Developing strong community college partnerships to drive growth in transfer students at the University of Central Florida
Challenge
How might we pursue and develop strong partnerships to increase access and enrollment?
Strategy
Two-pronged effort:
- Established DirectConnect to UCF in 2006, a program which guarantees admission for graduates with associate degrees from a growing list of select community colleges; in addition, have encouraged students who do not gain admission to UCF to participate in DirectConnect and indicate their transfer intention on partner application forms
- Placed advising, enrollment support, and financial aid staff on site at partner college campuses to work closely with partners in planning joint efforts on degrees and curriculum alignment (link)
Outcome
UCF’s community college partnerships drove transfer growth to 61% of incoming students (the other 39% representing FTIC students), with 79% of those transfers coming from a handful of DirectConnect partners. The DirectConnect program has also led to 120,000 potential students added to the pipeline that the university is now able to correspond directly with. For example, in AY 2015-2016 alone, advisors recorded 1,382 contacts.
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Brainstorming prompts for you and your team to consider
Learn more about strategic partnerships from our research
Institution
Enrollment
71,948
Pell Recipients
31%
Students of Color
54%
Net cost of Attendance
$22,849 (in-state)
