Rio transfer rates compared

Rio Hondo's transfer rate is at an all time high since the 1989-1990 school year, but how does the college compare to other local community colleges today?

California is home to the world's largest system of higher learning, the California Community College System. This system is comprised of 110 community colleges, across the state, which are further divided into 72 districts.

Rio Hondo Community College resides in the Los Angeles area and within this area there are 20 other community colleges, among them are East Los Angeles College, Cerritos College and Mt. San Antonio College.

Community colleges are not apart of the Cal state university system, UC system or other four-year universities they are stepping-stones to these institutional systems.Four-year universities are unlike community colleges in the sense that they cater specifically to students who have one goal, to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree or Doctorate Degree. Community Colleges on the hand offer four different potential goals to students, classes for on job skills/ professional development, graduation with an AA Degree, vocational certification or transferring to a four-year university.

At Rio Hondo the average number of students who transfer to the Cal state university system or the UC system for the past three years (2007/2008-2005/2006) is 553 students.

Rio Hondo has seen a considerable increase of 51 students who transferred this past year (07/08) making the total of 593. The 2 previous years the number of students was the same, 532.

Rio Hondo's neighboring schools transfer average is significantly higher though.

East Los Angeles Community College average for the past three years has been 924 students. It's most recent year (07/08) ELAC sent a total of 923 students to the Cal state and UC systems. The previous year, the number was 905 students and in the year prior to that the number was 946.

Cerritos Community College has similar numbers to ELAC with their average for the past 3 years being 970. Within the past 3 years, Cerritos latest year (07/08) has been their highest with 979 being the total number of students who transferred. 979 students is a slight increase from the previous year whose total number of students was 961, however it is a decrease from 05/06 where the total number was 970.

Rio Hondo's average of 553 transfer students is almost one-third of the average of Mt. San Antonio's College average, which is 1,551.

Last year Mt SAC saw a total of 1,557 students transfer. The previous year the total was 1,590, although there was a drop from 06/07 to 07/08, in 05/06 the total was 1,507 which means in 06/07 there was in increase of 83 students.

The data used in this article was retrieved from the California Postsecondary Education Commission website (/www.cpec.ca.gov/). And is available for public viewing, simply go to the homepage, hover over the detailed data tab and click 'Transfer Pathways'. There you will find every school within California along with the appropriate information.

Some students at Rio such as Daniela Castro feel that the reason Rio's transfer numbers are low in comparison is that "Rio Hondo spends more money on the technical department rather than the actual classrooms, which we need to transfer to four year universities."

However Anthony Garcia, a student at Cerritos College, says "here we seem to have a pretty good balance, I already received my AA in Auto Mechanics and I came back to work on my BA for Business, I should be transferring to Cal Poly for Fall 2009.