Inarticulate Transfer: Do Community College Students Understand Articulation Agreements?

Abstract

Only 25% of community college students transfer to a 4-year institution within 5 years, and only 17% earn a bachelor’s degree within 6 years of transferring (Jenkins & Fink, 2015). In response, community colleges have partnered with 4-year institutions to draft articulation agreements, outlining transfer policies and procedures for specific academic programs (Montague, 2012). However, no extant research has examined whether these articulation agreements are readable by community college students. This study examines 100 articulation agreements between 2- and 4-year institutions to answer the question: do community college students understand articulation agreements? Findings indicate that 93% of articulation agreements are unreadable by community college students of average reading ability, with 69% of articulation agreements written at or above a 16th-grade reading level. Implications for practitioners and future research are addressed.