Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

[00:00:00] Okay. Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining today. My name is Jennifer Bento Pinion. I am Director of K 12 Services here at MIFA, and today we are going to learn about mass transfer. Uh, we are joined by our esteemed presenter, Arthur Esposito, who is the Director of Academic Policy and Student Success at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

So thank you, Art, for your time and your expertise. We are so fortunate here in Massachusetts to have so many educational opportunities and options, and Art is going to walk through the specifics of the programs within MassTranscript. So just a few logistics before we get [00:01:00] started. The chat is disabled, so if you have a question, just type that in the QA and we’ll address those towards the end.

And then use the live transcript feature if you’d like to see the words. And if you need to leave the session, no worries at all. This webinar is being recorded and we will send a follow up email with the recording along with the slides. Just a little bit about MIFA. MIFA is a state authority created over 40 years ago with a public service mission to help families plan, save, and pay for college.

And we continue to honor that mission. So now I’m going to hand it over to Art to walk us through the Mass transfer program. And again, any questions, uh, just put those in the QA and we’ll address those at the end. Well, thanks for the, the introduction and thanks for calling me an esteemed, uh, colleague. I appreciate that.

Um, I’m gonna go into a screen share. Uh, I, I tend [00:02:00] to, uh. To shy away from slide decks and power points when, uh, when websites give us such a valuable information. And this 1st, uh, this 1st page I’m on is, uh, is 1 that I like to use to start any conversation. Um, about, uh, about higher ed when talking with, with people who are thinking about, you know, getting into, um, or advancing their, their education and, and diving into higher education, um, this site, this is a Bureau of Labor statistics website.

Um, it’s, it’s BLS dot gov. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is, is, um, you know, I don’t know if many people out there listen to NPR, but this is where we get our monthly job reports. Whenever they talk about how the economy is going and jobs are going in the country, this, this body, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they are the, the branch of the federal government.

Um, that is specifically focused on what the world of [00:03:00] work is like in the U. S. And this graph here. If you look at these blue bars on the left. Um, these are levels of academic attainment. Um, and, uh, the, the blue bars represent, um, the median weekly earnings, roughly of the holders of these kinds of academic credentials.

And then the green bars on the right are, um. Are unemployment figures, uh, for people with these levels of degrees. And as you see, um, the green bars get smaller and the blue bars get bigger further up the, the, the ladder, you climb, um, the difference between the professional degree and the doctoral degree.

These are doctors and lawyers and engineers, and these are, um, academics, um, but then, you know, a little bit further down. Um, the reason I’d like to start. With this page is because, um, [00:04:00] you can you can choose to enter the world of work at any level of academic attainment. Um, you can go right out into the world of work with your high school diploma and, you know.

Look at maybe 900 a week, and then with some college that bumps up a little bit more. And then when the associates degree, it bumps up even further and then a bachelor’s degree further. And then you keep climbing the ladder. Something that’s that’s important to to appreciate is the difference between the high school diploma, some college and the associates degrees.

You know, we’re jumping up by. A small number of dollars. Um, I think that the statistics were that, um, the difference between an associate degree and, um, and a high school diploma is like 17%. Whereas the difference between the earnings of a bachelor’s degree holder [00:05:00] and associate degree holder is more like 37%.

Um, we like to talk about this when, when encouraging you to choose the level at which you enter the world of work and, and, and think about the, the various ways you can do that, you know, with an associate degree, you can go out into the world of work and, and. Um, and keep attending school part time or work part time and attend school full time.

But the key being that you’re, you’re stacking your credentials. You get the associates degree and you jump out into the world of work and you keep chipping away. And eventually, you earn your bachelor’s degree. Uh, and then after you’ve earned your bachelor’s degree, and you go out into the world of work, it’s not a typical for people to then pursue a higher level degree.

And master’s degree level and the doctoral degree level. It’s just a way of kind of conceptualizing where you want to enter the world of work and how higher education [00:06:00] can be a life changing factor in that regard. Um, so with all that having been said, and that is a backdrop to, um, what exactly college degrees are worth these days.

Um, I’d like to kind of shift and start talking with you about mass transfer. My role. Um, it was on the slide. I’m director of academic policy and student success at the Massachusetts Department of higher Ed. Um, and the primary item. And my administrative portfolio is the mass transfer program. And this is a program, um, designed to make it easier for students within the Commonwealth to start at a community college, um, earn an associate’s degree, transfer to a state university or UMass campus, finish your bachelor’s degree, and then get out on into the world of work.

So, you know, start here and here. And enjoy the large increase in, uh, [00:07:00] in, in earnings. Um, there are, uh, 1st of all, there’s an awful lot to know about mass transfer. And this is a, a, a fabulously informative website. It’s pretty simple mass dot slash mass transfer that will bring you to this homepage and you can go through the menus here at the, um, at the top, right?

And it will talk with you about all sorts of things. Um, I like to jump into the history of mass transfer. Nope. That’s not where I want to go. I like to go in the. About mass transfer page. That’s where I want to be. Um, and this, this shows you the different levels of, um, the aspects of mass transfer that are specifically, um, that specifically pertain to starting in an associate degree at a community college, earning associate degree, and then executing what we call vertical transfer.

From community college to baccalaureate institution, um, when we talk about [00:08:00] the institutions in the public system of higher education here in Massachusetts, we’re talking about the, um, we’re talking about the, um, the 15 community colleges. The, um, I think there are 9, uh, state universities. And there are four University of Massachusetts campuses.

Um, and this includes, we’ve got a couple of special mission institutions in the commonwealth. We have Massachusetts College of Art and Design, specifically for visual arts. And we have Mass Maritime, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. These have special arrangements, but they’re all part of The public system of higher education.

We call it the system and they all participate in mass transfer programming. Um, and as you can see, they’re spread out pretty well, um, around the commonwealth. All right, so let’s go back to that about [00:09:00] page. We can start talking about the, the levels of benefit to mass transfer. Um, the first level is called the gen ed foundation.

General education foundation is just that, um, it’s comprised of. 28 to 34 credits, um, and, uh, these are these are a collection of courses in English and math and, um, the humanities and fine arts and behavioral social science, like, psychology and sociology. Um, there are a collection of courses that that. Um, every college in the system has agreed upon and if you finish this, this block of courses, they will transfer from any community college to any bachelor’s degree granting institution.

It’s roughly equivalent to. One’s 1st, 2 semesters of study. Um, it’s it’s half of an associate’s degree. Um, and an associate’s degree is half a bachelor’s degree. There’s a whole lot of mathematics and, uh, that we could talk about in higher ed, [00:10:00] but we won’t bore with you to bore you with that today. That can be a more specific conversation that you have once you start attending your institution.

At any rate, the general education foundation is a collection of courses. Um, if you complete them, and you decide to transfer from your community college to your, the baccalaureate institution that you choose prior to earning the associate degree, this block of courses will. Automatically transfer, and it will satisfy the general education, um, requirements of the receiving institution, um, with the receiving institution being allowed to add no more than 2 courses to that if their general education is more, um, credit hour heavy than the, the, the associate degree.

The next level of benefit is if you finish the associate degree, um, we have what they call a, to be or associate to [00:11:00] bachelors mapped pathways. Um, and there’s a, there’s a cost saving, you know, attached to all of this, because it’s less expensive to go to a community college than it is to go to, um, A 4 year bachelor’s degree granting institution, um, at the, the general education level, because you’re spending less time at the, at the community college, you’ll save a little bit less than if you spend more time at the community college, but there is, there is some savings.

If you spend, you know, the equivalent of an academic year, you’re, you’re spending. a smaller amount of money on, uh, 34 credits or 10 courses than you would be if you were spending the time at the bachelor’s degree granting institution. At the A to B level where you’re finishing at a minimum of 60 credits and roughly two academic years, you’re obviously going to, you’re going to save a little bit more than twice that much, roughly on average 28 percent.

It’s going to differ depending upon the community college you start at. And the bachelor’s degree granting [00:12:00] institution that you, that you transfer to. But a ballpark figure is that you’re saving about 28 percent when you spend two years at the community college before you go to that baccalaureate institution.

You’re also finishing more of your credits. Um, and, and I’ll show you maps in just a minute. Um, we have a way of mapping the courses that you take at the community college and how they’re accepted at the baccalaureate institution, the receiving institution, as we call it. Um, but the idea here is that you complete your associate degree.

And when you complete your associate degree, the benefits that you reap of mass transfer are are increased as well. So, if you complete the 60 credits and the associate degree with a GPA or higher, you’re guaranteed full transfer of a minimum of 60 credits. You do not have to pay an application fee. You don’t have to write an essay, and you don’t have to get letters of recommendation.

If you finish with a 2. 5 or higher. Admission is [00:13:00] guaranteed. Um, the only, the only cases in which you’re not guaranteed an admission is if you’re going for, um, a special admission program. If, if you’re going for a performing arts or visual arts program and an audition is required, then they won’t guarantee you admission to that.

Um, if there’s no space available in highly sought after programs. Um, you might not be granted admission, but that’s going to be on a case by case basis. And, um, you’d be admitted to the, to the university. You just wouldn’t be admitted to the major immediately. Um, and then the final, uh, level of benefit is if you transfer with a GPA of 3.

0 or higher, then. Um, you’ll receive, um, at the state institution, you’ll be eligible for the mass transfer, um, tuition grant. [00:14:00] Um, and so, so that would, that would reduce the cost of your tuition and you’d also get a 10 percent rebate every semester that you maintain the 3. 0, you would get a 10 percent rebate of all fees.

Um, there are, there are 2 types of pathways. Associated with this associate to bachelors kind of mapping process. There’s the A to B mapped. Pathway, we’ll talk a little bit more about those in a few minutes, but those are pathways that, um, that all of this institutions in the public system have gotten together and agreed upon not only the general education foundation, but a handful of courses in your major that are guaranteed to transfer.

And that’s the a, to be mapped pathway, and I’ll show you some mapped pathways in just a 2nd. And then we have, um, a, to be linked. These don’t [00:15:00] include a map showing you how courses articulate. These are, these are, um, individually agreed upon. Pathways between a community college and a receiving institution, and you’re encouraged to connect with academic advisors at both institutions to make sure that as you go through the 4 semesters at the community college.

That your course selections are not only satisfying your degree completion at the community college, but that they’re also going to transfer to the baccalaureate institution. When you move on, and they’re going to account for things specifically at the baccalaureate institution. So there are 2 different kinds of pathways that that exist there.

And and both of these mapped and linked pathways leave you eligible for the third level of mass transfer benefit. This is called the Commonwealth commitment. This is a program [00:16:00] by which you well, you sign up for the Commonwealth commitment program before you earn 15 credits at the community college. So, The minute you’re admitted to the community college, you want to start talking with academic advisors at that institution about the commonwealth commitment approach.

If your plan is to start at the community college and ultimately transfer to a baccalaureate institution when you sign up for the commonwealth commitment. There are some, some rules you have to follow. You need to enroll full time, so 12 credits or more. That’s a minimum of four classes every semester, and you need to maintain a 3.

0 GPA every semester. You also need to complete the associate degree in five semesters, so that’s two and a half years. They give you a little bit of extra time because the mathematics of an associate degree are that you can complete, All 60 credits into academic years or four semesters. [00:17:00] Sometimes it takes a little bit longer if you don’t.

You know, if you don’t take a large number of credits, you might need to go an extra semester, but you get that leeway. So you’re full time enrolled. You’re earning 12 credits. You’re completing your associate degree in 5 semesters, and you enroll at your target institution, the receiving institution, the state university or the UMass campus.

You enroll the semester after you complete your associate degree. If you do all 3 of those things. Then every semester at the community college, you’re going to get a 10 percent rebate of your tuition. Um, then after you transfer to the state university, first of all, the first benefit is that the, the tuition and fees at the state university or the UMass campus, they’re frozen to the level of that they were at when you started at the community college.

So say you started the community college in [00:18:00] September, 2024. When you transfer to the State University in September 2026, you’re still going to be paying the fees and tuition that the institution was charging back in 2024. So there’s a freeze on your tuition. You also receive the Mass Transfer Tuition Waiver, which means that 100 percent of your tuition is waived.

And on top of that, at the end of every semester, you get a 10 percent rebate of State University and UMass campus fees. So there’s tremendous financial benefit to to engaging in this Commonwealth commitment. Program, um, and all it takes is for you to decide what you’re going to major in and what institution you’re going to attend.

What what bachelor, what institution you’re going to seek your bachelor’s degree at and you meet with your academic advisor at the community college, you sign a participation form and and then. You’re a [00:19:00] participant of the program. You’re only responsibility at the community colleges to enroll full time and meet a 3.

0 GPA. Um, before we dig into the particulars of of associate to bachelors mapping, I want to go through a couple of a couple of other options that, um, that our office sort of, um, manages. There’s something called reverse transfer. And in cases in which your job is If you work at one, um, uh, increases your pay, depending upon how many degrees you earned.

Um, there’s something called the reverse transfer. Um, this is for students who transfer to a state university or a University of Massachusetts campus prior to having earned their associate degree. And what you can do with reverse transfer is. You can take the, you can send the courses that you’re earning at the [00:20:00] university back to the community college to retroactively be granted that associate degree.

As soon as you finish all the courses that complete the degree and at that point, the degree is conferred upon you. And if you’re, if you’re working a job where. Credentials give you more pay and you started a job and you didn’t have an associate’s degree, but you earn one before the bachelor’s degree.

Then that employer can be sent proof of your associate degree and your pay will be increased. So the reverse transfer is something to keep an eye on. It’s all of these things are things to talk about with your academic advisor, because the implementation of them on each different campus is slightly different, and you’re your best source of any information once at a campus, a community college campus or a state university.

Your best source of information and your most significant point person, uh, as far as answering questions is concerned, it’s going to be your academic [00:21:00] advisor and they can help you understand all of this throughout the process. You just need to be in communication with them as you go forward. And then finally, we’ll mention the non mass transfer options.

We don’t really have control over these. Um, we just, we list them on our website. Um, a number of private institutions in the Commonwealth. So, you know, not the state universities, not the UMass campuses, but, you know, Bentley and, um, the, the, the Riverway, um, uh, institutions, uh, and, and, you know, uh, BU and BC and, and, um, uh, um, I’m forgetting all the big ones, but the private institutions, they frequently have relationships with, uh, Um, uh, with our institution with our community colleges, and there are agreements that, uh, that are negotiated between institutions.

There’s a, there’s a map and there’s a search process on our website that lets you identify those. But again, [00:22:00] your advisors at your community colleges are going to know which institutions they have private, uh, Transfer agreements with, and they’re going to help you identify them so that you can make the transition between community college and the bachelor’s degree granting institution, um, more effective.

So, with all that having been said, I want to jump in now and talk with you about the aid and the pathways. Um, we talked a little bit about the, the financial benefits. Um, I want to now jump into what it looks like to look at an associates to bachelors. Um, uh, math pathway. Um, 1st of all, we’ll, we’ll hover a 2nd here, um, to get the visual reference of, um, the benefits of mass transfer.

Um, again, 2. 0, you get these benefits 2. 5, you get another 1 tacked on 3. 0. This is the Cadillac of the mass transfer, um, benefit, uh, uh, [00:23:00] uh, uh, conversation. Um, it’s easy to find which institutions have mapped pathways if you go to our A2B program search. And all you do is you select the community college that you plan to go to.

We’ll just say Bunker Hill for the sake of, uh, demonstration. And we’ll say that you’re going to transfer to UMass Boston. Um, and if you’re not sure where you want to go, because, you know, honestly, how sure can you be without even having had the reality yet? We’ll just say, show me, show me map pathways for any field.

And the search page will show you the long list of of A to B map pathways. This is, you know, your home community college. These are the associate degrees that you would earn at the community college and we’ll just use, um, uh, chemical science, uh, transferring to UMass Boston’s bachelor of science and chemistry.

[00:24:00] When you go to the page, it starts talking with you about course for course articulations and the agreements that the 2 institutions have, um, down at the bottom here. We have, um, a general education foundation. So it’s 9 credits or 3 courses in behavior, social science. You can click this link and say, well, let’s do this just for demonstrative purposes.

Um, when you click the link, it will take you to this search page and this tells you what. What the Bunker Hill Community Colleges Behavioral Social Science courses are and what the humanities and fine arts are. These are the categories that you have to satisfy for the general education foundation. You take all of you take the required credits in these categories, and they transfer to UMass Boston and satisfy UMass Boston’s general education foundation.

Then we have up here the major foundational credits. These are specific courses that have been [00:25:00] negotiated. Um, uh, to transfer between the 2 institutions. So the math to 81, the calculus 1 class that you take at the community college is going to be calculus 1 at the bachelor’s degree granting institution.

Um, these categories of courses for the chemistry major, they’re going to be the same courses, no matter where you go. So at the, if you’re attending Bunker Hill, your math 281 Calculus one course is going to be calculus one at any state university or University of Massachusetts campus. Same thing with Calc two.

Same thing with general chemistry one and two organic chemistry and physics. All these courses have been pre negotiated. And the receiving institution accepts them regardless of which receiving institution that is. These courses at Bunker Hill are always going to be [00:26:00] Calculus 1 and 2, Chemistry 1 and 2, Organic, pardon me, it’s easy for me to say, Organic Chemistry 1 and 2.

Um, and physics 1 and 2. So that’s the structure of an A to B map. Um, it lets you know what the courses you’re taking at community college are going to be received as at the receiving institution. And it’s a very, um, it’s a very helpful tool to, um, to plan your, your, um, course scheduling from semester to semester and to plan your ultimate transfer from back from community college to baccalaureate institution.

Um, There are other tools on the page that you could that you can avail yourself of. You could look at, um, the course equivalency database. Uh, in addition to these mapped pathways, we also have course equivalencies negotiated, um, based on the institution that you’re that you’re attending. So you pick [00:27:00] any community college and click go, and you can ask for.

Well, you can do courses from any department and any course and you can pick the, the, the bachelor’s degree institution you want to go to. Let’s say this time. We’re going to go instead. We’re going to go to, um, Fitchburg state. Um, and this will list all of the bunker Hill courses. On the left and the way that those courses are accepted and transfer on the right to the bachelor’s degree granting institution.

Um, other tools. We have, um, this one’s always, uh, uh, a pretty interesting page to have a look at these are the general averages of how much you can save. But if you want to get specific, you can look at how much you’ll save going from bunker Hill to. UMass Boston, and it will show you that, [00:28:00] um. The Janet foundation, uh, you’re going to save 13 percent if you do the Janet foundation at Bunker Hill and then transfer to UMass Boston.

And then if you finish your entire associate degree, you’re going to save roughly 33%. Um, these are total costs, um, and this is the amount of savings. Then if you do the mass transfer Commonwealth commitment, you’re going to save 44%. So there are ways that you can come here and you can, you can use the calculator to identify how much savings you’re looking at.

Um, let’s see if there are any other tools that I want to share with you before I stop talking and let you start asking questions. Uh, transfer electric codes, that’s not important. Um, we had the, you know, here again as a campus directory, you can look and, and see by region. Um, the other transfer options, this might not be a bad one to look at.

Um, if you look at, uh, [00:29:00] the two private institutions, this is the Massachusetts guarantee. Again, we don’t manage or supervise this one, but we do allow you to, to execute program searches and, and these are just. Um, independently negotiated, um, 1 to 1 transfer articulations between different colleges, different private colleges and the public community colleges in the commonwealth.

So, if you wanted to do a program search. It would roughly look the same as it did, um, uh, doing an A to B pathway search. You’re going to choose, uh, the institution that you want to finish out. These are all of the private institutions that offer agreements say, you know, we’re going to do Suffolk and you want to see any major because, again, you’re undeclared.

Um, and this will show you everything that that Suffolk University offers as a, um. As a, an agreement with community [00:30:00] colleges in the common law. So there are lots of tools here. There are lots of things to think about there. There’s so many questions when, um, when, uh. When thinking about launching your higher ed career, whether or not start at the community college, um, at the Department of higher ed and in the mass transfer program, we think it’s a great idea to start a community college.

Um, it’s it’s a tremendous cost saving. It’s also a good way for you to kind of acclimate to the change that it is to learn at the higher ed level, because it’s not the same as learning in high school. There are differences and community colleges generally tend to be a little bit smaller and a little bit easier to transition to that higher level learning in a different environment.

So there are lots of benefits to starting a community college, not the least of which is a financial benefit. I think that pretty much sums it up. So I’m going to stop sharing and, um, and [00:31:00] we’re going to open it up to be more conversational. There we have it. We did have a question that came in, Art, um, when you were on the savings page, um, the question is, is that savings per year?

Does it outline the savings per year or is that over the course of the? No, I believe it’s over the course of the, uh, of the, um, of the entire degree. Let me get back on the. Page here and I can just remind myself to do to do to do to do compare mass transfer savings. Yeah, that’s, um, that’s overall cost. So it’s not savings per year.

It’s, um, oh, actually. Oh, just break it down for a year. And, and it’s a funny, it’s a funny thing that you asked. Let me actually, let me quickly go back in the screen share. I just lost my Zoom meeting, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, share me again. So, um, so we have the, the yearly savings here. Um, but [00:32:00] something to remember about, um, about colleges.

It’s not really a yearly thing. Higher ed is is divided into, uh, I believe all the public institutions. Yeah, we’re all in the semester system. So higher ed is divided into into semesters. It’s it’s a it’s a, uh, a biannual kind of relationship. You know, you pay your tuition and fees. At the start of each semester, there’s a fall semester that goes from September through December, and there’s a spring semester that roughly goes from end of January through early May and you pay tuition at the start of every semester.

So they’ll give you an average annual savings. It could be different. Um, in the fall, slightly less or more expensive in one semester than another semester because they’re differing fees from time to time. And maybe courses have some, [00:33:00] some additional unique fees. In addition to the, the campus fees and the overall tuition.

So it’s, it’s a good ballpark figure and thinking about it annually is, um, it’s certainly a value, but you also need to remember that, um, That annual figure is going to be split in half and broken up over two payments. I hope that, uh, I hope that answer the question and made sense. And I hope I’m sharing the right screen as I think about it.

Other questions. Yeah, we have a couple of good ones that came in. So, um, question. Can my son participate in this program if he intends to go to college in another state? Um, no, uh, and and simply because the, uh, the, the mass transfer program is, is. Only for transfer from Massachusetts public community college to a Massachusetts State University or U.

M. S. campus. Um, [00:34:00] but it doesn’t mean that. Your son shouldn’t be thinking about transfer. Um, the, the mass transfer program provides a pretty good model for thinking about what they call, they call it vertical transfer because you’re starting a college and you’re, you’re transferring to the higher degree granting institution.

One of the, one of the general rules of thumb that we encourage students to think about is that you want to start thinking about and planning your transfer three to four semesters prior to actually executing that transfer. And what that means is that since it, it really it, you can complete an associate degree in four semesters.

That means you want to start talking, thinking about the transfer. At the start of the associate degree, so it’s never too early to meet with an institutional academic advisor, let them know what your plan is and and ask them to help you plan that transfer help ask them to help you, [00:35:00] you know, access the receiving institutions website and think about what their degree requirements are.

And try to find a way to establish what your community colleges courses look like in transfer to that institution. So no, they can’t specifically benefit from mass transfer, but they can absolutely benefit significantly from talking with institutional academic advisors about executing that transfer at the end of their process.

That’s a good question. Um, all right, here’s another one. This leads us right perfectly into the next question. Uh, can you share how participating in early college programs or maybe dual enrollment or students that are taking courses in high school, how that can benefit the students and do those courses count towards mass transfer?

So, um, I’ll, I’ll answer that one in reverse, because the, the last antecedent question was, was the easiest one to answer. [00:36:00] Yes, early college courses and dual enrollment courses. And I believe even AP, um, those can count towards. First of all, college credit and the early college and dual enrollment are almost all general education courses and and thereby dealt into the general education foundation component of a degree and the component of mass transfer.

So those credits can be used for mass transfer. Um, and the way that they, um. The way that they help the way that early college programs help and dual enrollment programs help. Um, there are actually 2 ways. The 1st way is, um, is that your student is getting a peek behind the curtain at what college level learning looks like.

I said it earlier in, in, in my comments. It’s different learning at the college level from learning at the high school level, um, you know, [00:37:00] in the easiest possible terms in high school, you’re in school, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. When you go to college, if you’re a full time enrolled student, um, one unit of academic credit equals about an hour in class.

So if you’re a full time student, you’re taking 12 credits, you’re only in class 12 hours a week. That’s way less time than you’re spending in class in high school. That doesn’t mean that it’s easier, and that doesn’t mean you’re learning half as much. It means that more of the education is on you. So when you’re learning, When you’re, when you’re taking dual enrollment courses and early college courses when in high school, you’re learning like you’re in college.

So the first benefit of those kinds of programs is it preps you to learn at the college level. It lets you know what it’s going to look like when you get there. And I, before I started working in the Department of Higher Education, I was an academic advisor on college campuses, and I’ve been an academic advisor since 2004.

And before that, I was a [00:38:00] college professor. Um, so I’ve had experience. Working with students and primarily working with first time college students, and that’s the biggest transition is is matching their learning style to the teaching style at the new institution. So that’s the first benefit of early college and dual enrollment.

The second benefit is that you’re earning college credit in those programs. So. The requirements of of the, um, the community college, um, and I’ll, I’ll use, let me use, uh, the, the mass transfer site again as a demonstration. Let’s go to, um, general education and we’ll do a course search. Um, so the General Education Foundation requires nine credits or three classes in behavior social science.

It requires nine credits or three classes in humanities and fine arts, seven credits or two classes in natural physical science, [00:39:00] six credits or two classes in English and composition, um, and three credits or one course in math. So these are your requirements. This, you know, typically a college course is worth three credits.

So three divided by nine, nine divided by three is three. That means you got to take three classes. Um, all of these courses. If we’re gonna let’s do a search again, we’ll use bunker Hill. All of these classes primarily are 100 and 200 level courses. That means their 1st year courses or their sophomore level courses.

These are, for the most part, the, the collection of courses from which early college programs are built. And dual enrollment programs are built. Um, there’s a, a dual enrollment early college version of English 101 college writing 1 and college [00:40:00] writing 2. there’s, there’s, there’s a version of that at every high school.

In the country here in Massachusetts, if you take these two courses, they’re absolutely transferring to your community college, and they’re satisfying your writing one and writing to requirement. They’re plugging into your English composition, general education requirement. And once they become part of that general education foundation, they’re also transferring to.

The state university. So, um, that’s the second benefit credit owl accumulation credit hour accumulation. Yeah, we’re not accumulating owls. Sorry about that credit hour. Accumulation is the second benefit of early college and dual enrollment. 1st benefit is learning how to learn at the college level. 2nd benefit.

You’re actually acquiring credits and working yourself closer to. Um, degree completion. I think that got it all. I hope that got it all. Yes, that was great. Thank you. Uh, let’s see. Next [00:41:00] question. Um, does the path from community college to state university potentially affect job prospects and internship opportunities?

Does it have any negatives to the, to have the community college on your resume? No negative impact whatsoever. Um, does it affect job opportunities, um, or internship opportunities? I think that it would increase the chances that you would find yourself in an internship reality, because most community colleges, um, focus heavily on what we call your, again, easy with me, focus on what we call experiential learning.

That’s where you go out into the world of work. And you are paired with a company and you do an academic internship where you receive pay for your internship, but [00:42:00] you also receive college credit. Um, many community colleges, if not all of our community colleges, have those experiential learning kinds of opportunities.

Um, and it’s a great positive impact on, um, job opportunity and internship. Nothing but good. All right. Um, when you mention academic advisors. Is the assumption that you’re referring to the academic advisors at the community college? Yes, your, your, your best answers are going to come from the advisor at the institution that you’re at, um, the advisors at the community college all have relationships with.

The institutions to which you’re going to transfer. Um, there are lots of tools, uh, advisors. The community colleges are also using the mass transfer site. So they’re informed about the way that courses transfer and they have the ability at a certain point to get you connected with the community.

[00:43:00] Advisors, admissions counselors, um, and transfer counselors at the receiving institution as well. So, so the best place to start is the advisor at your home institution. I, you know, when I gave advising presentations, I always used to use the, you know, the funny phrase that academic advisors are great regulators of funkiness.

Anytime anything gets weird, um, if it gets weird in a class, the student can talk with the, with the instructor. But if things outside of the classroom start to get a little bit funky, and you don’t know who to talk to, the best bet is for the student to talk with their academic advisor. If that advisor doesn’t have the answer to the question, they certainly know who does on that campus.

Thanks.

All right. There’s a request to speak more about the Mass Transfer Tuition Waiver Credit Benefit with the, um, ComCom. Does this mean zero tuition payments? At the state [00:44:00] institution and the University of Massachusetts campus, yes. 100 percent of your tuition at the university level is waived or credited.

That doesn’t waive the fees. You only get a 10 percent rebate on the fees, but the entire tuition is waived at State University and University of Massachusetts campus. And that’s, that’s. Predicated upon maintaining full time enroll and maintaining a 3. 0 GPA and you have to do that throughout. So, so the com com thing is it’s it’s a it’s a long commitment.

It’s you committing at the start of the community college career. So, before you earn 15 credits at the community college, you’ve got to sign that participation form and then from that point forward, you stay full time enrolled. You earn a 3. 0 GPA. Um, and that’s [00:45:00] for five semesters of the community college.

And then it’s another four semesters at the state institution. Thank you for explaining that. All right. Uh, what about classes offered in the high school that are from an out of state university, for example, Syracuse, could these college credits be used in the mass transfer program? Those are, are not going to be.

Well, that’s going to depend upon how

the community college receives the course in transfer. So dual enrollment is a transfer reality because you’re earning a dual enrollment credit from an institution. And if you’re taking all of your dual enrollment credits that you earned, let’s say, [00:46:00] um, let’s say your high school has a dual enrollment relationship with with Bunker Hill.

Bunker Hill Community College is issuing a transcript. When you finish a course in dual enrollment or early college, and they’re saying you took English 101 at Bunker Hill, wherever you go next. If you go to Bunker Hill, the points move because it’s just part of your academic record. But if you take your, your dual enrollment or early college credits to UMass Boston.

When you are admitted to UMass Boston, you’re going to submit your high school transcript. You’re also going to request from Bunker Hill that they send a transcript to UMass Boston. And then UMass Boston will receive them accordingly. So UMass Boston is going to look at Bunker Hill dual enrollment credits, and they’re going to be part of mass transfer.

If your, your high school’s dual enrollment relationship is with [00:47:00] Syracuse, Then Syracuse is going to issue the official transcript for whatever courses you earned through them. If, for example, you took Syracuse version of of English composition one, it will depend upon the if you’re going to a community college.

It will depend upon how that community college accepts Syracuse’s Comp 1 in transfer. If that satisfies the community college English Composition 1, then that immediately becomes part of mass transfer. If you then transfer from the community college to a state university, um, if you’re just going from high school to the state university, then mass transfer is not going to come into play because you’re not dealing with a Massachusetts community college.

That was a very complex answer because it was a tricky question, but [00:48:00] I hope it got, I hope it got you a good answer. It was perfect. Good. All right. And then one final, one final question. Sure. Uh, are certain community colleges, um, that have like specialty programs, um, you know, that cater to, for example, engineering, an engineering major.

So there are there, the question is, are there certain community college that have certain programs? Yes, um, I think that that the answer to which community colleges have better programs or or unique programs is 1 best asked of. Your high school guidance counselor staff, um, and I’m sure that I’m sure the word Naviance is probably not going to be new to any 1 of our attendees.

That’s that’s what most. Of the high schools in Massachusetts use. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, uh, a program by which, you know, you search for [00:49:00] colleges and institutions. Um, but your high school guidance counselors and your guidance counselor staff will be the best resources for identifying which community colleges, um, are stronger in a certain area than others might be.

Oh, we have one more. I said final question, but one more popped in. That’s fine. This is a good one. Uh, so we are building a program of study for our early college program and trying to identify gen ed state universities. How do you propose using this tool? Gen, uh, building up. They’re building, building our own programs, building for early college, building early college.

And you’re trying to identify what institution to they’re trying to try to identify a state university, um, to participate. How do you propose using this tool? I don’t know. Veronica, maybe expand on that a little bit. [00:50:00] Are you with the, um, you’re with the high school I can get her off.

I know that, um,

I, I don’t know that, um, there’s someone at the department whose primary. Uh, portfolio responsibility is early college. Um, I think that my recommendation would be to. Um, well, you can email me if you don’t already have a contact at the DHE. Um, yes, we have, and the DHE folks would be, um, would be the best ones to talk to for public institutions, but I’m not sure who.

You’d want to reach out to for [00:51:00] the privates, it might just be kind of a hunting game where you just reach out to all the private institutions. I think where I’d start is I would go to the. The mass transfer page, and I would look for, um, let me get back to it. Um, go to the mass transfer page and, um, in the blue bar across the top with all the separate menus go all the way to the far right into the other transfer option and in the drop down list, scroll down to the private institutions and you can just reach out to each private institution and assess their appetite for participating in the, in the early college programming.

Great. And I put, I put your contact information on the screen here. So take that down. Feel free to call me. Um, I’m, I’m from time to time in meetings that I can’t pick up my phone or I’m, I’m working on ground in a cube farm. And it’s, it’s [00:52:00] hard to have a conversation with someone because you make all of your cube partners part of that conversation.

But if I’m able to pick up, I will. And if I’m not able to pick up, I certainly return your call when I can. Um, email is a very efficient way of getting a hold of me and just shoot me questions comments or observations. I’m happy to answer them That’s awesome. Thanks for being open to that. Uh, and then one more one more question Um, is there a mass transfer for graduate degree at there is not okay All right at that point, you know At that point, you really you’re looking at, um, transferring from a master’s program into a new master’s program is is tricky.

Um, and and I mean, this, this is a, this is a, an opinion, not from the, but from personal experience. Transfer within your your graduate program is not really looked upon [00:53:00] very favorably. You’ve got to relocate to a different state because you’re moving. That’s one thing, but I don’t know of any any interstate or inter institutional kinds of agreements that anyone has for for graduate level work.

All right, great. Thank you. We don’t have any other questions that have come in. So thank you so much, Art. I’m sure you have inspired students to explore these programs further and possibly take advantage. Um, so, again, if you have any questions, um, specific to mass transfer, reach out to Art. And we will also, again, be sharing the, uh, the slides.

And You can always, um, check out, check out, um, MIFA’s upcoming webinars and recorded offerings at MIFA. org slash events. We have a host of topics to choose from, so take advantage of that. And you can also follow us on social. We are active on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. Uh, [00:54:00] we have an amazing podcast, uh, with our own Jonathan Hughes and several, uh, helpful videos on YouTube.

Uh, and we also answer questions that come in on our social channels. So sometimes it’s helpful to, for families to see the questions others have and the answers that we give. Um, so we encourage that as well. And then finally, you can always contact us directly at MIFA by phone or email. Our team answers, uh, calls Monday through Friday, nine to five.

And again, just thank you all for joining today. Thank you, Art. This was an amazing presentation and, um, yes, just I hope everyone has a great rest of your day.

Thank you.