On Community College Transfer Students and USC

On October 23, 2014, C.L. Max Nikias, the president of the University of Southern California, published an article on The Washington Post discussing why elite institutions should make an effort to admit more transfer students from community colleges. This article resonated with me because I am a transfer student myself, and because president Nikias stated that USC was leading the way in the effort to recruit and admit community college transfer students. I became really upset by this because of the many ways in which USC has failed to provide different forms of support for its transfer students.

Highlighting this lack of support is especially important given the fact that in 2013, 44% of the community college transfer students that enrolled at USC were first-generation college students. Additionally, 47% of transfer students from these two-year institutions came from "disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds."

In 2011, the Office of Campus Activities under the Division of Student Affairs at USC founded the Transfer and Veteran Student Programs office. The former Assistant Director, Syreeta Greene, stated the following:
"'There really wasn’t much by way of an overall program before this...we did have something known as the scholarship program that focused on three community colleges that are part of USC’s family of schools … [but] that was a grant-funded program and that grant funding ended a few years ago. Beyond that USC didn’t really have anything in place, so departments filled in the gap in terms of reaching out and supporting students in their particular areas.'”

As of 2015, it is unclear as to whether the Transfer and Veteran Student Programs (TVSP) office is still running. On November 5, 2014, however, the Division of Student Affairs established the Veterans Resource Center at USC. Thus, leading to further speculation that TVSP is no longer.

Yet, in my experience this office was more symbolic than an actual institutional effort to provide support for its transfer students. During my time at USC, I can only remember hearing from TVSP about 3 times. Each time I did receive an email it was about their Fall BBQ. Unfortunately, during the academic year, I never heard from the office again.

Thus, my main sources of support became my professors, only some, El Centro Chicanx, and
Chicanxs for Progressive Education. I made these vital connections to these sources of support due to the Project ReMiX New Student Symposium, an event held in the Fall by the Asian Pacific American Student Services (APASS), the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs (CBCSA) and El Centro Chicanx (ECC).

However, this experience is only my own but because of these experiences I have come to believe that although USC boasts its community college transfer students it actually fails to provide a central center of support, or extend more support, financial or otherwise, to the cultural centers and other offices that DO provide support to community college transfer students. This is extremely upsetting and the fact that TVSP is most likely defunct, indicates a larger institutional apathy towards its transfer population.