A Pathway to Success

Among Ivy League institutions, Cornell is leading the way in admitting and encouraging community college transfers.

By David Pluviose

With the total price tag of a bachelor’s degree from a top-tier U.S. college or university hovering around $150,000, even some of the most highly sought-after high school graduates are turning down universities like Yale and Stanford in favor of more economical options — community colleges. Skyrocketing tuitions and anti-affirmative action campaigns are turning many elite schools into domains strictly for the wealthy and White, say study groups like U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

But several Ivy League universities are working to counter the trend by offering free tuition to students from low-income families. Harvard University led the way, announcing last year that any incoming student whose family makes less than $60,000 a year would get free tuition. Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has taken its outreach efforts to another level, announcing plans to launch its “Pathway to Success” program this fall. The initiative actively seeks out and provides advising and financial support to transfers from two local higher education institutions — Morrisville State College and Monroe Community College.

Chandra Joos, Cornell’s associate director of admissions and transfer coordinator, says a number of factors, including land-grant status, have driven Cornell’s institutional predisposition to serve the underserved. But Cornell’s mission to remain accessible to students from all economic and social strata stems from the “any person, any study” mantra of Cornell’s namesake, Ezra Cornell.

As a result, one in four Cornell undergrads is likely to have transferred in. Of the transfer students, about 33 percent came from a community college. Joos says that among Ivy League schools, Cornell, “by far, brings in the highest percentage and also the largest number of transfer students each year — particularly from two-year institutions. The transfer population is so small at our peer institutions that not everyone has the transfer coordinator role or title in their job description like I do.”