Virginia's dual admission program achieves 92% graduation rate — could it solve California's community college transfer crisis?
Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist
Perez faced a problem familiar to countless first-generation college students. Rejected from Virginia Tech, he was considering community college near his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia. But without family experience to guide him, he worried about navigating the transfer process alone—taking the right courses, applying successfully to a four-year university.
Then his high school counselor told him about ADVANCE.
The partnership between Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University works differently than most transfer programs. Students who enroll are immediately accepted to George Mason before they ever sit in a community college classroom. They receive a complete roadmap of every course needed for their bachelor's degree from day one.
That upfront certainty has produced remarkable results. Since ADVANCE launched in 2018, more than 1,500 students have successfully transferred to Mason. An extraordinary 92% of them graduate within two years of transferring.
What California's Transfer System Is Missing
The contrast with California could hardly be sharper. Most community college students in the state who aspire to earn a bachelor's degree never make it to a four-year university. Without adequate guidance, they accumulate credits—sometimes too many—while missing required classes.
One study found that as few as 2.5% of students intending to transfer actually do so within two years. Only 23% manage it within four years.
The mechanics of the Virginia program address precisely these pitfalls. Upon enrolling, students access a portal where they choose from 85 academic pathways, including business, computer science and psychology. The system then displays every class they need to transfer and eventually graduate.
"It provides that guarantee that if students take these classes, they're going to transfer," Nelson said. "It takes away that concern of, am I taking the right thing? Am I spending my time and money in the right way?"
Students who maintain at least a 2.5 GPA are automatically admitted to Mason. They don't even fill out an application.
A Campus Experience That Starts Immediately
Northern Virginia Community College serves about 70,000 students across six campuses in the Washington, D.C. suburbs—more than any other community college in Virginia. George Mason, the state's largest public research university with 40,000 students, sits just 5 miles away. The schools have long sent students back and forth.
What makes ADVANCE different is access. Students in the program can use everything Mason offers: clubs, libraries, health care, mental health counseling. They can join intramural sports teams and attend athletic events.
When Maria Fruchterman transferred to Mason last fall, she already had a close circle of friends. She'd been playing club field hockey at Mason while taking her lower-division classes at the community college.
Officials designed this access deliberately. Nelson explained the dual motivation: community colleges can't offer all the resources available at four-year institutions, and they wanted to eliminate the "transfer shock" students typically experience when arriving at a new campus. "They're going to a new environment. Everything is different," she added.
The approach seems to work. Among students who entered in fall 2021, 87% returned the following year—far above the national average retention rate of 61%. When ADVANCE students transfer to Mason, they graduate two semesters faster on average than other transfer students.
Perez, who chose the computer science pathway, is now taking general education, math and introductory computer science classes. At a recent resource fair on Mason's main Fairfax campus, he moved from table to table, learning about club sports, mental health services and tutoring. He plans to join a computer science club, a chess club, maybe even an intramural badminton team.
Why the Transfer Maze Costs Students So Much
Students outside programs like ADVANCE face a different reality. Todd learned the hard way that a Western history class he'd taken wouldn't transfer to Virginia Commonwealth University, which required world history instead.
"There's stuff like that where I spent several hundred dollars on a class just to be informed that I would have to retake a class in a similar area," he said.
Emma Howard, a sophomore preparing to transfer to Mason this fall, consulted her adviser after discovering one of her courses—which she'd thought qualified as an elective—wouldn't be transferable after all.
These confusions are what ADVANCE eliminates. The program has earned recognition from the federal Department of Education for solving what officials acknowledge is a widespread problem across American higher education.
Muir, who now oversees ADVANCE as Mason's vice provost for academic affairs, said expectations have shifted. Officials now expect students to finish the entire program in four years rather than six.
California's Experiment Is Just Beginning
California is attempting its own version. The state recently adopted dual admission programs at both public university systems—the University of California and California State University. A 2021 state law created the programs to give students who didn't meet freshman admission requirements a second chance.
CSU's program appears more promising. About 2,000 students enrolled in its first cohort, compared to just 182 for UC.
CSU opened the program to essentially any first-time college freshman entering a California community college. Students create an account on the CSU Transfer Planner portal and select from degree programs across the system's 23 campuses. Eligible students receive guaranteed admission.
UC's program is far more limited—restricted only to students who applied but weren't eligible because they didn't complete their A-G course requirements in high school. The program includes just six of UC's nine undergraduate campuses. Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego—the three most exclusive—aren't participating. Several UC campuses face capacity issues and already turn away qualified applicants.
April Grommo, CSU's assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management, said the dual admission program addresses a fundamental problem: campuses don't know prospective transfer students until they apply. "We want this to be an opportunity for us to connect with them way earlier in the process and support them," she said.
Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California's higher education center, identified dual admission as a "promising approach" in an August 2023 report. "A lot of the challenge for community college students when they start is knowing what is required to get into UC and CSU," he said. "By front loading all of that information, we think students would face fewer obstacles and be more efficient."
Like ADVANCE, CSU's program offers community college students access to programs and services at the campus closest to their residence. One campus, Long Beach, has been doing something similar since 2018 through the "Long Beach Promise 2.0." Students at nearby Long Beach City College can receive a "future student" ID card for CSU Long Beach and access the library, athletic events and clubs.
The Hard Work Behind the Numbers
Virginia officials are candid about what makes ADVANCE work. Northern Virginia and George Mason benefit from geographic proximity and a historical relationship. Faculty have taught at both institutions. The college presidents meet regularly—sometimes just for breakfast.
"How do you do this work? I can tell you it's not easy. If it was easy, lots of people would be doing it," Muir said. "It takes a lot of relationship-building, a lot of connection and recognizing the value of a community college education."
Johnson pointed to research showing that belonging matters. "A lot of research in higher education focused on why students complete or why they don't complete has included this notion of belonging, feeling a part of the campus," he said. "And I think the more that you can do for community college students can only help that sense of belonging so that when you eventually do transfer, you feel like it's your school."
That sense of belonging—cultivated over two years rather than manufactured overnight—may be what transforms a 2.5% transfer rate into a 92% graduation rate. The question is whether institutions separated by bureaucracy, distance or indifference can replicate what happens when two schools decide the journey matters as much as the destination.
