The Impacts of the Pandemic on Students' Transfer Journeys: A Technical Report from a Systemwide Study of California Community College Students

Over the past five years, the RP Group's "Through the Gate" transfer study has developed a deeper understanding of how California Community College (CCC) students experience transfer pathways. Specifically, the study focused on increasing transfer for "high-leverage" students: those who had completed all or most of the requirements for transfer but had not yet made the transition to university. RP Group's most recent research uncovered key factors impacting students' transfer success, resulting in a new framework for building students' transfer capacity (Cooper et al., 2020). To develop a better near-term understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact specifically for high-leverage learners and to prime future research related to increasing their transfer success, the RP Group conducted a spring 2021 study building on the findings from "Through the Gate" and further exploring students' transfer experiences during this unprecedented period. The survey explored students' experiences as they navigated transfer in the midst of the pandemic. Subsequently, two virtual focus groups were conducted to expand on findings from the survey and gain a deeper understanding of how the transfer process differed for students who successfully transferred and those whose transfer plans changed due to the pandemic. This technical report summarizes survey responses from 7,894 students representing 67 community colleges (58% of the 115 CCCs invited). It offers a review of students' insights and perspectives organized by the study's five core research questions: (1) How were students' transfer plans affected by the pandemic?; (2) What issues did students who were close to transfer face during the pandemic?; (3) What did students who were close to transfer know about changes that were designed to support their transfer journey--both in the CCC and university segments--and how did they leverage these changes?; (4) How are the four factors from the "Student Transfer Capacity Building Framework" currently impacting students' transfer experience?; and (5) What differences exist in student groups' experience of the four factors over the course of the pandemic? This report offers a first glimpse into the challenges faced by high-leverage students as they attempted to navigate transfer during the pandemic. It is the hope that these findings begin to shed light on the supports these students will need immediately and in the long term to remain or get back on track. [For Cooper et al.'s, "Students Speak Their Truth about Transfer: What They Need to Get 'Through the Gate,'" see ED608978. For the companion brief, "Transfer Leaders Speak: Keeping Students on the Transfer Path during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond. Through the Gate," see ED615432.]