Work in progress - Increasing transfer student enrollment, retention and graduation through the Strengthening Transitions into Engineering Programs

Large populations of students are matriculating to community colleges (CC). However, transferring from a CC to 4-year undergraduate engineering degree program is often quite difficult. There are few, if any, engineering courses offered at the CCs. In addition, long prerequisite chains reduce many transfer students to Freshman or Sophomore status, even though they have had two years of post-secondary education. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Strengthening Transitions into Engineering Programs (STEP) is a program designed to facilitate the transfer of CC students to undergraduate baccalaureate engineering degree programs. The program consists of four engineering courses taught at the CCs with support from UNL and several complementary student support programs. This paper discusses the specific courses and strategies being implemented and the progress to date of the UNL STEP program.