Higher Ed Systems Find Solutions to Issues Plaguing Transfer Student Success

New NASH Center for Postsecondary Improvement Leverages Improvement Science to Scale Proven Approaches in Higher Education

WASHINGTON, D.C., DC, UNITED STATES, July 17, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In a coordinated effort to improve college transfer enrollment and success, twelve public higher education systems have successfully adopted improvement science as a new problem-solving method. These systems implemented interventions that led to major gains in transfer student outcomes, including increases in enrollment rates up to +22 percentage points above baseline.

While 80 percent of community college students intend to transfer, only 33 percent enroll in a four-year institution, and just 16 percent complete their degrees within six years. These low rates are often caused by fragmented systems and inefficient processes.

Led by the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH), the twelve systems used improvement science, an approach pioneered in manufacturing and healthcare, to test, refine, and scale strategies that improve outcomes for transfer students. This work took place within a collaborative structure known as a NASH Improvement Community (NIC), where interventions are tested in short 45-day cycles. NASH calls this “fail before scale”, rapid testing to identify what works and discard what doesn’t.

While national transfer enrollments have grown as much as four percent annually in recent years, institutions participating in the Transfer Student Success NIC have seen more significant increases:

- Prairie View A&M University (TX) grew first-time transfer enrollments by 16 points from Spring 2022 to Spring 2023.

- A partnership between Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College and Western Kentucky University led to a 57-point increase in first-time transfer enrollment from Spring 2023 to Spring 2024.

- The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign saw a 22-point increase in transfer student enrollment during its two years in the NIC.

“We’re not just tweaking processes—we’re changing how institutions collaborate,” said Nancy Zimpher, President of NASH. “This is what systemness looks like: aligned teams solving shared problems to improve outcomes at scale.”

Participating systems include the University of Illinois System, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), Texas A&M System, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, Arkansas State University System, Universities of Wisconsin, California State University System, City Colleges of Chicago, Mississippi Community College Board, Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, and Southern Illinois University System.

Teams tested 352 interventions over two years using structured Plan–Do–Study–Act (PDSA) cycles to find a core set of proven solutions. Successful interventions are shared between participating campuses, accelerating time to results. Interventions are then documented and shared in a Change Package, the documentation base for spreading effective change ideas.

“Not only have we moved away from the legacy model of lengthy 'pilots'--and the endless number of committees and subcommittees they accompany– we no longer limit ourselves to tests of change reliant on key dates of the traditional academic calendar, like enrollment census and graduation,” said William Bajor, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs, PASSHE. “The rapid-fire improvement science model supported by the collaborative structure of the NASH NIC empowers us to challenge our imperfect practices any time of year AND come away with 'ready to use' actionable results. That's priceless.”

This work is now being expanded through NASH’s newly launched Center for Postsecondary Improvement, which aims to accelerate the use of improvement science in higher education.

“Our vision is a world where improvement science is the go-to method for solving higher education’s most complex problems,” said Juliette Price, Director, Center for Postsecondary Improvement. “We’re building a national community of trained improvers to lead this work.”

The Center is launching new offerings, including:

- Enrollment in the next Transfer Student Success NIC cohort
- Introduction to Improvement Science workshops for higher education
- Tailored consulting and project support
- New NICs focused on areas such as higher education in prison

About NASH
Founded in 1979, the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH) works to advance the role of multi-campus systems and the concept of systemness to create a more vibrant and sustainable higher education sector. NASH systems include over 700 campuses and serve more than 8.2 million students nationwide. Learn more at www.nash.edu.

Tracy Soren
NASH
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