2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This full paper focuses on a study of transfer student practices that impact diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in engineering education. Community colleges and technical colleges are an important feature of the engineering education ecosystem and technical career preparation in the U.S., particularly for low-income students from underserved communities. Through their transfer function, these institutions contribute to broadening participation and collaborative educational partnerships. Across numerous states and associated higher education systems, degree-specific coursework and common general education requirements for transfer students do not apply uniformly to all undergraduate degree programs. Moreover, the structures and policies that inform the transfer process differentially impact degree completion and educational costs for engineering students from community colleges and technical colleges. In response, educational policies and transfer structures have been adopted in several higher education systems to address the inequities experienced by engineering and other STEM discipline transfer students. However, it is unclear from previous research whether actions taken at a state and systemwide level (e.g. common curriculum, common course numbering, or transfer degrees) effectively address the challenges engineering transfer students face.

In this study, we consider how community and technical college engineering transfer programs impact students in three different states - Georgia, Colorado, and California. Our research question is: “What are the characteristics of statewide transfer practices and financial aid policies that impact the course mobility of engineering transfer students?” We discuss the impact of education policy on community college and technical college systems and review relevant studies of engineering transfer students and credit mobility within different demographic and geographic contexts. We also explore how the cost of education, the design of financial aid, and the breadth of engineering and engineering technology sub-disciplines contribute to the opportunities and challenges encountered by engineering transfer students. We utilize qualitative document analysis on data from policy documents, institutional agreements, and legislative statutes to answer the research question posed and to consider their impact on degree completion time. We identify considerations for research practitioners and policymakers, who seek to work across systems to design structures that include engineering transfer students. We recommend changes in general education course requirements, a recognition of associate degree coursework in engineering bachelor degree programs, and a recalibration of financial aid eligibility. We identify implications for transfer policy and financial aid at the institutional level, within transfer partnerships and across statewide systems.