New data from the state of California shows a troubling trend. According to the state auditor, the transfer rates of students from community college to CSU or UC schools is dismal.
Not every student at a community college is looking to transfer. Some are fine with an AA or certificate. But the state is concerned about the overall transfer rate.
There are 9,000 students this fall at San Jose City College. Ixta Maya Bautista is among them.
“I’m looking towards UCLA, NYU. Those are my dream schools,” she said.
Bautista and her schoolmates feel city college is preparing them to make that successful transfer to a four-year university.
But in a new report released by the state auditor showed that between 2017 and 2019, only one of every five eligible students transferred to a UC or a CSU statewide. The auditor added the rates were even lower for students in certain regions and demographic groups.
“As an educator, whenever you see low transfer data and low success rates, they are of concern and it's troubling,” said Dr. Rowena Tomaneng, president of San Jose City College.
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Tomaneng believed her numbers will be much better than the statewide figures.
“We’ll take a look at that data and then, I’ll get together with my institutional researcher, my dean of research, to see where SJCC is in relation to that transfer data,” she said.
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Not everyone is looking to switch to a state school. Nicolette Fierro is looking to transfer to Stanford or UCLA from Reedley College in the Central Valley.
“I think the process can definitely be a little bit difficult and overwhelming just because there are so many requirements that you have to meet,” she said. “But I think as long as you identify your goals early on and then, seek out the resources to make those happen.”
San Jose City College says it has those resources in place, including a program called the "Bay Area K-16 Collective," that program creates a path to UCs and CSUs from a community college. But if there are gaps, SJCC vows to find them and close them.
