I have attended many start-of-the-year events over the last couple of weeks, and I have been impressed by the energy and enthusiasm from our students as well as the overwhelming sense of excitement and support our colleagues have shown the new students at every one of these events. There is a palpable energy in the air, and even as I lament the end of the summer, I cannot help but feel excited about the start of another school year.
Momentum, success and a growing community
One of my favorite events so far this fall has been the Transfer Student Fall Welcome and Resource Fair on the Sunday before classes began. This fall we are welcoming about 1,400 new transfer students to MSU, and hundreds of them attended the resource fair. Every person I met there was genuinely excited to join MSU, and I was so happy to see them already thriving.
Transfer students do indeed tend to thrive at MSU. They graduate at rates slightly higher than their first-time-in-any-college (FTIAC) peers, and they start at MSU with significant momentum toward their degrees. As the landscape for higher education continues to rapidly change, transfer students will be an increasingly important element of MSU’s enrollment mix.
Transfer student numbers into MSU have been relatively consistent over the last five years, with about 1,800 transfer students starting at MSU each fall and spring combined. They were a little higher throughout the 2010s – generally around 2,100 each year – and declined in parallel with declining community college enrollments and as the numbers of Michigan high school graduates began to fall.
Our partners in Institutional Research have created a wonderful Tableau that lets us understand our transfer student numbers. Currently, about 40% of the students who enter MSU as transfer students come from another four-year institution. Grand Valley has consistently been the top four-year contributor of MSU’s transfer students with 50-70 students a year, and the other regional colleges and universities generally provide about half that amount or less. Looking at the students who have transferred to MSU from four-year colleges over the last four years, every one of the top 10 institutions are within Michigan.
About 60% of MSU’s transfer students come to MSU from community colleges, with Lansing Community College (LCC) being by far the largest contributor. LCC alone provides about 20% of MSU’s transfer students each year. Community colleges in southwest Michigan – Oakland CC, Schoolcraft College, Washtenaw CC, Macomb CC, and Mott CC are all among the largest contributors, as is Grand Rapids CC.
Expanding support through partnership
Michigan’s Community College Guarantee now provides most recent Michigan high school graduates with grants to cover the costs of in-district tuition in Michigan community colleges. Not surprisingly, we saw a substantial increase in community college enrollment around the state last year, up about 6% from fall 2023 to fall 2024. My colleagues at local community colleges have told me that they expect an even larger year-over-year increase this year.
Especially given concerns about the affordability of higher education and MSU’s earnest desire to make a world-class education available to as many people as reasonably possible, partnerships with Michigan’s community colleges to increase the number and success of transfer students make good sense. Not only does it actualize MSU’s land grant ethic of access and opportunity, it also reinforces the value to students provided by our partners at Michigan’s 28 community colleges and three tribal colleges. In a state that lacks a centralized higher education authority, multi-institution collaborations are critically important.
The state of Michigan has done much to help nurture the relationships between MSU and two-year institutions in the state. For example, the Michigan Transfer Agreement allows MSU to waive its general education requirements for students who complete the general education coursework at a Michigan community college. Not only does this provide guidance about course selection to community college students who hope to make the leap to MSU, it substantially decreases “credit-leakage,” a term used to describe the loss of earned credits when a student transfers from one institution to another.
Over the last several years, we have learned how to be even better partners with our community college peers, and I want to give a special thanks to colleagues at LCC and MSU who have helped implement and run Envision Green. It is an innovative and collaborative transfer pathway between LCC and MSU that aligns the institutions to provide a smooth transition for our shared students. Envision Green students at LCC work with MSU’s and LCC’s advisors to build personalized academic pathways that help them meet MSU’s admissions requirements and successfully transfer into MSU. Through success workshops, admissions and academic advising, and scholarship opportunities, Envision Green now supports the majority of the growing numbers of LCC students who transfer to MSU.
Just as important as helping individual students, Envision Green has helped MSU and LCC align themselves to one another. Our colleagues at LCC have been tremendously generous with their time, energy, and wisdom, and we have learned a great deal about how to be better partners with them. Thank you, all!
As the semester starts, I am excited to welcome all our undergraduate students, those who are entering higher education for the first time as well as those who have spent time at a previous institution and are now joining our community. Go Green!