Upward Bound
Four-Year College Transfer Options Triple in Five Years

In the last five years, the number of baccalaureate transfer options at Milwaukee Area Technical College has more than tripled. MATC currently offers 362 credit transfer agreements with four-year colleges and universities; only 89 existed in 2000. Transfer-bound students now constitute more than one-fifth of enrollment. In a recent survey asking students about their long-range goals, nearly one-third said they planned to continue their education at the next level.

“Occupational programs remain the backbone of the institution; if anything, support for them has increased. But there is no question that college transfer programs are increasingly important to our population,” said James Walsh, interim provost. “We are aggressively trying to meet that expectation. It is not a fundamental change in who we are as a college, but it does reposition us somewhat in the academic marketplace.”

TEP student Zoua Xiong found her niche at MATC after starting out at a big college with large lecture classes.

MATC has operated a junior-college division since the Great Depression. The first credit transfer partner was the then-University of Wisconsin at Madison. For decades, the emphasis was on serving older, working, nontraditional students. They remain a major group, but student ages recently have been trending younger. Although the average student age at MATC is 28, 19-year-olds today constitute the most populous age band.

According to Walsh, part of the reason is that college transfer programs are booming. “In many instances we are a smart choice because it costs less to go here, and the curriculum is the same as at our partner colleges,” Walsh said. “Before attending MATC, a lot of our students will have first sampled four-year colleges and found out that they weren’t quite ready. From what they tell us, our classes are just as demanding or even more so, but the environment here is more conducive to helping them learn.”

Zoua Xiong, a student in the Teacher Education Program, is a typical example. She began college at a university where big lecture halls were filled with hundreds of students. After one semester, Xiong quit and enrolled at MATC, preferring the smaller classes and individualized attention from instructors.

Simultaneously caring for a toddler son, she took some of her courses online. “MATC was just a better place for me to start,” she said. Xiong plans to be an elementary school teacher after she transfers her credits to UW-Milwaukee and finishes her four-year degree.

Most transfer-bound students, like Xiong, are in Liberal Arts and Sciences - the “College Parallel” Division. But all other divisions also maintain program-to-program transfer agreements. Gosia Zimowska, now majoring in human resources at Concordia University, graduated with honors from the FORWARD Management Program in the Business and Information Technology Division. Her story represents untold thousands of students enrolled outside College Parallel, but nevertheless working toward higher degrees.

There was a time when MATC had to aggressively seek out credit transfer partners. No longer, according to Barbara Cannell, director of college transfer programs. “We have other colleges coming to us, initiating the dialogue,” she said. At MATC’s recent Transfer Connection Days, promoting credit transfer opportunities, 21 colleges and universities exhibited. They included UWM, Marquette, UW-Madison and two historically black colleges. Participation has grown dramatically in recent years.

What changed? “Our partners are aggressively recruiting our students,” Cannell said. “Now, other colleges have realized that our students are well prepared and equipped with the study skills necessary to be successful in a four-year environment. We are no longer viewed as competition but as a partner in the expansion of individuals obtaining degrees in Wisconsin.”

Said Walsh: “Some of our students need extra help to succeed academically and stay in school. Community-based colleges are better at providing that help than traditional four-year colleges. Our four-year partners understand that, which is why they’re happy with students doing the first half of their degree at MATC.”

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