When Community Colleges Become Transfer Destinations

Roughly 200 community colleges across 24 states now offer bachelor’s degrees, challenging the traditional view that these institutions are solely two-year gateways to four-year universities. This shift is changing the role of community colleges, making them potential transfer destinations for students. Yavapai College in Arizona exemplifies this trend by partnering with Moraine Park Technical College in Wisconsin and Central Community College in Nebraska, creating new pathways for students to earn bachelor’s degrees.

Doug Berry, acting president of Yavapai College, explains that students can transfer their entire associate degree to one of Yavapai’s 92-credit bachelor’s programs, leaving them with about 30 to 32 additional credits to complete. He notes, “As a community college, we’re used to having our students complete and then move on to a university. So when we entered this space, we got a chance to almost reverse-engineer that.”

The expansion of community college bachelor’s programs has faced both support and criticism. Advocates argue that these programs provide a more affordable and accessible pathway to a four-year degree, especially for place-bound students and those in regions facing high-demand job shortages. However, some four-year institutions have expressed concerns about competition and duplication of existing programs, urging community colleges to stick to their traditional two-year missions.

According to data from the Community College Research Center, last spring about 2 percent of community college students nationwide were enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs. California, which has had community college bachelor’s degrees under strict parameters for over a decade, recently expanded their ability to develop four-year programs after debates over the roles of two- and four-year institutions.

Arizona joined the movement in 2021 when Governor Doug Ducey signed legislation allowing the state’s community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees. Yavapai College launched its first bachelor’s program, a bachelor of science in business, in fall 2023. Two years later, the Higher Learning Commission approved Yavapai to offer a reduced-credit bachelor’s degree, leading to the development of a 92-credit bachelor of applied science in business.

Moraine Park and Central Community College discovered this opportunity through the Alliance for Innovation and Transformation, a national network of community and technical college leaders. Liodice, the organization’s executive director, emphasizes that these partnerships represent a reversal of the traditional transfer relationship. She states, “The traditional model of sending students to a four-year university doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. So what’s great about this model is that it’s reaching students who may not have otherwise been on a path to a bachelor’s degree, and that’s a win for all of us.”

Berry describes how Yavapai is using these partnerships to work across institutional and state boundaries, expanding bachelor’s degree attainment and addressing workforce needs. For Moraine Park students, the partnership offers a fully online route to a bachelor’s degree, the first of its kind for the Wisconsin technical college. Bonnie Baerwald, president of Moraine Park, aims to help students earn a bachelor’s degree more efficiently while meeting regional workforce demands. She says, “I wanted to ensure that we were helping our employers develop the pipeline for the future. Most of our employers need workforce talent today—not two years from now, three years from now or four years from now. Anything that we can do to streamline that was attractive to me.”

In Nebraska, community colleges cannot offer bachelor’s degrees. Matt Gotschall, president of Central Community College, highlights that the partnership with Yavapai allows its associate degree graduates access to four-year programs the college cannot provide, while enabling students to remain in Nebraska. He comments, “Even among our four-year partners—we have dozens of 2+2 agreements with some great institutions—but our colleges in Nebraska were slow in wanting to create different transfer pathways [like] a reduced transfer or a reduced bachelor format. When this opportunity came about, we could sit around and wait a few more years for Nebraska to catch up at our four-year schools, but why? We have students that need these degrees now and want these degrees now. And it’s a lot more economical than what we even have for some of our in-state colleges.”

The partnerships are still in their early stages. Gotschall reports that at least one Central Community College graduate is already enrolled at Yavapai through the agreement. Berry anticipates several more students will join, and the college plans to monitor both student interest and degree completion rates. Yavapai is exploring additional partnerships with technical colleges in Wisconsin and institutions in Arizona, but Berry stresses the importance of seeing meaningful results for students before moving forward.

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