The article is a couple of years old, but it's worth noting: "College, My Way" by Kate Zernike, published in the NY Times in 2006, notes the rising transfer rates among college students is becoming the new normal -- claiming that "about 60 percent of students graduating from college attend more than one institution, a number that has risen steadily over at least the last two decades."
Though this number is higher nationally than it is on my own campus, I still don't find this rate of transfer surprising at all, because I've seen the increase in transferring firsthand. The NY Times article suggests that today's "Millennial" generation approach their curriculum just like they do their iPods, selecting courses like singles that they're loading up into their playlists, making increasingly granular choices regardless of "brand affiliation" (eg. a lack of commitment to one's "alma mater.") Admissions offices call the high churn rate of transfer courses "swirling" -- a term I associate with toilet bowl flushes rather than academics, but it's still an apt term. Swirling is what helicopter wings do and it can leave you dizzy and disoriented.
I often staff the "transfer orientation" that our campus hosts during the summer, when incoming transfer students sign up for their first courses... and I have to tell you, as much as I enjoy transfer students (because they usually bring fresh perspectives into the classroom), it's often a nightmarish webwork of complexity trying to figure out what courses a student still "needs" to graduate, despite the useful and helpful audits of our registrars. The sum (diploma) always means more to these students than the variables (courses) that add up to it, and -- coupled with financial pressures that are only rising over the years -- for too many students a "survivalist" mindset drives their learning: many students just want to cobble together a schedule so they can finish their long-suffering and have a degree. Perhaps the way colleges sell themselves contributes to the problem. If a degree is something that can be acquired if enough "stamps" are earned, then it doesn't matter where you get those stamps.
But it is a bit out of the ordinary to earn a degree from one college -- an institutional endorsement of one's educational status -- while still having a transcript that quilts together several different colleges that made their imprint on the student in some fashion outside of the penumbra of the college giving the degree. Do these students feel attachment to their degree-granting institution as "alums" as much as traditional four year students do? Institutional identity evaporates beneath this to some degree, rending the early colleges that the student transferred out of as functionaries toward the final degree. I can imagine some minor forms of blowback that students wouldn't anticipate (e.g., imagine an employer who is a Yale alum reviewing a student's transcripts during the hiring process: Would they see the transfer out of Yale as troubling? Do they see a high "swirl" rate as a sign that a potential employee lacks commitment?)
There are also ways in which "swirling" renders a college's self-assessment problematic. If a school is surveying student attitudes or performance at various grade levels, comparing and contrasting and looking for statistical growth from freshman to senior year, what do the numbers mean if such a high percentage of those seniors have only been in residence for a year or two? Or that the freshman won't be around very long? How do retention committees and officers understand these numbers and marshal policies based on them? Even within any given academic major, swirling problematizes program review and if upper division courses have prerequisites that are built on assumptions about how those prereqs are taught locally, rather than universally, then most assumptions regarding progressive learning are essentially undermined.
Indeed, although it is nothing new (and often common among Adult and non-traditional learners) swirling requires a reformulation of not only what we mean by "traditional students" but what we mean by "progressive learning" across any given student's career. I think teachers concerned with such issues may find a review of Transformative Learning theory a worthwhile endeavor in this regard.
This is very true!
When I started college, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that is all I have been focusing on. But I was very shocked to see how many people just picked classes they would have fun in. I mean there is nothing wrong about enjoying some classes but if you aren't taking the classes needed to graduate, you'll never be out of school.
The other thing I have noticed is how many people pick majors according to their difficulty level. It has nothing to do with interest, but more like which one will be the easiest to get a good grade in. For example, at my school, a lot of people pick Political Science, however, many of them don't even know why they picked it! Their only answer is "it's easy."
Last note: many people don't even take school seriously anymore. They know if they do bad at one school, they just switch schools. Very interesting tactic, but it is definitely a waste of money!
Thanks for commenting back!
I have been in Serbia now for 2 months and I totally know what you mean about the trees. I never thought I'd miss Oregon this much!! I miss the clean air the most!! And the school is amazing! I wouldn't trade it for the world!
GO DUCKS!
Hi Mike,
Did you do your Ph.D. at UO? I think we had some comp theory classes together way back in the day! (I was doing my MFA at the time) I found my way to your blog while searching for ideas for teaching Rereading America, which I just started using in College English 2.
Anyway, I got to your most recent post & wondered if you'd thought at all about the transfer question in relation to students who do their first two years at a community college? I've been teaching at one in Minneapolis, MN for the past 10 years. Your comments seem to assume four-year students as the norm. I'm seeing a lot of students who may have ordinarily started at a four year doing their generals with us because, quite frankly, it's a hell of a lot cheaper. I wonder if this phenomenon will start to change people's prejudices about two-year colleges as "junior" or "not real" schools, an attitude that I believe barely masks distaste for the socioeconomic status of lower and working class students. What do you think?
KateLynn
Hi KateLynn! GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU...I do remember you from grad school, though the years certainly have attacked my memory cells!
Thanks for posting about this complicated issue, too. You're right about students doing their "generals" more and more at community colleges -- I see it happening more and more, even with students at our college who will take CC classes during the summer. You raise some great points about the two-year/four-year divide and the class issues it has generated. I'd like to see attitudes and prejudices change for the better; maybe swirling will indeed accomplish that! Personally, I like the variety in the classroom that it can generate when we get a good diversity of student backgrounds. The traditional 4 year students learn a lot from those who bring their experiences into the room from the local community colleges and schools they transfer from. What's at issue for me -- and what I'm trying to sort out -- is the coherency of the four-year curriculum when both assessing a major program and when advising a student. You've got me thinking about the potential role of an Associate's Degree as a factor in all of this, too. It's all very complex, isn't it?
The question of transfers relates to something Community College Dean said.
I think that many students don't know what they want to do and it is easier to start over somewhere else than to finish what they are doing at their present school.