If you are working towards a two-year degree in the United States, it may become easier to transfer into a bachelor’s program in the near future. A group of colleges- both public and private, two-year and four-year- are preparing to announce an alliance with the intent on producing high-achieving community college graduates and making it easier for them to transfer into bachelor’s programs.
This assembly of colleges is building on a program called American Honors, created by for-profit company Quad Learning, in order to craft honors programs within community colleges characterized by competitive admissions, demanding academic work and intensive guidance for highly talented students. In the past, community colleges have shown little guidance to their students- many do not finish their degree in two years and the more determined students cannot find enough challenging courses. Many times, four-year universities refuse to honor the credits that these ambitious students have earned due to the curriculum’s lack of rigor.
The American Honors program is still young, comprised of only a handful of community colleges and 230 students, but plans call for rapid growth by next fall. There are now twenty-seven four-year institutions in the alliance ranging from education leviathans such as Ohio State to smaller universities like Amherst. Administrators at the colleges have been impressed with the program and the students in it; the first group of students that graduated this past spring were accepted as transfers to prestigious universities that include Vanderbilt, Georgetown and Stanford University.
Quad Learning states that 27% of students who earn a bachelor’s degree begin at the community college level. This program will serve as a catalyst to help high-achieving, community college transfers have a distinct advantage over other transfer applicants. Quad Learning hopes to build a network of 40 to 50 community colleges, each of which would be comprised of five hundred to one thousand students in their respective honors program.