Understanding Low Uptake in a Cross-Enrollment Program Through a Randomized Controlled Trial

• In Event: From Access to Completion: Causal Evidence from Financial Aid and Transfer Interventions in Higher Education

Abstract

California’s tripartite system of higher education was designed to provide accessible transfer pathways from the state’s 116 community colleges to the 23 California State University (CSU) campuses and 9 University of California (UC) campuses. To further strengthen the transfer function, in 1993 California implemented a policy to allow students from any of the three public systems of higher education to simultaneously enroll in a single class per term at a different system at the same cost as their baseline tuition rate (SB1917). Prior research suggests that simultaneous enrollment across sectors is associated with increased rates of transfer (de los Santos & Sutton, 2012; Wang & McCready, 2013) and with increased bachelor’s degree attainment, particularly for community college students (Crisp, 2013; Hindman & Russ-Eft, 2017; Wang & Wickersham, 2014). However, data indicate that few community college students take advantage of this opportunity. Students may be failing to take advantage of cross-enrollment opportunities for several reasons including a lack of information and financial and logistical barriers (Morales-Gracia et al., 2022; Hill et al., 2024). 

In the 2022 and 2023 academic years, we implemented a student-level randomized control trial to improve rates of cross-enrollment between three Southern California Community Colleges and a public four-year university. Treatment students received a two-pronged intervention. First, we addressed information and procedural barriers by providing access to a website that provided accessible aggregated information from the community colleges and the four-year university. We also offered online information sessions and staffed a dedicated email address to answer questions and support students. Second, each participating student was offered financial support including fully covering the course fees plus vouchers to cover textbook, parking, and other course related expenses up to $400 per student.  

In our treatment group, 1.2% of students applied to cross-enroll and less than 1% successfully cross-enrolled at the four-year university. While our results are statistically significant, the effect of the intervention was small. We attribute this small effect to the administrative and logistical burdens placed on students because of institution-specific enrollment procedures.

Despite the high-touch nature of the intervention, the mitigation of the barriers to cross-enrollment identified by students in past work,  and the considerable initial enthusiasm of students, few treated students successfully cross-enrolled in a class at the 4-year university.  In this study, we evaluate and reflect on implementation data from the multi-year RCT to understand the drop-off from initial interest to eventual enrollment. Data sources include email logs, information session and workshop attendance logs, website analytics, contact logs during the enrollment process, and counseling data to describe patterns of interest and engagement with the intervention materials.  This post mortem analysis will be informed by theories of administrative burden, policy diffusion, and burden reduction. 

Authors

• Michael Hill, University of the Pacific
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Barth Baker, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Pablo Bezem, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• XunFei Li, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Co-Author