Articulation Report

This Articulation Report presents descriptive headcount statistics for those undergraduate students in Florida's State University System (SUS) who, prior to enrolling in their respective universities, were enrolled in one of Florida's twenty-eight public community colleges. In the Fall of 1997 there were 66,299 such students, an decrease of .7% compared to Fall 1995 in which there were 66,781.

The Articulation Agreement, Rule 6A-10.024, Florida Administrative Code, facilitates the transfer of students from community colleges to the universities. That agreement also encourages the SUS and the Division of Community Colleges (DCC) to cooperatively conduct longitudinal research on community college transfer students. It is in this spirit that the Articulation Report has been produced by the DCC since 1973. In 1974, the SUS established the Student Data Course File, which contains records of all students enrolled in the universities.

Sufficient information is provided for the reader to compare groups that are of interest. Only brief comments will be made on the data contained in the various tables. Note that beginning in the Fall 1997 data for Florida Gulf Coast University are displayed.

Tables 1, 2, and 3 display by gender, race, and age respectively, the frequencies of headcount enrollments of undergraduate students attending the SUS in the Fall term where the college of last attendance wa a Florida community college. The percentage of female student enrollment has changed from 56% to 57% from the Fall of 1995 to the Fall 1997. Comparing the Fall terms, white student enrollment decreased by 3%, Black student enrollment increased by 1%, Hispanic student enrollment increased by 1%, and Asian student enrollment increased by 1%. In the Fall 1997, 33% of students transferring were between 21-23 years old, and 22% were over 30. Table 4 shows that 35.1% of community college transfer students enrolled in the SUS in the 1997 Fall term were enrolled for the first time.

Table 5 shows that the majority, 71% of students in Fall 1997, transferred between 60 and 89n semester hours upon entering the SUS. This rate is a 1% decrease compared to the Fall 1995 rate of 72%. Less than 1% transfer more than 150 hours. Table 6 shows the total number of semester hours accumulated, including hours transferred toward a degree for the 1995-97 Fall terms.

Tables 7 and 8 show the distribution of students by the university at which they registered in the Fall 1995-97 terms and the community college from which they transferred. Percentages in Table 7 are for percent of transfers TO that university (columns) whereas in Table 8 the percentages are for transfers FROM that community college (rows). For example: In the Fall of 1997, 33% of the community college transfers TO the Florida State University were from Tallahassee Community College. As compared to Table 8 showing that of the students who transferred FROM Tallahassee Community College into the SUS, 82% of them transferred to the Florida State University. Table 8 indicates that the largest percentage of students who transfer from a community college tend to enroll in the nearest university.

Table 9 shows that most community college transfer students earned a grade-point average (GPA) of 2.50 or higher while enrolled in the SUS. GPA is based on a 4.0 system that is calculated by dividing grade points earned by semester hours attempted. Please note that the percent of community college transfer students earning 2.50 or better increased from 68% in Fall 1995 to 69% in Fall 1997.

Table 10 displays two types of former community college students enrolled in the 1995-97 Fall terms: students transferring prior to earning 60 semester hours and students transferring after earning 60 semester hours or more. Because cumulative GPA refers only to academic course work at a particular institution, the cumulative GPA shown in Table 10 does not include the grades earned at the community college. Data for previous years are not shown, but are available in prior editions of the Articulation Report. Table 11 shows SUS totals for the same cohort by Community College for 1995-97 Fall terms. Those students who have no transfer hours but do have an AA or AS for the highest degree granted from a Florida Community College have been moved to the greater than 60 hours category in Tables 11 and 12.

Tables 12 and 13 present the same data as Tables 10 and 11 except that each N (enrollment) represents the total from a particular community college.

Table 14 shows the number of students enrolled in each major field of study for each university and for the system during the 1995-97 Fall terms. Each major field of study is divided into two subgroups: students earning a GPA of 2.00 or higher and students earning a GPA lower than 2.00. Mean GPA for each group is reported in the final column.

Table 15 reflects the full 1995-96 year (Summer 95, Fall 95, Spring 96 terms) GPA performance of community college students with an associate in arts degree versus native university students classified as upper division. Please note smaller programs in the SUS have been collapsed in one or more major discipline groups in Table 15.

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