There is a real concern, which has been strongly voiced by many four-year college science faculty, that bachelor's students who start at community colleges may experience a lesser quality of education, in terms of instruction, expectation levels, and facilities, than that generally provided in four-year institutions. If there are deficits in the community college students' experience, these must be made up in four-year institutions.

These comments were based on a Ford Foundation study, which claimed that among California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, those states that had the least reliance on community colleges had better success in students earning the baccalaureate degree. The conclusion drawn: if a baccalaureate degree is important for students, then they should begin at a four-year campus.

Community colleges have been suspected of doing a second-rate job with their transfer students. They are constantly defending their transfer effectiveness even though there are no reliable data to support the accusations against them. Patterns of student flow are not linear; they swirl. Students drop in and out of community colleges and universities; they take courses concurrently at both types of institutions, and they transfer frequently from one to another. All these permutations affect the data sets (1). At times none of these students would be considered community college transfers; at other times all of them would.

Transfer rates vary dramatically, even within a state. In Florida, a well-articulated system, 42% of all undergraduates in public universities have previously attended community colleges; in Kansas, only 17% of the undergraduates in state universities are transfers. California State University campuses receive ten times the number of transfers that the University of California campuses receive.

Of the 350,000 two-year college graduates nationwide who are awarded AA and AS degrees annually, approximately 275,000 transfer directly to a university. Probably another 300,000 to 400,000 transfers earn an associate degree. This gives us approximately 625,000 transfers per year out of a total community college student population of 5 million (12-13%). If these figures appear low, consider the number of community college students enrolled in occupational programs, remedial courses, and noncredit educational activities, and the number of returning students who have advanced degrees. If we subtract these populations from the 5 million, we are left with 1.7 million students whose prime purpose for attending the community college is to transfer to a baccalaureate granting institution. The transfer rate then increases dramatically to 36% (2).

Although the number of transferring students has increased in recent years because of expanding populations, the percentage of students who transfer to senior institutions has declined compared with the percentage of students who enroll in courses that lead to immediate employment. The community college mission is not primarily for student transfer to a baccalaureate-granting institution. If it were, then the community college is a disaster by design. It draws many poorly prepared students and encourages part-time commuters. Its students view the institution as being readily accessible for dropping in and out without penalty. This pattern of ad hoc attendance seems to fit their needs and purposes. For many community college students, the choice is not between the community college and a senior institution; it is between the community college and nothing. It is reasonable to expect students who begin their collegiate studies in community colleges to be more likely to drop out or, if they go on to the baccalaureate, to take longer in achieving it. However, the conclusions that critics draw with respect to the transferring students' preparation for higher learning are simply not true .

The story of transfer is a happy one. Data indicate that community college students who go on to 4-year colleges do quite well. There is an initial transfer shock, and students' grade point averages generally drop slightly in their first term after transfer. Most of them persist until the baccalaureate, and by the time they achieve it, their records are not much different from those who began at 4-year institutions. Recent studies show that students who transfer to universities with a large number of credits or with an associate degree tend to do better than those who transfer with only a few credits; furthermore, they perform as well as native students. A spring '95 study (3) by a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Pennsylvania State University concluded that at least during the first year of attendance, the cognitive impacts of 2-year colleges may be indistinguishable from those of 4-year institutions that enroll similar students. The study investigated cognitive impacts of five 2-year (280 students) and six 4-year colleges (531 students) drawn from all sections of the United States. Controlling for individual precollege ability, there was general parity between 2- and 4-year college students on end-of-freshman-year reading comprehension, mathematics, critical thinking, and composite achievement.

Articulation is not only about the numbers who transfer or how long it takes a student to obtain the baccalaureate degree. It is about the movement of studentsand their academic creditsfrom one institution to another: from 2-year colleges to 4-year institutions and vice versa. Ideally, articulation should provide the transfer student an academic fit with minimal course duplication and with no loss of credits. The process presumes that the 2-year college transfer is prepared for upper-division studies. Ideally, the transfer function also serves to establish the academic validity and credibility of the transferring institution as a legitimate partner in providing education for the transfer student. But, in reality, barriers exist, having to do more with differences in academic cultures and attitudes between two-and four-year colleges and faculty than anything else, including:

· Division-based 2-year colleges vs. discipline-based 4-year colleges.

· Teaching emphasis in 2-year colleges vs. research emphasis in 4-year colleges.

· Accessibility and low-cost tuition at 2-year colleges vs. standards and higher-cost tuition at 4-year colleges.

· A broad mission at 2-year colleges vs. a focused mission at 4-year colleges.

· Nontraditional, working, commuting students at 2-year colleges vs. full-time, residential traditional student at 4-year colleges.

· Realistic and practical emphases at 2-year colleges vs. learning for its own sake at 4-year colleges.

These cultural differences often lead to noncommunication, competition, and suspicion. Until recently articulation with 4-year institutions has been largely one way: a series of policies and procedures, called articulation agreements, prescribed by senior institutions. These agreements provided the structural framework for the articulation process.

Three styles of articulation agreements operate in our 50 states today: formal and legal policies; state-system policies, in which the state tends to be the controlling agency; and voluntary agreements among institutions, whose main feature is negotiation rather than legislative fiat.

Most states have some type of articulation policy. Many are mere guidelines (e.g., Missouri, Iowa, Michigan); others act as state mandates (e.g., Nevada, Florida). Florida has a state-legislated system of common course numbers and common transcripts for all public community colleges and universities. Other states, like California, have central offices to reinforce articulation agreements among institutions. However their statewide agreements are so weak that the only useful transfer arrangements are those negotiated among sets of institutions. The statewide agreement negotiated in New York's CUNY provides for 64 credits toward a baccalaureate program upon transfer (4). However, the mandated acceptance of these credits is not intended to prevent senior colleges from establishing requirements and prerequisites for discipline majors. Even with the best mandated agreements, there are loopholes. Students may be guaranteed admission to the university in general, but not to specific programs. Maryland's system is quite progressive. It accepts all students who have successfully completed the AA degree or 56 hours of credit with an overall average of at least 2.0. In oversubscribed programs, they provide equal treatment for native and transfer students, with the possibility of appeal when there are differences in interpretation. Many colleges develop articulation agreements with nearby universities, but more than half the institutions (both 2- and 4-year) have reported no such agreements in force. More than two-thirds of the senior colleges indicate that they would not accept the associate degree as evidence that a student has had appropriate lower-division preparation. Instead, they review students' prior course work and grades individually, awarding credit toward the baccalaureate only for courses that meet unspecified criteria.

On November 3-5, 1995, the ACS's Committee on Education (SOCED) sponsored an invitational conference to examine articulation practices between 2- and 4-year colleges. It was a step in a progression of SOCED activities initiated more than a decade ago that focused on 2-year colleges. The conferees discussed articulation from both 2- and 4-year college perspectives and developed a series of recommendations to heighten the effectiveness of articulation. Recommendations ranged from having the ACS increase awareness in the chemistry community and elsewhere about the articulation issues to developing shareholders in the articulation process within the college communities.

In conclusion, I think the number one problem with effective articulation is a difference in the values of the community college and the 4-year institution. Given the dichotomies that emerge from the two value systems, it is likely that students who wish to transfer from one environment to another may face a difficult passage. However, by 2- and 4-year faculty working together, making connections, forming partnerships, barriers for the students can be broken down. It is well known that wherever a university and the community colleges in its region work together closely, transfer flourishes (5). It is important to keep in mind that transfer is a student-centered activity; and if we believe in the centrality of the student in all of this, articulation must be an allowed transition.

Literature Cited

1. Cohen, A. M.; Brawer, F. B. The American Community College, 2nd ed.; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 1989.
2. Cohen, A. M. In New Directions for Community Colleges, Vol. 86; San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984; pp 75­76.
3. Pascarella, E.; Bohr, L.; Amaury, N.; Terenzini, P. Educ. Eval. Policy Anal. 1995, 17(1), 83­96.
4. Cohen, A. M.; Brawer, F. B. The Collegiate Function of Community Colleges; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 1987; pp 162-164.
5. Berman, P.; Curry, J.; Nelson, B.; Weiler, D. Enhancing Transfer Effectiveness: A Model for the 1990's. American Association of Community and Junior Colleges: Washington, DC, 1990; pp 42­43.

See Letter re: this article.