Improving the Transition of Community College Students into University STEM Programs Through Cross-Enrollment

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this Track 1 project aims to diversify the pool of STEM graduates with bachelor's degrees. The project intends to accomplish this goal by increasing student transfer rates from community colleges to four-year institutions through cross-enrollment in STEM courses. A cross-enrollment program enables students who are enrolled at a community college to also be enrolled in courses at a four-year college. Cross-enrollment programs provide low-cost opportunities for students to become acquainted with a four-year institution's campus by experiencing courses at that institution. This project seeks to increase the number of students participating in cross-enrollment STEM courses with emphasis on increasing cross-enrollment for racial and ethnic minorities. Participating in cross-enrollment programs could enhance a student's confidence in their ability to complete STEM courses and could thus increase transfer rates of community college students into STEM bachelor's degree programs. This project is a collaboration between the University of California, Irvine and three community college partners, Irvine Valley College, Orange Coast College, and Saddleback College. The project team aims to identify the effects of cross-enrollment participation on a student's probability of transferring to a four-year institution and to identify and test methods for improving cross-enrollment programs. Cross-enrollment programs that include community colleges with diverse student populations have the potential to increase transfer rates and thus diversify the pool of STEM graduates at four-year colleges. This project will examine community college students' perceptions of the benefits of and barriers to cross-enrollment in STEM courses. Based on findings from focus groups and surveys with community college students, administrators, and STEM faculty, the study team will design and implement interventions to increase the number of community college students who are cross-enrolled in STEM courses at the University of California, Irvine. This study aims to examine the effects of cross-enrollment on community college students' probability of transferring to a four-year college and to provide evidence about how to improve the cross-enrollment experience for students in STEM programs. Students will be randomly assigned to receive information alone or information plus additional supports, such as parking passes and vouchers for books and course materials. These students will be followed for up to three years, enabling the project team to examine which supports are most effective for increasing cross-enrollment in STEM courses and to study the effects of cross-enrollment on eventual transfer to a STEM major at a four-year college. The partnership between a four-year university and three area community colleges could be a model for other institutions seeking to expand and diversify the pathways into STEM programs. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.