2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The desired diversification of the engineering workforce would benefit strongly from an inclusion of the diverse group of students served by community colleges (Fay, 2022). However, community college students transfer to four-year-institutions to complete their four-year degrees can be daunting for students. Articulation agreements are one tool that appears to be successful in ensuring transfer students’ bachelor’s degree attainment rates (Stern, 2016). Articulation agreements establish course equivalencies and transferability of academic credit within specific engineering major programs to facilitate seamless transfer of students’ credit across post-secondary institutions (Crisp, 2021). In this paper, we are investigating how historic changes in the articulation agreement for the mechanical engineering major impacted the 4-year university’s success in supporting students’ successful graduation using institutional data on student course-taking behavior after transfer. To investigate the impact of modifications made to the articulation agreement, course enrollment patterns of 453 mechanical engineering transfer students that transferred either before and after the modification of the articulation agreement were compared. Results revealed that, while the socio-demographic diversity of the transfer students did not increase, more transfer students were able to graduate within two years after the change in articulation agreement than before the change. An investigation of the course-taking patterns of transfer students before and after the change in the articulation agreement suggested several mechanisms that might have impacted this finding. Strategies such as the reclassification of articulated courses that were not offered sufficiently in community colleges as well as the addition of non-gateway courses to the agreement likely support transfer students’ success. In addition to the actual changes made to the articulation agreement, transfer students’ success after the change in articulation agreement was likely also dependent on the support provided by the 4-year university. In particular, course offerings at the appropriate terms throughout the academic year and guidance for on-time course-taking for key engineering courses at the 4-year university likely improved transfer students’ on-time degree completion. Findings provide important insights for mechanical engineering administrators to help them improve transfer articulation agreements and course scheduling to better cater to the needs of transfer students.