he Illinois Board of Higher Education's (IBHE) Illinois Commitment1 was created in 1999 to set goals for the state's higher education system. One of the six goals states that, "Illinois will increase the number and diversity of citizens completing training and education programs." This goal has been addressed in a number of ways including through measures to improve transfer for traditionally underrepresented students since they are statistically more likely to enter higher education via the community college. Transfer information tools and programs such as the Course Applicability System (CAS, see insert) and Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI)2 have the potential to assist with this process.

An examination of who is transferring to what sectors can be helpful in making these and other transfer-support systems work more effectively. As initiatives like CAS and IAI are implemented in Illinois, program managers and oversight boards should be mindful of the distribution of students by sector, as well as their mobility patterns. This brief review and analysis of IBHE data on transfer students in Illinois reveals important trends regarding the number and direction of transfers that take place in the state. While a total of 46,000 students transferred in the fall of 2002, there were important variations in the patterns of different groups that are worth noting.

For this brief article, I examined the most recently available IBHE data concerning transfer patterns within Illinois, broken down by racial/ethnic categories. These data are for the fall terms of 2001 and 2002. It is important to remember that many students transfer during other terms, and relative proportions may not be the same.

Traditionally, systems have been established with the idea that the majority of students interested in transfer are likely to begin in a community college and progress after two years to a 4-year institution. In reality, this is only one of a number of patterns that students follow as shown in Figures 1 and 2. For example, state statistics indicate that only 17 percent of Black and Hispanic students who transferred in Illinois in fall 2002 moved from a community college to a public four-year institution. In contrast, 27 percent of Whites moved from a community college to a public four-year institution. Clearly, any program which is designed only to assist in the transfer of students from a community college to a public four-year institution will serve only a fraction of the state's students, and will disproportionately leave out underrepresented students.

Looking more closely at the data, we see that almost two-thirds of all transfer students are White-in line with their proportion in the different sectors of higher education and in the state population. About 40 percent of White students who transfer move to public universities, 35 percent to community colleges, and 25 percent to non-public institutions.

Less than 13 percent of transfer students in the state are Black; this proportion is slightly higher than the Black representation in the state's public four-year system, slightly lower than the Black representation in the Illinois public two-year system, and slightly lower than Black representation in the population. In contrast to the pattern seen among White Illinois college students, only about 30 percent of transferring Black students moved to state public universities, while 37 percent went to community colleges, and 33 percent enrolled in non-public institutions.

Hispanic students show a similar pattern to that of Black students, but only comprise 6.5 percent of total transfers. It is striking that so few Hispanics are transferring-according to the IBHE, almost 16 percent of Illinois community college students are Hispanic, compared to under 15 percent who are Black. However, a high proportion of Hispanic students are found in the community colleges' "pre-collegiate" programs. Of the 55,804 Hispanics enrolled in community colleges in fall 2002, 29,127 (52.2%) were pre-collegiate and 19,940 (35.7%) were undergraduates. This contrasts greatly with the distribution of Blacks and Whites in these programs. Of the 51,546 Black students at state community colleges, 7,722 (14.5%) were pre-collegiate and 36,339 (70.5%) were undergraduates. Of the 224,627 White students, only 4.7 percent were pre-collegiate and 69.2 percent were undergraduates. (The remainder of students were in continuing education programs.)

Asian/Pacific Islander students who transfer in Illinois are moving in a strikingly different pattern than that of other groups. A much larger proportion of those who transfer are going to community colleges. Looking at all fall 2001 and 2002 transfers, nearly half of Asian students, compared to one-third of all students, transferred to an Illinois community college. But if only students who transferred from a community college are examined, only 18 percent of Asian students transferred to another community college. This large discrepancy-46 percent of all transfers versus just 18 percent of transfers from a community college (2002)-indicates that many Asian students are following a "reverse transfer" pattern. While all racial/ethnic categories of students contain reverse transfers, their presence is most pronounced in the Asian category.

Another point to consider is that Black and Hispanic students who transfer in Illinois are transferring to community colleges more than to any other category of institution. They are transferring to public four-year and non-public, not-for-profit four-year institutions at roughly the same percentages, but both Blacks and Hispanics transfer to non-public schools in slightly greater numbers than to public universities. This demonstrates that, for underrepresented groups, the state support of transfer to non-public institutions is as important as support of transfer to public universities, and support for reverse transfer students is vital.

In contrast, White students are transferring to public universities more than to any other sector. While many White students are moving through the Illinois higher education system in a variety of patterns including reverse transfer to community colleges, the proportion of White students moving from a community college to a public university is higher than the proportion of underrepresented students making that transition; 34 percent of the 3,409 white students who transferred from community colleges in fall 2002 moved to a public four-year institution while 35 percent moved to a community college, and 24 percent moved to an independent not-for-profit institution.

The statewide CAS system has so far prioritized the support of transfer from the state's community colleges to public universities, although expansion to serve students moving in different ways is planned. For the state to effectively serve the Illinois transfer student, the traditional "two-year college to four-year college" pattern should not be overemphasized. Particularly in order to meet the needs of minority students, it is vital that the state support transfer to community colleges and to non-public institutions as well as into public universities.

Endnotes

1. For full details on the six goals of the Illinois Commitment, see:
    http://www.ibhe.org/Board/Agendas/1999/February/1999-02-07.pdf.

2. For more information about IAI, see www.iTransfer.org.

Daniel Cullen is a Ph.D. student in Higher Education in Educational Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He may be reached at dcullen@uiuc.edu

Figure 2. Proportion of Students Transferring Overall and From
Community Colleges by Race/Ethnicity