KENNEWICK — Washington State University Tri-Cities will participate in a pilot program that will allow transfer students to apply credits earned at the campus toward unfinished associate degrees.
The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and the Washington Council of Presidents are working in partnership with the WSU system on the program. As many as 1,000 transfer students will be eligible to participate.
University officials said the program is a formalization of what WSU has always offered to transfer students at all its campuses, but will make it easier to identify and notify those who qualify. While it’s unknown how much the program will help keep transfer students in school, information about transfer students with similar support indicate it should be a boon.
“It should, in the long run, help transfer students across the system persist and graduate,” said Assistant Vice Provost Susan Poch in an email.
About 200 new transfer students are enrolled at WSU Tri-Cities, according to initial enrollment estimates. The north Richland campus has frequently been a destination for students who start at Columbia Basin College in Pasco.
Those students typically complete associate degrees before moving on to a four-year university for a bachelor’s, but WSU officials said there are transfer students who successfully move up to the university level before completing their first degree.
“In such cases, the university recognizes that there can be important benefits to both the student and the institutions if students are allowed to use appropriate courses taken while completing their bachelor’s degree to complete unfinished degrees at a previous technical or community college,” said Mary Wack, WSU’s vice provost for undergraduate education, in a release.
Eligible students must be enrolled at the university before obtaining an associate degree, but must have obtained at least 60 quarter credits of coursework, with at least 30 of those credits coming from a Washington community or technical college. The state board will notify eligible students in January and officials will review how well it worked. It could then be rolled out to the state’s other four-year public universities, Poch said.
“Whether this will help our transfer student retention is yet to be seen,” she said. “What we do know is that students who have a (direct transfer agreement) are more likely to be retained so this is one way to help students get (that agreement).”
