of metrics having to do with reducing student debt," said Fotheringham. "So, we will be gauging our success as a system and individual universities will be gauging some of their success based on reducing student debt, so there's a metric looking at that specifically for first-time students but also for transfer students."
The long-term goal of the strategic plan is to reduce average cumulative federal loan debt at graduation by over 12%.
Transfer students in North Carolina can also take advantage of a number of discipline-specific agreements where transfer credits have been standardized for specific majors between the community college and either a college in the UNC system or one affiliated with the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities.
Discipline-specific agreements exist for nursing, engineering, and early childhood education, among others.
Hope Williams is president of North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, and said some of their schools are reaching out to potential transfer students to cultivate a sense of belonging at the four-year institution.
"A number of our campuses are going into the community college, offering a course free on the four-year college campus while they're still a student at the community college," said Williams. "Some are providing ID cards for the four-year college so that students can come on campus and use the library and other resources to help make sure that students feel comfortable and are ready to make that transfer."
One study found that each year among the 50,000 low- and moderate-income community-college students in America that don't transfer, 15,000 have a Grade Point Average above 3.7.
Study authors say that fact makes the case that those students could be successful at even the most competitive schools.
Williams says some of the schools in the NCICU are finding creative ways to support transfer students.
"Many campuses are putting together opportunities to have students receive a transfer scholarship, or in some cases to cap tuition," said Williams, "so that students know exactly what their costs will be and that they won't exceed a certain amount."
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It's estimated that nearly half of all schools in the country don't have enough teachers. To help change that, the University of Texas in El Paso offers a residency program to help ensure that first-time teachers succeed.
The "Miner Teacher Residency" gives students in the College of Education an opportunity to work in elementary and middle schools alongside working teachers.
Clifton Tanabe, dean of the UTEP College of Education, was part of a recent national roundtable discussion on ways to solve the teacher shortage, and said the program gives future educators the skills they need to be ready for their first day of class.
"A third grader in a first-year teacher's classroom is only going to get to do third grade once, but that teacher will be able to do the third grade again and again," he explained. "So, we want them ready for that first group of third graders that they take on."
Tanabe added nearly half of the students enrolled in the program are first-generation college students and 70% are bilingual. He adds that mirrors the population of students in the public school system in El Paso, where 90% of the students are Hispanic. Most of the new teachers remain in the area, he said.
Many school districts have been forced to leave positions open, or fill them with teachers who are not fully certified. Some rural Texas districts have gone to a four-day school week. And some teachers are leaving the profession, citing increased workloads, low pay and concerns about safety.
According to Tanabe, teacher retention is directly related to being successful in the first two years on the job - and the UT program addresses this.
"So, folks who graduate from our residency model in their first and second years in teaching are set up with an instructional coach who's from the university, from the College of Education, to work with them on individualized instructional improvement," he continued.
The residency program is in its sixth year. It currently has 62 teachers working in five different school districts in the El Paso area.
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Ohio's Black students are more likely to face excessively harsh discipline practices such as expulsion and suspension, according to a recently released report from the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio.
The data show out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2022-23 school year, compared with the previous academic year.
John Standford, state director for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said economically disadvantaged students comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions.
"School districts really have to pay closer attention to the data and really screen the data, review the data, on a regular basis to really begin to address the issues of inequities," Standford urged.
Last year saw 174,000 cases of total suspension or expulsion among low-income students compared to 35,000 cases among students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged. According to the report, Black females in Ohio were six times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white female peers. Black males were also more than four times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white male peers.
Kim Eckhart, research manager for the fund, said she understands the difficulties teachers face. She hopes the report encourages districts across the state to support schools with the resources and time needed to address behavioral problems restoratively.
"We need schools to be supporting teachers with additional time and space," Eckhart contended. "So that there is capacity to address these things, rather than just kicking the student out of the class, kicking them out of the school."
School discipline practices are also linked to Ohio's alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates. According to the report, missing as little as two days of school per month can lead to chronic absence. More than 26% of Ohio students -- more than 400,000 children -- were chronically absent from school in the 2022-2023 school year, up by nearly half from the 2018-19 school year.
Disclosure: The Children's Defense Fund of Ohio/KIDS COUNT contributes to our fund for reporting on Children's Issues, Education, Health Issues, and Hunger/Food/Nutrition. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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Idaho lawmakers are considering a measure that would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.
Critics say it could keep potential students from attending school in the state. Senate Bill 1357 would prohibit the use of state funds for DEI, and DEI offices from operating at colleges and universities.
Nick Koenig is a PhD student in geography at the University of Idaho.
"These positions that are trying to be taken away from this bill are specifically to foster student success on campus," said Koenig, "not just for students from marginalized groups but also just the totality of the campus community."
Lawmakers supporting the bill say eliminating DEI programs would save the state more than $3 million.
But Koenig said the consequences of eliminating these positions will have ripple effects. He said he spoke with the LGBTQ office at the University of Idaho before deciding to attend.
"The person I originally chatted with before coming to this university," said Koenig, "if her position was just not there, I would not have come to this university at all."
Koenig said the legislation would also make it hard to recruit people to colleges and universities in Idaho.
"People go to school say that they can see themselves as COOs or as teachers or as sociologists or as geographers, like in my case," said Koenig, "and if I saw that they're actively trying to remove me as a queer person from the state then, yeah, why would I want to spend four years in a state that wants to remove me as a person?"
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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