MEFA Institute: Get the Facts on Mass Transfer

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

Jennifer L. Bento: [00:00:00] Okay, welcome and hello. Thank you for joining today's webinar, Get the Facts on Mass Transfer. My name is Jennifer Bento Pinion. I am here at MIFA as Director of K 12 Services. And today, let me get my slide going here, we are joined by Arthur Esposito, who is the Director of Academic Policy and Student Success at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

Thank you for joining. And thank you, Art, for your time today and your expertise on this subject. Uh, we are so fortunate here in Massachusetts to have so many educational opportunities and options. And today, Art is going to walk through the specifics of the program. Within mass transfer. So just a few logistics before we get started.

The chat is disabled. So a question, just type it in the QA and we will address those at the end [00:01:00] of the presentation. If you would like to see the words, use the live transcript feature. And if you need to leave the session, uh, no worries, this webinar is being recorded and we will send a follow up email with the recording along with the slides.

And also as part of the MIFA Institute, this session is eligible for a professional development point and the link to the evidence of learning form will also be included in that follow up email. So 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 with our offerings. Okay, so now I'm going to hand it over to Art. Stop sharing my screen.

Arthur Esposito: Thanks for the intro. Thanks for, um, you know, honoring me with the expertise comment. [00:02:00] I'm, uh, I'm going to share my screen and jump right in. Um, like Jennifer said, my, my name is Art Esposito.

I'm the director of academic policy and, um, and student success in the primary, uh, Item in my portfolio right now is is, um, sort of managing coordinating the mass transfer platform. So let me go into a screen share. Um, I want to do screen 2 and, um, this isn't a mass transfer page, but I, um, I really like contextualizing whenever having conversations with with students about, um, about higher education.

I like to as early as possible, um, get them thinking about. Um, about what this this time, and the next phase of their educational journey, what kind of impact that can have on, um, you know, the trajectory of their of their professional life. Um, I think that the, uh, the title education pays is is a really cool 1 for this particular [00:03:00] site.

This is a, a Bureau of labor statistics site. So it's it's a dot Gov. Um, this is the agency that, you know, the monthly job report that comes out of the. Um, that the federal government is always talking about. It comes from this organization, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So these data are, um, are pretty accurate and, and they're meaningful to students because it kind of contextualizes what the world of work means and how, you know, uh, increased levels of, of, uh, academic attainment can, can greatly impact, um, The trajectory of their life and at the Department of Higher Ed, um, our equity agenda.

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with it, but, um, one of the key components in it is, um, is trying to, uh, to positively affect, uh, uh, students and families, upward mobility. Um, and I don't get that heady with students when I talk with them about it, but something, [00:04:00] um, that as, as. Education professionals, we can kind of focusing on if you look at the difference between, um, the earning potential of, uh, of workers with a, uh, high school diploma versus an associates degree, you see a, a relatively significant jump in income.

But if you look at at the difference between the bachelor's degree attainment and the associate degree attainment, um, it's, it's significantly larger. I, I think that. The data that I read last were that there is a 17 percent increase in, um, earning potential between. Uh, a high school diploma, uh, holder and an associate to be holder.

But but the difference when you jump from associate degree to bachelor's degree is somewhere in the area. What? 37%. Um, so in terms of, um, uh, amassing generational wealth and in terms of really setting someone on a trajectory to, [00:05:00] um, to to increase their upward mobility. We really want to be talking with students about about jumping from.

Um, from the associate degree levels of the bachelor's degree level and then and then, uh, and even higher, you know, as we're talking about master's degrees and doctoral degrees. So anyway, this is a great, uh, site that I use to contextualize it for students. It's, you know, it's tricky to get my, my previous career before I joined the department.

I read, I was, um, I was a director of academic advising, and I, and I was in that profession for about 2 decades. Um, and the hardest thing to do, I found was. Um, to engage students in this kind of conversation. Um, but it's also 1 of the most important things that we do. Uh, when a student starts at the, the post secondary level, we need to get them to start thinking about this, because we need them to start thinking about academic planning.

Um, and that's a, that's a decent enough segue to, [00:06:00] to jump to the mass transfer site. Um, Mass transfer is, um, is the program that's, it's a, it's a policy of the Department of the Board of higher ed and the Department of higher ed are the, um, the executors, if you will, uh, board policy, um, mass transfer is the program that is entirely concerned with, um, what, what we refer to as vertical transfer.

So the transfer from community college to baccalaureate level. Um, there are, there are lots of things to, to sort of understand about mass transfer and it can get kind of tricky, but I like to start on our page, not in a self serving way, but because it really. It kind of, it lays out the benefits of of each program within the, the mass transfer policy.

So, um, I'll usually jump into the about mass transfer the landing page. And there are a lot of words, words, words here [00:07:00] about, you know, the, the meaning of mass transfer, but there are. There are functionally 3 levels of benefit for a community college student, executing a vertical transfer to the baccalaureate level.

Um, the 1st, 1, being a general education foundation and, um, this was pretty self explanatory. Uh, the, the foundation is a collection of courses. It's about 34 credits. Um, let me double check my math. Um, yeah, I think it's about, it's about 34 credits and it's a collection of those courses that that broadly fall into general education, um, or, or distribution courses at the baccalaureate level.

Um, you know, behavioral, social science, humanities, fine arts, natural science. Comp one, comp two. These are, these are the subjects that fall into general education at most institutions in the country and certainly [00:08:00] all of the institutions within the Massachusetts public higher education system. Um, so, Uh, back to the levels of benefit general education foundation.

Um, it's pretty straightforward. If a student transfers from a community college to a baccalaureate institution prior to earning their associate degree, but after having completed all of the courses. Required for the gen ed foundation, um, on average, an estimated 11 percent and the theory here being spending a year to community college.

Where they're paying less for tuition, where they're paying fewer fees. Um, and that, that equates to this level of savings. All of the courses in the, the general education foundation, um, are previously articulated. Um, and that means that the, uh, the accepting institution will, [00:09:00] they'll do 2 things. So, 1st of all, they'll accept the block of courses as satisfactory of.

The general education foundation or distribution courses at their own institutions. So they'll mark a student's transcript that they're they've completed their general education requirement for graduation and then they'll go in and they'll do a course for course. Um, evaluation of the students transcript, and all the courses within the general education foundation are previously articulated.

So the receiving institution knows what comp 101 means at And it's accepted as their English composition one on one. So, um, it's a, uh, this is this is the entry level mass transfer benefit. Then when a student finishes in in in situations when the student has finished their associate degree, we can get them on to an A to B pathway or associate to bachelors pathway.

I'll talk a little bit more about the pathways in a 2nd, but the, uh, the [00:10:00] savings increases, obviously, because they're spending. Um, Another year at the community college system, a year's worth of, of tuition and fee savings, um, a larger number of credits is going to be guaranteed as transfer. So, um, the accepting institution will will agree to accept, um, a minimum of 60 credits.

They get the general education waiver and depending upon. The student's GPA at time of transfer. If they've got a 2. 0, they're guaranteed a full transfer of the minimum 60 credits. They will play no application fee. They don't have to write an essay. They don't have to get letters of recommendation. Um, that's the, the minimum a to B benefit.

Then if a 2. 5 or higher. Admission is guaranteed unless they're going for something like in the performing arts or the fine arts where they need to submit a portfolio. Um, if they're, if they're headed towards an impacted major, and there's simply no room, um, they'll be accepted as a general studies student and the receiving institution [00:11:00] will work out and communicate with the student what it means to ultimately join the major.

Um, and then, um, the, the, the highest level of A to B transfer with the associate degree, if they've got a 3. 0 or higher. They, uh, they immediately become eligible for the mass transfer tuition credit. So they get all this stuff and they can get a tuition credit or waiver, um, at the state university level.

And so it's, uh, um, a waiver and at the University of Massachusetts campuses, it's called a credit. And basically that, um, that waves 100 percent of their tuition, um, the fees aren't waived, but the tuition is waived. Um, when they transfer with a 3. 0 or higher on a pathway. Um, there are two different kinds of pathways.

There's a mapped pathway in a linked pathway. Um, functionally, the only difference between these two pathways is that we can create. A map showing the student how their courses [00:12:00] transfer into what category for the mapped pathways for the linked pathways. These are, um, these are institution to institution agreements.

They don't feature a map. And there are a couple of, um, uh, different sorts of, um, articulation. Uh, specifics between the institutions. Then the final level of, of, um, uh, vertical transfer benefit, the commonwealth commitment. Um, this one is where they're saving some pretty significant dollars, um, because of some, uh, tuition fee.

Uh, uh, understandings. Basically ComCom, the benefits are you get everything from the Gen Ed Foundation and the MA and the A to B level, but you also, um, become available for a, um, semester to semester discount of 10%. So at the community college. So when a, when a student, um, joins the Commonwealth Commitment Program, [00:13:00] um, within the first semester of.

Of study at the community college, they decide their major, they, um, pick a target institution. They're allowed to have a couple of alternates as well. Um, but they sign a form and they agree to enroll full time throughout their, um, throughout their academic career. They commit to completing their associate degree in 5 semesters.

So, 2 and a half years, um, and they agree to maintaining a 3. 0 GPA. Um, if they do all of those things at the community college level, they're going to get a 10 percent rebate every semester that their GPA is about 3. 0. Um, they're going to lock in the tuition and fee rate. To the semester, they started the community college.

They start the community college in 2024 when they transfer to the baccalaureate institution in 2026. They're still paying the 2024 rate. Um, and then when they [00:14:00] get to the, um, the baccalaureate institution, the 10 percent continues, but it's not 10 percent of tuition. It's 10 percent of the fees. So they get the tuition waiver.

So they're getting a 100 percent discount on. Tuition, but the institutional fees, the mandatory fees that go along with the tuition, um, are usually larger than tuition fee, but they get a 10 percent rebate on those as long as they stay in compliance. They're enrolled full time. Uh, they're earning a 3. 0 GPA.

Um, that's a pretty significant benefit when, uh, when they get to the baccalaureate institution, and it's really nothing to sneeze at when they're at the community college level as well. Um, so those are the three most significant, um, vertical transfer programs that we manage. There's also something called reverse transfer.

This is a situation in which, um, when the student is [00:15:00] at, say the student transferred prior to having earned a degree. Their associate degree, they can use the courses that they're that they're completing at the baccalaureate level. They can send them back to the community college and and be retroactively awarded the associate degree.

That's beneficial for students, you know, depending upon where in the world of work they're employed. Some employers give them, um, additional salary considerations and salary bumps every time they attain a new level. Of of education, so this can be this can be beneficial in that way. Um, it's pretty straightforward.

We've got an application on our site and the student has to do very little work. They just let their their baccalaureate institution. No, they want to do reverse transfer. The, the back institution connects with the community college, and they start sending transcripts back and forth in the community college, um, just proactively.

Awards the, um, the transfer or the, um, the [00:16:00] associate degree and the final, uh. Thing to point out is the non mass transfer options. So mass transfer is an agreement between the 15 public community colleges and the 14 public. Um, state universities and, um. You mass campuses for a directory of the institutions that are.

Um, included in this program, you can come here and it's, um, all of the community colleges. All of the state universities and our special mission institutions, the mass art, uh, M. C. L. A. and, um, Mass Maritime, uh, these three kind of function a little bit differently from the state universities and the UMass campuses.

And of course, all four of the UMass campuses. Um, I say that because, you know, those are just the publics. Um, the private institutions also have a number of, let me state that a different way. [00:17:00] There are a number of private institutions that participate in the Mass Guarantee. Program. Um, these are the private institutions entering into individual agreements with the community colleges.

It's it mirrors mass transfer. Um, in the, uh, the connection between the institutions. Um, the same policies may or may not be in play. That's between the institutions that, um, that participate in the mass guarantee. Um, There's a whole lot of information. Let's jump to a new link. This is also one of our pages.

We built it for, um, the publics and the privates, and it looks a lot like. Um, like our search page, um, I'll show it to you in a 2nd, but you can pick the community college. You can pick. Um, no, that's ours. Let me get over here. Reverse transfer. Nope. Where did my [00:18:00] I lost my, uh, my mass transfer. Anyway, we'll get to the mass guarantee in a 2nd.

It's, it's, it's up here. I just, um, yeah, other transfer rooms, um, to, to, to, to, to, to privates. Um, here is the, the mass guarantee. This is a search program where you. Um, where you can, you know, the number of private institutions that participate is, um, it's pretty high. Significantly large and you can do a search here, um, to identify which private the student wants to go to again.

The benefits are between the receiving institution and the sending community college. They mirror mass transfer benefits, but they're not exactly the same. Um, so we'll go back down. Those were the benefits. Um, we've got the general education foundation. We've got a to B and we've got Commonwealth commitment.

Um, up in this menu here, it starts to, to, to jump into those 3 pathways and get some specifics [00:19:00] going on as far as the tools are concerned. This is also an interesting page for students compare the mass transfer savings. You can help a student identify the community college that they're. Going to start out and identify the state University of UMass campus.

They want to finish their degree and you can compare savings. So. On average, we've got, uh, we've got the specific savings for the entire degree. This is what is, uh, what a non mass transfer cost would be considered 15 a year. 60 total. Um, if you look at, um, uh, this is broken down, um, at the, the community college, uh, level.

So it's, it's, it's broken down for 2 years. If you look at the mass transfer foundation specifically. Um, the student is saving about 7, 000, 000. If they do the, the [00:20:00] foundation, they spend 1 year at Cape Cod. They transfer with their foundation complete. It's a 13 percent savings and then annually. There's the amount down there, um, mass transfer over the 2 years that they're at the community college.

Um, the two years is spent in the community college is going to cost them 42 versus the 60 K that they would have spent for two years at the bachelor's program savings of 30%. And then with the com com, they're only spending, um, about 35. 5. Um, so a savings of about 15 K. Um, oh, no, that's that's almost yeah, about 15 K, uh, 42 percent savings.

And this again is over the 2 years that they spend at the community college. This is what they pay versus paying a full 60 for 2 years at the bachelors institution. Uh, and then really quickly kind of breaking down the other things, Janet foundation, it helps a student. Identify what these courses mean at their starting institution.

Um, Cape Cod Community College, [00:21:00] they're going to plug in this many credits in these categories and the categories are broken down, showing them all the courses that foresees that satisfy those distributions. Um, the mass transfer pathways, um, specifically help them, uh, pick, uh, the program. So you go into program search.

And you follow the same sort of rubric. Choose a community college. We're starting at 4Cs. We're transferring to Bridgewater, um, and we think that we're going to be, um, uh, political science majors. These are the path pathways, um, that are mapped, um, depending upon the major you start. And if you're a political science major at Cape Cod, you can take these, um, these 4 courses at 4 C's, they'll be accepted as these 4 courses at Bridgewater State and then the general education foundation is accepted as a block.[00:22:00]

Um, this is a specific map and again, you can, you can go from. Um, any community college to any state university mass campus pretty effective, pretty efficient website. Um, I think that's it. I'm gonna stop my share now. And, um, we can start talking about questions.

Jennifer L. Bento: Okay, if anyone has questions, put them in the chat, please. We can, we can look at those.

Arthur Esposito: Or maybe it's good enough that, um, I maybe I've gotten so good at the presentation that there are no questions. I, I guess everyone would be, I doubt that, but, um,

Jennifer L. Bento: actually put them in. Did I say qa? I, I think I may have said, said chat.

Put them in the qa please. But yes, art may have been so thorough that there might not be any questions,

Arthur Esposito: and that's okay. Which would be surprising. [00:23:00] But , but it's been known to have, I

Jennifer L. Bento: have one. I I, I I have one. Um, do you, do you recommend that students, uh, start looking at these programs in high school?

Arthur Esposito: Yes, um, you know, there's a, there's a link on our page that talks about planning for, um, for transfer and, um, uh, the, the indication on the page is that the students start thinking 3 to 4 semesters prior to executing the transfer.

They want to start thinking about it and planning and if you think about an associate degree. Um, if they're, if they're attending full time and taking advantages of summer sessions, um, they are completing that degree in 4 semesters. Um, so the time to start thinking about it is right when they start at the community college.

Um, it's a good idea to start thinking about it in high school because. Typically, when students start at a community college, there are about 85 other questions a day that are coming into their head. And it's all about, you know, uh, acclimating to the institution, uh, transitioning to the, to, to the learning challenges that, [00:24:00] that the difference between high school level, high school level learning and post secondary.

Pose so there's a very little bandwidth for them to think about, you know, um, what they want to major in and whether or not they want to finish their associate and go on to a baccalaureate degree or whether they're thinking I'm going to finish my associate degree and jump right out into the world of work because I want to start earning or I need to start earning sooner.

Um, and then. Pursue higher levels of education later. Um, they can't, they don't always have the bandwidth to think about that early in their, um, in their community college career. So the, the, the larger number of conversations that we can have with high school students about the transitions that they're facing when they jump to that post secondary level, um, the earlier, the better.

So, yeah, they should definitely start thinking about this, um, in high school. In fact, I went, um, Just a week ago, a week or so ago, I went out to Randolph high and I met with, um, with their junior class. The entire [00:25:00] junior class was in the auditorium and we started talking about these things because, you know, I think it's important that.

Um, higher education can have a significant impact on the students life after college. Um, but that doesn't doesn't just happen. Um, they have to plan for it. You know, back when I was an academic advisor, one of my favorite statistics was that 50 percent of the American workforce works in the field for which they went to college.

And 50 percent don't and you can make a lot of assumptions about the 50 percent that do not work in their in their chosen field. Um, but there's 1 universal about those who are working in that field. Is that. They made the decision to major in it, and they executed a plan to go out and work in that field.

Um, they made a plan and starting that plan early and understanding how higher ed can impact your career. Um, those are important conversations to have, and they can't start soon enough in my opinion.

Jennifer L. Bento: Absolutely. Thanks. All right. So we [00:26:00] have a couple questions that came in. Oh, yeah. All right. So what are the recommendations for students who are interested in specific majors such as nursing?

Arthur Esposito: Um, the recommendation for students who are interested in particular majors is to start talking with their with, um, with institutional advisors and institutional admissions, um, counselors. Uh, the reason for that is that, you know, The receiving institution at whatever level at the associate level or the baccalaureate level.

Um, they're going to be the ones with all the answers. Um, they're there. So the policies that students have to follow to get admitted. There's the policies and requirements that students are going to have to, um, to follow to, um, to earn a degree. So, um, I'd use programs like Naviance. I'd use programs like, uh, the MIFA tool for planning your education to get, um, to, first of all, Seek and find the institutions that have programs in those fields.

Um, and and [00:27:00] do the heavy lifting of comparing the programs and and, you know, as tedious as it is. Helping your students read the program requirements, and if you can have them read, um, uh, course descriptions, uh, when I was, uh, when I was, uh, uh, an advisor and declared exploratory students, um, I, I sit there and I'd go to the catalog with them and have them read course descriptions and I call it the smell test.

If they can't read a course description without thinking, uh, they're not going to, they're not going to last a semester in that course, they're not going to have a good time through the four years of educating themselves in that field, and it's not going to be a good fit for them. It's not gonna be good match for them.

Um, so. I'd get the student into the educational research process as soon as possible. Just helping them think about what it means to be that, you know, there are there are trends in higher education and we used to call it the Hollywood [00:28:00] effect. You know, back when the CSI shows were a very big deal in the early aughts, every student that came to college wanted to be a forensic science major because they love CSI, and they didn't realize that what forensic science means at in college is that.

You're spending time in a laboratory. You're the person in the lab coat at a bench actually doing science. You're not out in the field investigating the crime.

Jennifer L. Bento: Um,

Arthur Esposito: so helping students dig into that research process is, is, is significantly important. That's the first recommendation I would make.

Jennifer L. Bento: Yeah, that's great.

And there are so many, um, great tools that focus on that labor market information that students can, um, can access. So yeah, that's great. Um, all right, there. Here's the next question. This one, um, might be a little more specific to the website. Uh, so the question is, um, so I heard that there are some community college comp 101 courses that in order to transfer [00:29:00] both comp 101 and 102 needs to be taken to count for a gen ed foundation core course.

Is this something that that folks can look at on the website?

Arthur Esposito: Yes, um, There, there, there are a number of courses that let me go back into screen share. Actually, uh, there are a number of courses that, um, that will only transfer as, you know, like, combo courses. We call them, um, the best place to look at that.

Um, would be to look up course equivalencies. Um, and again, it's the same same story. You can either start at the community college, or you can start with the receiving institution. Um, let's see if we can find 1 of those. Um, We're going to, um, who do I know has a number of them? I mean, um, UMass Dartmouth, and it doesn't happen in so much as in the comp 101, 102 reality, but.

At UMass [00:30:00] Dartmouth, they have a number of, oh, their accounting courses are notorious for this. Um, so, uh, you'll see something like this, ACC 101, 102, um, basic accounting and basic accounting 2. And then what that's going to be received as, I kind of minimized my chat screen because it's getting in the way, what that's going to be received as, um, It's going to be principles of counting one.

They'll be awarded all six credits because they did two courses, but, um, what it's going to break down to is it's going to be, they'll get three credits for principle of accounting one and those other three credits will either be, uh, general electives or business specific electives, depending upon the major that they're going into.

I did the business search primarily because. It's, it's somewhat rare for that to happen with comp one and comp two. Um, the reason for that is that, um, you know, uh, what we're seeing a great deal more of with, with, [00:31:00] uh, comp one and specifically comp two is that, uh, very few institutions, well, fewer and fewer institutions are starting to receive, uh, Credit for comp to, um, and we're seeing that with a P as well.

Um, the, the to the to AP courses. And I forget the distinction, but, um, the 2nd, 1 very rarely transfers in as college comp to because, um. If you all think back to your to your grad school days, you know, there was, there was a period of time, usually early in your process where you had to take the research procedures course.

And and the research procedures was basically letting you know that's how your institution wants you writing your thesis. Well, comp two is having that effect. Um, at the baccalaureate level in that it's really a composition class. It's not about literature. It's not necessarily [00:32:00] about, um, analyzing writing about literature.

It's literally about writing the college level research paper. So. A lot of baccalaureate institutions are becoming very focused on that comp to as being how to write research at U. M. S. Dartmouth or U. M. S. Boston or Bridgewater state and fewer and fewer institutions are accepting the freestanding comp to.

In transfer, unless it's really about, um, uh, uh, research procedures and citing your sources and style guides and basically post secondary level research. Um, there are, uh, as, as we spin through. Um, you know, there are very few combo courses. Um, if we go back to general, you know, and we don't, we don't focus in on, um, one particular course, [00:33:00] we're not seeing a lot of slash courses here.

It's pretty much 1 0 1 comes as 1 0 1 and 1 0 2 comes as as 1 0 2. I hope that answered the question.

Jennifer L. Bento: Yes, and important to note that all of this is in the website is on the website. So it's, yeah, this

Arthur Esposito: is a really cool tool. Um, we've got, um, we've got about 14, 000 courses in our database. Um, and, you know, you can, you can do specifically 1 institution and any community college, you can zero in.

I don't think you can do any to any. Um, I think that you, you've got to pick at least, you know, one here, you can go, you can get even, you know, more granular and go one to one and say, no, I'm only focused on the Cape Cod courses. And again, you see direct previously agreed to articulations. It's a pretty useful tool.

I glassed right over it, but it's in here in the tools you can. Compare the savings. You can also do the course equivalency. Look up. Um, this is this is more general. The elective [00:34:00] credit kind of conversation. I won't go down that road because it's pretty self explanatory.

Jennifer L. Bento: So that leads us nicely into the next question of what if what if a student doesn't know what they want to study?

Arthur Esposito: Yeah, that's a tricky one. Yeah, and that's, um, you know, I've got a we don't have a tool for that on the mass transfer page. And this is where I go back to wearing the. Um, college advising had when I started my career, I was specifically focused on educating unclear exploratory students. Um, you've got to get him into that research process.

I know that, um, you know, Jennifer and I talked about the me for tool for that. There's Naviance, one of my favorite, um, non. Uh, institutional sites. Um, let me get back in my screen share. Let me do, uh, to do to do to do to do. Uh, I want to do our wage.

Jennifer L. Bento: Yeah, there's so many great educational allocation exploration, right?

To just to start, like, what, what, what do you like to do? What are your interests? What are your skills? What are you passionate about? And try [00:35:00] to tie those into a

Arthur Esposito: Yeah, this is another Bureau of Labor Statistics site, the occupational outlook handbook, and you can search the handbook and say, you know, I love it.

I really like going to my vet's office and I like, um, Veterinary medicine. I'm typing like a monkey. Um, but, you know, you can plug in any career, you know, students really like animals. So I think they want to be a vet. Um, the has a page for that and this page will give you a summary of everything. You need to know.

Um, this, this tab, we'll talk about what a vet does on a day to day basis. Talks about the work environment. Talks about how to become one. This one's really important, um, because it tells you the level of educational attainment you've got to look at, and it'll talk about specific licensure. Um, there's, there's really an absurd amount of information on pages like [00:36:00] DOOH.

Another one, another good one is, um, oh it's escaping me, but, uh,

Jennifer L. Bento: Onet has a good one.

Arthur Esposito: Just Onet, that's the one. Onet's a really good page as well. Um, Onet's really cool because it'll do, um, Again, I'm typing like a monkey. Um, oh, that's really interesting because if we do the same thing, um, oh, someone already picked electrician for me.

Um, wait. Oh, no, it's blank. Um, let's do that again. Right? Veterinarians, um, the details. Where is it? Occupational requirements. Where are the related fields? Onet does a, um, a related fields one. Um, and it will launch you into, you know, other career fields and you can play that [00:37:00] game forever, go back down to related.

And you can look at what it means to get a cardiologist. And again, there is equal amounts of absurd, uh, uh, information, um, even digging into state by state, how much, you know, you could earn and what your unemployment percentage is like. So these are really cool tools, but what it really all boils down to is getting the student into the, the intellectual game of.

Identifying what it is they want to do. A lot of people will talk about, um, uh, what to do with, uh, oops, with, uh, make sure a lot of people will talk about, uh, pages like, get me off of, get me here. What can I do with a major in X? I never liked this approach because it's too prescriptive. Um, it's too prescriptive in.[00:38:00]

General majors. I mean, what can you with a major in accounting? Well, you become an accountant, but if a student has interest in what we call academic majors, you know, You can do more than just go to work as, um, a museum docent with a humanities based major. Um, you know, English is my favorite one. Check this one out.

What happens when you say, what can I do with a major in English? Well, there are like 8500 things you could do with an English major. And it's, it's way more than just these things. Um, I don't like them because they're too prescriptive. Um, and I think that that prescribing a career for a student can be a little bit tricky and I get that high school students are not in a position where they're ready to do [00:39:00] deep intellectual research about what they're going to do for the rest of their life.

Um, but. Telling them what they, what they can do at that point, um, can sometimes cause larger problems than, than, um, encouraging them to do some research and do some thinking about it can cause.

Jennifer L. Bento: Yeah, that research. It's

Arthur Esposito: tricky. It's very, very tricky. And I, you know, and 20 years ago, I answered this question differently than I answer it now.

You know, I, you know, I've now got a daughter who is, is graduating from high school in two weeks. And, um, having gone through this process with her. Is it's it's been a real eye opener from 20 years ago. I didn't have kids. So, um, it's it's tricky. And and there are, you know, there are pros and cons of each approach.

Um, I, I really, um, advocate for helping a student think about what it means to be that thing. Um, because in a lot of cases, they'll, they'll go to school and they'll go to college thinking, well, all [00:40:00] my family and friends think that I'm a great listener. So they think that I should become a psychologist.

All of their friends and family love them quite a lot and made that recommendation with their best interest in mind. But They didn't talk about what it means to, you know, go through the baccalaureate program and study something as heavy as psychology. And then, um, if they think they're going to be a psychiatrist, then they've got to do, you know, 4 years of med school, uh, because they've got, they've got to do the med school thing to get that psychiatry degree and what's the difference between psychiatry and psychology and what's the difference between psychology and social work and social work is another very viable way to get into that counseling profession.

So, um, There are a lot of, of things that get very, very weedy, um, very, very quickly, um, that, that aren't taken into consideration by websites like what can I do with a major in X.

Jennifer L. Bento: Sure. Yeah. No, that's great. Thank you for that. That was a, that was a great response to that question. Um, okay. We have a couple more.

Uh, [00:41:00] if a student begins in the A to, A to map pathway, but later chooses a major, are they able to seamlessly transfer to the A to B linked program?

Arthur Esposito: It depends on, um, it depends on the major. It depends on the receiving institution. Um, the funny thing, uh, the funny thing about, About all of this is that, um, the A to B mapped pathways, the A to B linked pathways, these are all, um, these are all kind of universal constructs and they're things that the department has, has worked on.

Developed and created to help students start thinking about it. Um, these are just guides, though, and these are these are pages that, um, students shouldn't be thinking of as D. I. Y. Uh, uh, tools, uh, the best conversations and the best answers to all these questions are going to be received from institutional academic advisors.

Um, and. [00:42:00] If a student starts on one pathway and thinks they want to go to a different pathway, um, they start out on a mapped pathway and the major that they want is only a linked pathway, that's fine. They'll be able to make the switch as long as they're talking with their, their current institutional advisor and their advisors help them connect with the receiving institution.

The, the, the pathways, they look a little bit different, and they don't fall into the 4 corners of the maps that we've created, but. Um, all the work that I've done with, with our baccalaureate institutions and our community colleges, I can say for certain that the receiving institution is always very focused on helping the student make a thoughtful and successful transition from community college to baccalaureate institution.

Jennifer L. Bento: So that's why it's so important to get hooked up with your advisor.

Arthur Esposito: So important to get hooked up with an academic advisor, academic advisors. I, you know, I used to joke about it when I was on campus. I call them the great regulators of funkiness. Anytime anything gets weird. Obviously, if a student [00:43:00] is having a problem in a class, they want to talk with the instructor, um, outside of class, though, 101 things can go wrong in the course of a week, and if they don't know who to ask, they should have a relationship with their academic advisor or the advising office, because those folks know who to ask if they're not the ones to ask themselves.

Jennifer L. Bento: So educators make sure you're you're promoting that with your with your students. All right. One more question art. Um, how does dual enrollment for early college work with this with these programs? Yeah,

Arthur Esposito: that's a very good question. I, um, one of the stipulations of all the early college programs is that the courses that they're teaching in early college.

Which is just a variation on dual enrollment. Really? Um, all the early college courses that go into the curricula for the, uh, at the high schools need to be courses that are in the mass transfer database. Um, and that works out pretty well, because most of the courses that a student does [00:44:00] in dual enrollment, they're going to fall into that general education category.

If we go back to, um, a course search, and we look at this, um, you know, most of the courses that are offered in dual enrollment. Um, Are going to be 1 on 1, maybe 200 level courses. Um, the, um, if we go down, I mean, obviously, comp 1 and comp 2, these are no brainers. Most students will do a comp 1 or comp 2 in dual enrollment.

Um, a lot of math courses are offered into enrollment early college. Um, many of the, you know, uh, many of the sciences, biology, chemistry is in here. Physics is in here. If you think about, you know, the typical AP topics, the, the required topics of, uh, of the, um, you know, the state wide, you know, admissions policies, they're all in here.

And. Generally speaking, these 102 level courses, 100, 200 level courses are in the database. They're pretty [00:45:00] universal transfers. They're very portable courses. You know, intro to anthropology is pretty much an intro to anthropology, you know, at any community college and at any receiving institution, um, these things don't change, you know, American history, 1 European history, you know, to these courses might have different names, but the content doesn't change.

Uh, you know, medieval European history has not changed and it doesn't change depending upon institutions. So they're, they're, they're very portable courses. And in 9 cases out of 10, they're going to be within the, the, um, the, um, the mass transfer database. And and the other thing to remember is that, you know, these are dual enrollment courses, and that means that the stool of the student is duly enrolled at the high school and the community college.

So the community colleges is. Going to be, and some of you have relationships with baccalaureate institutions in the dual enrollment relationship, there are college level courses that are being taught at high school. So they're going to fit into that colleges catalog. And, um, if it's a state institution, [00:46:00] those courses are going to reside in here.

9 cases out of 10.

Jennifer L. Bento: That's great. Another good reason to be dual enrolled, right?

Arthur Esposito: Yeah, right. And it's really cool to give the students to peek behind the curtain at college level learning as well, because the biggest transition that they face, I mean, they're facing huge transitions in every way, shape or form.

But, um, the 1st thing that student disconnects from it at the college level is the classroom. They can be the most engaged. They could be a student leader. They could be president of the college's student Senate. But if they're not making a 2. 0, they're at a certain point, they're going to be asked to stop attending so they could be as engaged and as as engaged in the community and the most active student in student life.

But if their academics are, if they haven't made the transition to college level learning, they're going to struggle. Dual enrollment AP courses, giving them a peek behind the curtain at how [00:47:00] courses are taught at the college level. That's that's intensely. It's almost more important than the grade that they are in my opinion.

Jennifer L. Bento: Yeah, awesome. All right. I'm going to share my screen now. Let's see to wrap us up. Let's see. All right. So, Want to thank art for his time for us today. It's amazing. Amazing presentation. Uh, educators certainly share this information with your students and your family so they can explore further and possibly take advantage of one of these amazing programs.

Uh, and if you have questions that pop up. After, after we wrap this up, you can, Art is open to you contacting him directly. We'll be sharing the slides so you'll have his contact information. And then you can always take advantage of MIFA's guidance. If you haven't already, you can sign up for our MIFA emails.

We have so many avenues to seek out. [00:48:00] We have an amazing podcast, blog posts. We do one on one appointments with With students and families, um, you can call our our uh, our hotline our Monday through Friday nine to five. Um, we answer Calls all day about the u plan and the u fund and fafsa uh, and also, um, we have an extensive, uh library, um Recorded webinars take advantage of the mifa institute offerings And then you can always follow us on social we are active on facebook linkedin instagram You And, um, yes, and we also answer questions through our social channels.

So, um, we thank you for joining us today, this morning on this nice, bright, sunny day. And, um, this is the, the MIFA information. If you have any, any questions, uh, don't hesitate to reach out to us or to Art and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for joining today. And thank you, Art.

Arthur Esposito: Thanks for having me.

Jennifer L. Bento: All [00:49:00] right. Take care.

Arthur Esposito: Bye

bye.