Scouting the terriory

My topic has not changed since my first blog although I have refined it somewhat. My topic will be the barriers that students face transferring from a community college to a four-year institution. When i typed into Google: "Barriers students face transferring from a community college to a four year college", i found a ton of information. In Zamani's article Institutional Responses to Barriers. according to McCormick and Carrol "Many community college students intend to transfer to four-year colleges and universities; however, only 22  percent successfully do so" (McCormick and Carroll, 1997). I found that there were three main barriers that students face; credit-transfer, financial struggle, and social life of the student. I found that the most frustrating obstacle that students face is credit-transferring. Students(myself included) who attended a community college intending to go to a four year school, who don't get all the credits from the community college transferred are a little frustrated. In my situation, I was half a credit away from meeting the new jersey statewide transfer agreement(NJSTA) which would have transferred all my credit from my community college to Rutgers. HALF A CREDIT, ridiculous! The thing that frustrated me more, was the fact that when I called my community college to obtain a waiver for the NJSTA, they had no idea what I was talking about. As a student, I feel that I have wasted so much money as well as being advised incorrectly at my community college.
Students attend community college for various reasons, one of them being that they are financially able to. Some of these students who attend community college wish to go to a four year university but are unable to due to financial reasons. In Zamani's article Institutional Responses to Barriers. Stewart D.M. stated  "Students coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds are at a disadvantage, as the costs associated with higher education may prohibit even the most talented two-year students from successfully transferring into a baccalaureate degree program".
Last but not least, social life is important for transfer students. Transferring in could make a student feel lonely which could ultimately lead to depression. Also, student who feel this way end up getting bad grades in school because of a lack of care.

Sources:
A study was done by AMY G. LANGENKAMP, University of Notre Dame on the EFFECTS OF EDUCATIONAL TRANSITIONS ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC TRAJECTORY: A LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE which i find interesting to my topic because she discusses "the negative consequences of solitary transitions" http://search.proquest.com/docview/920269874/fulltextPDF/13C8CBC8D875C4859F8/4?accountid=13626

Zamani, Eboni M. "Institutional Responses to Barriers." 2001. http://mysite.du.edu/~cdlovell/05-InstResptoBarriers.pdf  There are many quotes in this article that explain the barriers to transferring.
 

Controversies

According to http://www.chea.org/ia/IA_110405.htm, there is major controversy about  those who view transfer as effective and those who believe that we have a major problem with transfer.