Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

Jennifer Bento: [00:00:00] Okay, welcome and hello. Thank you for joining today’s webinar. Get the Facts on Mass Transfer. Uh, my name is Jennifer Bento. Opinion, I am here at MEFA as director of K 12 Services. And today, let me get my slide going Here we are joined by Arthur Esposito, who is the Director of Academic Policy and Student Success at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

I. Thank you Art for your time today and your expertise on this subject. Uh, we are so fortunate here in Massachusetts to have so many educational opportunities and options and take. Today Art is going to walk through the specifics of the program within mass transfer. So just a a few logistics before we get started.

Uh, the chat is disabled, uh, so if you have a question, just type it in the QA and we will address those at the [00:01:00] end of the presentation. If you would, um, like to see the words, use the live transcript feature, and if you need to leave the session, uh, no worries. This webinar is being recorded and we will send a follow up email with the recording, along with the slides, and also as part of the MEFA Institute.

This session is eligible for a professional development point and the link to the evidence of learning form will also be included in that follow up email. So just a little bit about MEFA. Uh, MEFA is a state authority created over 40 years ago, uh, with a public service mission to help families plan, save, and pay for college.

And we continue to honor that mission, uh, with our offerings. Okay, so now I’m going to hand it over to Art. I’m gonna stop sharing my screen.

Arthur Esposito: Thanks for the intro. Thanks for, um, you know, honoring me with the, uh, expertise comment. [00:02:00] I’m, uh, I’m gonna share my screen and, and jump right in. Um, like Jennifer said, my, my name’s Artis Poto.

I’m the director of academic policy and, um, and student success and the primary, uh. Item in my portfolio right now is, is um, sort of managing, coordinating the mass transfer platform. So let me go into a screen share. Um, I want to do screen two and, um, this isn’t a mass transfer page, but I, um, I really like contextualizing whenever we’re having conversations with, with students about, um, about higher education.

I, I like to as early as possible, um. Get them thinking about, um, about what this, this time in the, the, the next phase of their educational journey, what kind of impact that can have on, um, you know, the trajectory of their, of their professional life. Um, I think that the, uh, the title Education Pays is, is a really cool one for this [00:03:00] particular site.

This is a, a Bureau of Labor Statistics site, so it’s, it’s a.gov. Um, this is the agency that, you know, the the monthly jobs report that comes out, that the, um, that the, the federal government is always talking about. It comes from this organization, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So these data are, um, are pretty accurate and, and they’re meaningful to students.

’cause it kind of contextualizes what the world of work means and how, you know, uh, increased levels of, of, uh, academic attainment can, can greatly impact. Um, the trajectory of their life and at the Department of Higher ed. Um, our equity agenda, I’m not sure how many of you’re familiar with it, but, um, one of the key components in it is, um, is trying to, uh, to positively affect, uh, uh, students and families upward mobility.

Um, and I don’t get that heady with students when I talk with ’em about it, but something, [00:04:00] um, that as, as. Education professionals, we can kind of focus in on if, if you look at the difference between, um, the earning potential of, uh, of. Workers with a, a, a high school diploma versus an associate’s degree, you see a, a a relatively significant jump in income.

But if you look at, at the difference between the bachelor’s degree at attainment and the associate degree attainment, um, it’s, it’s significantly larger. I, I think that the data that I read last where that there is a 17% increase in, um, earning potential between, uh, a high school diploma. Uh, holder and an associate degree holder.

But, but the difference when you jump from associate degree to bachelor’s degree is somewhere in the area of like 37%. Um, so in, in terms of, um, of amassing generational wealth and in terms of, of really setting someone on a trajectory to, [00:05:00] um, to, to increase their upward mobility, we really want to be talking with students about, about jumping from.

From the associate degree level to the bachelor’s degree level, and then, and then, and, and even higher, you know, as we’re talking about master’s degrees and doctoral degrees. So anyway, this is a, a great, uh, site that I used to contextualize it for students. It’s, you know, it’s tricky to get my, my previous career before I joined the Department of Higher ed, I was, um, I was a director of academic advising and I, and I was in that profession for about two decades.

Um, and the hardest thing to do I found was. To engage students in this kind of conversation. Um, but it’s also one of the most important things that we do. Uh, when a student starts at the, the post-secondary level, we need to get them to start thinking about this because we need them to start thinking about academic planning.

Um, and that’s a, that’s a decent enough segue to, [00:06:00] to jump to the mass transfer site. Um. Mass transfer is, um, is the program, it’s, it’s a, it’s a policy of the department of, of the, of the board of higher ed and the department of higher ed are the, um, the, the executors, if you will, of um, board policy. Um, mass transfer is the program that is entirely concerned with, um.

What, what we refer to as vertical transfer. So the transfer from community college to baccalaureate level. Um, there, there are lots of things to, to sort of understand about mass transfer and it can get kind of tricky, but I like to start on our page, not in a self-serving way, but because it, it really, it kinda, it kind of, it, it lays out the benefits of, of each program within the, the mass transfer policy.

So, um. I’ll usually jump into the, about mass transfer, um, the landing page. And there are a lot of words, words, words [00:07:00] here about, you know, the, the meaning of mass transfer. But there are, there are functionally three levels of benefit for a community college student executing a vertical transfer to the baccalaureate level.

Um, the first one being a general education foundation and, um. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Uh, the, the Gen Ed Foundation is a, a collection of courses. It’s about 34 credits. Um, let me double check my math. Um, yeah, I think it’s about, it’s about 34 credits and it’s, it’s, it’s a collection of those courses that, that.

Broadly fall into general education, um, or, or distribution courses at the baccalaureate level. Um, you know, behavioral social science, humanities, fine arts, natural science, comp one, comp two. These are, these are the subjects that fall into two general education at most institutions in the country, and certainly [00:08:00] all of the institutions within the Massachusetts Public Higher education system.

Um, so, uh, back to the, the levels of Benefit General Education Foundation, um, it, it’s pretty straightforward. We have a student transfers from a community college to a baccalaureate institution prior to earning their associate degree. But after having completed all of the courses required for the Gen Ed Foundation, um.

On average, an estimated savings would be about 11%. And the theory here being they’re spending a year to community college where they’re paying less for tuition, where they’re paying fewer fees. Um, and that, that equates to this level of savings. All of the courses in the, the General Education Foundation, um, are.

Previously articulated. Um, and that means that the, uh, the accepting institution will, [00:09:00] they’ll do two things. So first of all, they’ll accept the block of courses as satisfactory of the general education foundation or distribution courses at their own institution. So they’ll mark a student’s transcript that they’re, they’ve completed their general education requirement for graduation, and then they’ll go in and they’ll do a course for course.

Evaluation of the student’s transcript and all the courses within the, the General Education Foundation are previously articulated. So the receiving institution knows what Comp 1 0 1 means at each of the community colleges and is accepted as their, the English Composition 1 0 1. So, um, it’s, it’s a, uh, this is, this is the, the entry level.

Mass transfer benefit. Then when a student finished in, in, in situations when the student has finished their associate degree, we can get them onto an A to B pathway or associate two bachelor’s pathway. I’ll talk a little bit more about the pathways in a second, but the, uh, the [00:10:00] savings increases obviously because they’re spending.

Uh, uh, another year at the community college. So it’s another year’s worth of, of tuition and fee savings. Um, a larger number of credits is going to be guaranteed as transfer. So, um, the accepting institution will, will agree to accept, um, a minimum of 60 credits. Um, they get the, the general education waiver and depending upon.

The student’s, GPA at time of transfer, if they’ve got a 2.0, they’re guaranteed a full transfer of the minimum 60 credits. They will play no application fee. They don’t have to write an essay, they don’t have to get letters of recommendation. Um, that’s the, the minimum A to B benefit. Then if a 2.5 or higher.

Admission is guaranteed unless they’re going for something like in the performing arts or the fine arts where they need to submit a portfolio. Um, if they’re, if they’re headed towards an impacted major and there’s simply no room, um, they’ll be accepted as a general study student and the receiving institution [00:11:00] will, will work out, communicate with student what it means to ultimately join the major.

Um. And then, um, the, the, the highest level of A to B transfer with the associate degree, if they’ve got a 3.0 or higher, they’ve, uh, they immediately become eligible for the mass transfer tuition credit. So they get all this stuff and they can get a tuition credit or waiver. Um, at the state university level, it’s a, it’s a, um.

A waiver and at the Uni University of Massachusetts campuses is called the credit and basically that, um, that waives 100% of their tuition. Um, the fees aren’t waived, but the tuition is waived. Um, when they transfer with a 3.0 or higher on a to B pathway. Um, there are two different kinds of pathways.

There’s a mapped pathway and a linked pathway. Um, functionally the only difference between these two pathways is that we can create a map. Showing the student how their courses [00:12:00] transfer into what category? For the mapped pathways. For the linked pathways, these are, um, these are institution to institution agreements.

They don’t feature a map. And there are a couple of, um, uh, different sorts of, um, articulation, uh, specifics between the institutions. Then the final level of, of, um. Uh, vertical transfer benefit. The Commonwealth commitment, um, this one is, is where they’re saving some pretty significant dollars, um, because of some, uh, tuition and fee, uh, uh, understandings.

Basically ComCom. The benefits are you get everything from the Gen Ed Foundation and the MA and the A to B level, but you also, um. Become available for a, um, semester to semester discount of 10%. So at the community college. So when a, when a student, um, joins the Commonwealth Commitment Program, [00:13:00] um, within the first semester of, uh, of study at the community college, they decide their major.

They, um, pick a target institution. They’re allowed to have a couple of alternates as well. Um, but they sign a form and they agree to enroll full-time throughout their, um, throughout their academic career. They commit to completing their associate degree in five semesters, uh, so two and a half years. Um, and they agreed to maintaining a 3.0 GPA.

Um, if they do all of those things at the community college level, they’re gonna get a 10% rebate every semester that their GPA is about 3.0. Um, they’re going to lock in the tuition and fee rate to the semester they started the community college. They start the community college in 2024. When they transfer to the baccalaureate institution in 2026, they’re still paying the 2024 rate.

Um, and then when [00:14:00] they get to the, um, the baccalaureate institution, the 10%, uh, continues, but it’s not 10% of tuition, it’s 10% of the fees. So they get the tuition waiver. Um, uh, so they’re getting a, a 100% discount on tuition, but the institutional fees, the mandatory fees that go along with the tuition, um.

Are usually larger than tuition fee. Um, but they get a 10% rebate on those as long as they stay, um, in compliance, they’re enrolled full-time. Uh, they’re earning a 3.0 GPA. Um, that’s a pretty significant benefit when, when, uh, when they get to the, the baccalaureate institution and it’s really nothing to sneeze at when they’re at the community college level as well.

Um, so those are the, the three most significant, um, vertical transfer programs that, that we manage. There’s also something called reverse. Transfer. This is a situation in which, um, when the student is [00:15:00] at, say the student transferred prior to having earned their associate degree, they can use the courses that they’re, that they’re completing at the baccalaureate level.

They can send them back to the community college and, and be retroactively awarded the associate degree. Um, that’s beneficial for students, you know, depending upon. Where in the world of work they’re employed. Uh, some employers give them, um, additional salary considerations and salary bumps every time they attain a, uh, a new level of, uh, of education.

So this can be, this can be beneficial in that way. Um, it’s pretty straightforward. We’ve got an application on our site and. The student has to do very little work. They just let you know their, their baccalaureate institution know they wanna do reverse transfer. The, the back institution connects with the community college and they start, um, sending transcripts back and forth and the community college, um, just proactively awards the, um, the transfer or the, um, the [00:16:00] associate degree and the final, uh.

Thing to point out is the non mass transfer options. So mass transfer is an agreement between the 15 public community colleges and the 14 public, um, state universities and, um, UMass campuses for a directory of the institutions that are, um, included in this program. You can come here and it’s, um, all of the community colleges.

All of the state universities and our special mission institutions, the, uh, mass art, uh, MCLA and um, mass maritime, uh, these three kind of function a little bit differently from the state universities and the UMass campuses, and of course all four of the UMass campuses. Um, I say that because, you know, those are just the publics.

Um, the private institutions also have a number of. Lemme state that a different way. [00:17:00] There are a number of private institutions that participate in the mass guarantee program. Um, these are the private institutions entering into individual agreements with the community colleges. It’s, it mirrors mass transfer, um, in the, uh.

The connection between the institutions. Um, the same policies may or may not be in play. That’s between the institutions that, um, that participate in the mass, uh, guarantee. Um, there’s a whole lot of information. Let’s jump to a new link. This is also one of our pages. We built it for, um, the Publix and the privates.

And it looks a lot like, um, like our search page. Um. I’ll show it to you in a second, but you can pick the community college. You can pick. Um, no, that’s ours. Let me get over here. Um, reverse transfer. Nope. Where did my, [00:18:00] I lost my, uh, my mass transfer. Anyway, we’ll get to the mass guarantee in a second. It’s, it’s, it’s up here.

I just, um, it other transfer, um, to, to, to privates. Um, here is the, the mask guarantee. This is a search program where you, um, where you can, you know, the number of, of private institutions that participate is, um, it’s significantly large and you can do a search here, um, to identify which private the student wants to go to.

Again, the, the, the benefits are between the receiving institution and the, and the sending community college. They mirror mass transfer benefits, but they’re not exactly the same. So we’ll go back down. Those were the benefits. Um, we’ve got the General Education Foundation, we’ve got A to B, and we’ve got Commonwealth Commitment.

Um, up in this menu here, it starts to to, to jump into those three pathways and get some specifics [00:19:00] going on as far as the tools are concerned. This is also an interesting page for students. Compare the mass transfer savings you can. Help a student identify the community college that they’re going to start at and identify the ma, the state university, UMass campus.

They want to finish, um, their degree and you can compare savings. So on average we’ve got, uh, or we’ve got the specific savings for the entire degree. This is what is, uh, what a non mass transfer cost would be considered. 15 a year, 60 total. Um, if you look at, um, uh, this is broken down, um, at the, the community college, uh, level.

So it’s, it is, it’s broken down for two years now. If you look at the mass Transfer Gen ed Foundation specifically, um. The student is saving about seven grand if they do. The, the Gen [00:20:00] Ed Foundation, they spend one year at Cape Cod, they transfer with their gen ed foundation complete. It’s a 13% savings. Um, and then annually there’s the amount down there.

Um, mass transfer over the two years that they’re at the community college. Um, the two years of spend at the community college is gonna cost them 42, um, versus the, the 60 K that they would’ve spent for two years at the bachelor’s program. Uh, savings of 30%. And then with the ComCom, uh, they’re only spending, um, about 35.5.

Um, so a savings of about 15 k. Um, oh no, that’s, that’s almost, yeah, about 15 K, uh, 42% savings. And this, again, is over the two years that they spend at the community college. This is what they pay versus paying a full 60 for two years at the Bachelor’s institution. Uh, and then really quickly, kind of breaking down the other things, gen Ed Foundation, it helps the student identify what these courses mean at their starting institution.

Um, Cape Cod Community College, [00:21:00] they’re gonna plug in this many credits in these categories and the categories are broken down, showing them all the courses at four Cs that satisfy those distributions. Um, the Mass Transfer Pathways, um, specifically help them, uh, pick. Uh, the program. So you go into program search and you follow the same sort of rubric.

Choose the community college. We’re starting at four Cs. We’re transferring to Bridgewater. Um, and we think that we’re going to be, um, uh, political science majors. These are the path pathways, um, that are mapped, um, depending upon. The major you start in, if you’re a political science major at Cape Cod, you can take these, um, these four courses at four Cs.

They’ll be accepted as these four courses at Bridgewater State. And then the General Education Foundation is accepted as a block. [00:22:00] Um, this is a specific map, and again, you can, you can go from, um, any community college to any state university, mass campus. Pretty effective, pretty efficient website. Um, I think that’s it.

I’m gonna stop my share now and, um, we can start talking about questions.

Jennifer Bento: Okay. If anyone has questions, put them in the chat please. And we can, we can look at those.

Arthur Esposito: Or maybe it’s good enough that, um, I maybe I’ve gotten so good at the presentation that there are no questions. I, I guess everyone would be, I doubt that, but, um,

Jennifer Bento: actually put them in, did I say qa? I, I think I may have said, said, chat.

Put them in the qa please. But yes, art may have been so thorough that there might not be any questions, and that’s okay. It would be

Arthur Esposito: surprising, [00:23:00] but, but

Jennifer Bento: it’s been known to happen. I, I, I, I have one. Um, do you, do you recommend that students, uh, start looking at these programs in high school?

Arthur Esposito: Y Yes. Um, you know, there’s a, there’s a link on our page that talks about planning for, um, for transfer and, um, uh, the, the indication on the page that the students start thinking three to four semesters prior to executing the transfer.

They wanna start thinking about it and planning. And if you think about an associate degree, um, if they’re. If they’re attending full-time and taking advantages of summer sessions, um, they are completing that degree in four semesters. Um, so the time to start thinking about it is right when they start at the community college.

Um, it’s a good idea to start thinking about it in high school because typically when students start at a community college, there are about 85 other questions a day that are coming into their head, and it’s all about, you know, uh, acclimating to the institution. Uh, transitioning to to, to the learning challenges that.[00:24:00]

That the difference between high school level, high, high school level learning and, and post-secondary pose. So there’s very little bandwidth for them to think about, you know, um, what they wanna major in and whether or not they wanna finish their associate and go on to a baccalaureate degree or whether they’re thinking, I’m gonna finish my associate degree and jump right out into the world of work ’cause I wanna start earning, or I need to start earning sooner.

Um, and then. Pursue higher levels of education later. Um, they can’t, they don’t always have the bandwidth to think about that early in their, um, in their community college career. So the, the, the larger number of conversations that we can have with high school students about the transitions that they’re facing, when they jump to that post-secondary level, um, the earlier the better.

So yeah, they, they should definitely start thinking about this. Um, in high school, in fact, I went, um. Just a, a week ago, a week or so ago, I went out to, uh, to Randolph High and I met with, um, with their junior class. The entire [00:25:00] junior class was in the auditorium, and we started talking about these things because, you know, I think it’s important that, um, you know, higher education can have a significant impact on the student’s life after college.

Um, but that doesn’t, doesn’t just happen. They had to plan for it. You know, back when I was an academic advisor, one of my favorite statistics was that 50% of the American workforce works in the field for which they went to college and 50% don’t. And you can make a lot of assumptions about the 50% that do not work in their, in their chosen field.

Um, but there’s one universal about those who are working in that field is that. They made the decision to major in it and they executed a plan to go out and work in that field. Um, they made the plan and starting that plan early and understanding how higher ed can impact your career, um, those are important conversations to have and they can’t start soon enough, in my opinion.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, we, so we [00:26:00] have a couple questions that came in. Oh, yay. All right. So what are the recommendations for students who are interested in specific majors such as nursing?

Arthur Esposito: Um, the recommendation for students who are interested in particular majors is to start talking with their, with, um, with institutional advisors and institutional admissions, um, uh, counselors.

Uh, the, the reason for that is that, you know. The receiving institution at whatever level, at the associate level or the baccalaureate level, um, they’re gonna be the ones with all the answers. Um, their, theirs are the policies that students have to follow. They get admitted. Theirs are the policies and requirements that students are going to have to, um, to follow to, um, to earn a degree.

So, um, I’d use programs like Naviance. I’d use programs like, um, the MEFA tool for planning your education to get, um, to, first of all. Seek and find the institutions that have programs, uh, in those fields, um, and, and [00:27:00] do the heavy lifting of comparing the programs. And, and, you know, as tedious as it is, helping your students read the program requirements.

And if you can have ’em read, um, uh, course descriptions. Uh, when I was a, when I was a, a. An advisor, undeclared, exploratory students. Um, I, I’d sit there and, and I’d go through the catalog with them and I’d have them read course descriptions and, and I call it the smell test. If they can’t read a course description without thinking, oh, um, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna last a semester in that course, they’re not gonna have a good time through the four years of educating themselves in that field.

Um, and it, it’s not gonna be a good fit for them. It’s not gonna be a good match for them.

Jennifer Bento: Mm-hmm.

Arthur Esposito: I’d, I’d, I’d get the student into the educational research process as soon as possible. Just helping them think about what it means to be that, you know, there, there were, there were trends in higher education.

Um, and, and we used to call it the, the Hollywood [00:28:00] Effect. Back when the CSI shows were a very big deal in the, the early aughts, every student that came to to college wanted to be a forensic science major ’cause they loved CSI and they didn’t realize that what forensic science means at. In college is that you’re spending time in a laboratory.

You’re the person in the lab code at a bench actually doing science. You’re not out in the field investigating the crime.

Jennifer Bento: Mm-hmm.

Arthur Esposito: Um, so helping students dig into that research process is, is, is significantly important. That’s the first recommendation I would make.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah, that’s great. And there are so many, um, great tools that focus on that labor market information that students can, um, can access.

So, yeah, that’s great. Um, all right there. Here’s the next question. This one, um, might be a little more specific to the website. Uh, uh, so the question is, um, so I heard that there are some community college comp 1 0 1 courses that in order to transfer [00:29:00] both comp 1 0 1 and 1 0 2 needs to be taken to count for a gen ed foundation core course.

Is this something that, that, um, folks can look at on the website?

Arthur Esposito: Yes. Um, there, there, there are a number of courses that, lemme go back into screen share actually. Uh, there are a number of courses that, um, that will only transfer as, you know, like combo courses we call them. Um, the best place to look at that, um, would be to look up course equivalencies.

Um, and again, it’s the same, same story. You can either start at the community college or you can start with the receiving institution. Um, let’s see if we can find one of those. Um, we’re gonna, who do I know has a number of them? Let me, um, UMass Dartmouth and it, it doesn’t happen in so much as in the comp 1 0 1, 1 0 2 reality.

But at UMass [00:30:00] Dartmouth, they have a number of, oh, they’re accounting courses are notorious for this. So, uh, you’ll see something like this, ACC 1 0 1, 1 0 2, um, base accounting and base accounting two. And then what that’s going to be received as, I gotta minimize my chat screen ’cause it’s getting in the way.

What that’s going to be received as is going to be, uh, principles of accounting. One, they’ll be awarded all six credits because they did two courses. But, um, what it’s gonna break down to is it’s gonna be, they’ll get. Three credits for principle of Accounting one, and those other three credits will either be, uh, general electives or business specific electives, depending upon the major that they’re going into.

Uh, I did the business search primarily because it’s, it’s somewhat rare, rare for that to happen with comp one and comp two. Um, and the reason for that is that, um, you know, the, what we’re seeing a great deal more of. With, with, [00:31:00] uh, comp one and specifically comp two is that, uh, very few institutions, well, fewer and fewer institutions are starting to receive credit for comp two.

Um, and we’re seeing that with AP as well. Um, the, the two, the two AP courses, uh, and I forget the, the distinction, but um. The second one, very rarely transfers in as college comp two because, um, if y’all think back to your, to your grad school days, you know, remember the, there was, there was a period of time, usually early in your process where you had to take the research procedures course and, and the research procedures was basically letting you know that’s how your institution wants you writing your thesis.

Well, comp two is having that effect, um, at the, the baccalaureate level. In that it’s really a composition class. It’s not about literature, it’s not necessarily [00:32:00] about, um, analyzing writing about literature. It’s literally about writing the, the college level research paper. So a lot of baccalaureate institutions are becoming very focused on that comp two as being how to write research at UMass Dartmouth or UMass Boston or Bridgewater State.

And fewer and fewer institutions are accepting. A freestanding comp two in transfer, unless it’s really about, um, uh, uh, research procedures and citing your sources and style guides and basically post-secondary level research. Um, there are, uh, as, as we spin through, um, you know, there are very few combo courses.

Um, if we go back to general. NL and we don’t, we don’t focus in on, um, one particular course. [00:33:00] We’re not seeing a lot of slash courses here. It’s pretty much 1 0 1 comes as 1 0 1 and 1 0 2 comes as as 1 0 2. I hope that answered the question.

Jennifer Bento: Yes. And important to note that all of this is in the webs is on the website, so it’s awesome.

Yeah, this

Arthur Esposito: is a really cool tool. Um, we’ve got, um, we’ve got about 14,000 courses in our database. Um, and you know, you can, you can do specifically one institution at any community college. You can zero in. I don’t think you can do any to any. I think that you, you’ve gotta pick at least, you know, one here, you can go, you can get even, you know, more granular and go one-to-one and say, no, I’m only focused on the Cape Cod courses.

And again, you see direct, previously agreed to articulations. It’s a pretty useful tool. Yeah, I, I glassed right over it, but it’s, it’s in here in the tools. Um, you can. Compared to savings, you can also do the course equivalency lookup. Mm-hmm. Um, this is, this is more general, the elective [00:34:00] credit kind of conversation.

I won’t go down that road ’cause it’s, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Jennifer Bento: So, so that leads us nicely into the next question of what if they, what if a student doesn’t know what they wanna study?

Arthur Esposito: Yeah, that’s a tricky one. Yeah, that’s tricky. Um, and that’s, um, you know, that the, I I’ve got a, we don’t have a tool for that, uh, on the mass transfer page.

And this is where I, I go back to wearing the. Um, college advising hat, and when I started my career, I was specifically focused on educating unclear exploratory students. Um, you’ve gotta get ’em into that research process. I know that, um, you know, Jennifer and I talked about the MEFA tool for that. There’s Naviance, one of my favorite, um, non uh, institutional sites.

Um, let me get back on my screen. Share. Let me do, uh, uh, I wanna do OH.

Jennifer Bento: There’s so many great tools, occupational Outlook handbook, really exploration, right? To just to start, like, what, what, what do you like to do? What are your interests? What are your skills? What are you passionate about? And try [00:35:00] to tie those into a,

Arthur Esposito: yeah, this is another Bureau of Labor Statistics site, the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

And you can search the handbook and say, you know, I love, I really like going to my vet’s office. And I like, um, Vetter and Mary.

I’m typing like a monkey. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, you can plug in any career. You know, students really like animals, so they think they want to be a vet. Um, the OOH has a page for that, and this page will give you a summary of everything you need to know. Um, this, this tab will talk about what a vet does on a day-to-day basis.

Talks about the work environment, talks about how to become one. This one’s really important, um, because it tells you the level of educational attainment you’ve gotta look at, and it’ll talk about specific licensure. Um, there’s, there’s really an absurd amount of information on pages like. [00:36:00] DOOH. Another one, another good one is, um, oh, it’s escaping me, but O net

Jennifer Bento: o has a good one.

Arthur Esposito: Just oh, net. That’s the one on Net’s, a really good page as well. Um, O Net’s really cool because it’ll do, um, again, I’m typing like a monkey. Um, o Net’s really interesting because if we do the same thing, um, oh, someone already picked electrician for me. Um. Wait. Oh no, it’s, it’s blank. Um, let’s do the vet again.

Right. Um, veterinarians, um, the details, where is it? Occupational requirements, where are the related fields? Bonnet does a, um, a related fields one. Um, and it will launch you into, you know. Other career fields, and you can play that [00:37:00] game forever. Go back down to related and you can look at what it means to be a cardiologist.

And again, there’s equal amounts of absurd, uh, uh, information. Um, so much even digging into state by state how much you know you could earn and what your unemployment percentage is like. So these are really cool tools, but what it really all boils down to is getting the student into the, the intellectual game of.

Um, identifying what it is they wanna do. A lot of people will talk about, um, the what do with, uh, oops, with, uh, major and a lot of people will talk about, uh, pages like, get me off of, get me here. Um, what can I do with a major nx? I never liked this. Approach because it’s too prescriptive. Um, it’s too prescriptive in, [00:38:00] um, general majors.

I mean, what can you do with a major in accounting? Well, you become an accountant, but if a student has interest in what we call academic majors, you know, you can do more than just go to work as, um, uh, a museum. Docent with a humanities based major. Um, you know, English is my favorite one. Check this one out.

Um, what happens when you say, what can I do with a major in English? Well, there are like 8,500 things you could do with an English major. Um, and it’s, it’s way more than just these things. Um, I don’t like them because they’re too prescriptive. Um, and I think that that. Prescribing a career for a student can be a little bit tricky.

Mm-hmm. And I get that high school students are not in a position where they’re ready to do [00:39:00] deep intellectual research about what they’re gonna do for the rest of their life. Um, but telling them what they, what they can do at that point, um, can sometimes cause larger problems than, than, um, encouraging them to do some research and do some thinking about it can cause.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah, that research, it’s

Arthur Esposito: tricky. It’s very, very tricky. And I, you know, and 20 years ago I answered this question differently than I answer it now. You know, I, you know, I’ve now got a daughter who is, is graduating from high school in two weeks and, um, having gone through this process with her, is it, it’s, it’s been a real eye opener from 20 years ago.

I didn’t have kids. So, um, it’s, it’s tricky. And, and there are, you know, there are pros and cons of each approach. Um, I, I really. Advocate for helping a student think about what it means to be that thing. Um, because in a lot of cases they’ll, they’ll go to school and they’ll go to college thinking, well, all [00:40:00] of my family and friends think that I’m a great listener, so they think that I should be, become a psychologist.

And all of their friends and family love them quite a lot and made that recommendation with their best interest in mind. But. They didn’t talk about what it means to, you know, go through the baccalaureate program and study something as head as psychology. And then, um, if they think they’re gonna be a psychiatrist, then they’ve gotta do, you know, four years of med school, uh, because they’ve got, they’ve gotta do the med school thing to get that psychiatry degree.

And what’s the difference between psychiatry and psychology and what’s the difference between psychology and social work? And social work is another very viable way to get into that counseling profession. So. There are a lot of of things that get very, very weedy, um, very, very quickly. Um, that, that aren’t taken into consideration by websites like, what can I do with a Major X?

Jennifer Bento: Sure. Yeah. No, that’s great. Thank you for, for, for that. That was a, that was a great response to that question. Um, okay. We have a couple more. [00:41:00] Uh, if a student begins in the A to A to map pathway, but later chooses a major. Are they able to seamlessly transfer to the A to B linked program?

Arthur Esposito: It de it depends on, um, it depends on the major.

It depends on the receiving institution. Um, the funny thing, uh, the funny thing about, about all of this is that, um, the A to B mapped pathway pathways, the A to B linked pathways, these are all, um, these are all kind of universal constructs and they’re things that the department has, has. Uh, developed and created to help students start thinking about it.

Um, these are just guides though. And these are, these are pages that, um. Students shouldn’t be thinking of as DIY, uh, uh, tools. Mm-hmm. Uh, the best conversations and the best answers to all these questions are gonna be received from institutional academic advisors. Um, [00:42:00] if a, if a student starts on one pathway and thinks they want to go to a different pathway, um, they start out on a mapped pathway, and the major that they want is only a linked pathway.

That’s fine. They’ll be able to make the switch as long as they’re talking with their, their current institutional advisor and their advisors help them connect with the receiving institution. The, the, the pathways, they look a little bit different and they don’t fall into the four corners of the maps that we’ve created.

But, um. All the work that I’ve done with, with our baccalaureate institutions and our community colleges, I can say for certain that the receiving institution is always very focused on helping a student make a, a, a thoughtful and and successful transition from community college to baccalaureate institution.

Jennifer Bento: So that’s why it’s so important to get hooked up with your advisor.

Arthur Esposito: So important to get hooked up with an academic advisor. Academic advisors, I, you know, I used to joke about it when I was on campus. I call ’em the great regulators of funkiness. Uh, anytime anything gets weird, obviously if a student [00:43:00] is having, uh, you know, a problem in a class, they wanna talk with the instructor.

Um, outside of class though, 101 things can go wrong in the course of a week. And if they don’t know who to ask, they should have a relationship with their academic advisor or the advising office because those folks know who to ask if they’re not the ones to ask themselves.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah. So educators make sure you’re, you’re promoting that with your, with your students.

Alright, one more question. Art, um, how does dual enrollment or early college work with this, with these programs? Yeah.

Arthur Esposito: Um, that’s a very good question. I, um, one of the stipulations of all the early college programs is that the courses that they’re teaching in early college. Which is just a, a variation on dual enrollment really.

Um, all the early college courses that go into the curricula for the, uh, at the high schools need to be courses that are in the mass transfer database. Um, and that works out pretty well because most of the courses that a student [00:44:00] does in dual enrollment, they’re gonna fall into that general education category.

If we go back to, um, a, a course search and we look at this, um, you know, most of the courses that are offered in dual enrollment, I. Are going to be 1 0 1, maybe 200 level courses. Um, the, um, if we go down, I mean, obviously comp one and comp two, these are no-brainers. Most students will do a comp one or comp two in dual enrollment.

Um, a lot of math courses are offered in dual enrollment, early college. Um, many of the, you know, uh, many of the science is biology. Chemistry is in here, physics is in here. If you think about, you know. The typical AP topics, the, the required topics of, uh, of the, um, you know, the statewide, you know, admissions policies, they’re all in here.

And generally speaking, these 102 level course, a hundred, 200 level courses are in the database. They’re pretty [00:45:00] universal transfers. They’re very portable courses, you know. Intro to anthropology is pretty much intro to anthropology. You know, at any community college and at any receiving institution. Um, these things don’t change.

You know, American history, one, European history, you know, two, these courses might have different names, but the content doesn’t change. Uh, you know, medieval European history has not changed and it doesn’t change depending upon institutions. So they’re, they’re, they’re very portable courses, and in nine cases outta 10, they’re gonna be within the, the, um.

The, um, the mass transfer database. And, and the other thing to remember is that, you know, these are dual enrollment courses and that means that the stool, the student is dually enrolled at the high school and the community college. So the community college is, is gonna be, and some of you have relationships with baccalaureate institutions in the dual enrollment relationship.

They’re college level courses that are being taught at high school. So they’re gonna fit into that college’s catalog. And, um, if it’s a state institution, [00:46:00] those courses are gonna reside in here, nine cases outta 10.

Jennifer Bento: That’s great. Another good reason to be dual enrolled, right?

Arthur Esposito: Yeah. Right. And it’s, it’s really cool to give the students the peek behind the curtain at college level learning as well, because the biggest transition that they face, I mean, they’re facing huge transitions in every way, shape, or form, but, um.

The first thing that a student disconnects from at, at the college level is the classroom. You know, they can be the most engaged. They could be a student leader, they could be president of the college’s student senate, but if they’re not making a 2.0, they’re at a certain point they’re gonna be asked to stop attending.

So they could be as engaged and as, as engaged in the community and the most active student in student life. But. If their academics are, if they, if they haven’t made the transition to college level learning, they’re gonna struggle. Um, dual enrollment, AP courses, giving them a peek behind the curtain at how [00:47:00] courses are taught at the college level.

That’s, that’s intensely it’s almost more important than the grade that they earn, in my opinion.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah. Awesome. All right. I’m going to share my screen now. Let’s see. To wrap us up. Let’s see. All right, so wanna thank art for his time? Of course. Today it’s amazing, amazing presentation. Uh, educators certainly share this information with your students and your family so they can explore further and possibly take advantage of one of these amazing programs.

Uh, and if you have questions that pop up, uh. After, after our, we wrap this up, you can, art is open to you contacting him directly. We’ll be sharing the slides so you’ll have his contact information and then you can always take advantage of MI a’s guidance. If you haven’t already, you can sign up for our MEFA emails.

We have so many avenues to seek out. Uh, [00:48:00] we have an amazing podcast, blog posts. Uh, we do one-on-one appointments with, with students and families. Um, you can call our. Our, uh, our hotline, our Monday through Friday, nine to five. Um, we, we answer, uh, calls all day about the U Plan and the U Fund and fafsa, uh, and also, um, we have an extensive, uh, library, um, of recorded webinars.

Take advantage of the MEFA Institute offerings and then you can always follow us on social. We are active on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. And, um, yeah, so, and we also answer questions through our social channels. So, um, we thank you for joining us today, this morning on this nice, bright, sunny day. And, um, this is the, the MEFA information.

If you have any, any questions, uh, don’t hesitate to reach out to us or to art and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for joining today, and thank you, art.

Arthur Esposito: Thanks for having me.

Jennifer Bento: All [00:49:00] right, take care.

Arthur Esposito: Bye-bye.