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Thousands of community college students across the state transfer to University of California and California State University campuses every year.
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Now, they have a new option: a direct ticket to Arizona State University. With more than 200,000 students, ASU is one of three universities in Arizona’s public higher education system.
A new partnership will provide students who earn an associate degree for transfer from a California community college with guaranteed access to bachelor’s degree programs at Arizona State. Students will be able to earn their degrees online, at ASU’s California locations or in Arizona for the whole campus experience. Officials expect most students to opt for the online option.
“Many of our students are balancing work, family responsibilities and other obligations that make relocating for an education impossible,” said James Todd, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. “This partnership with Arizona State University expands flexible bachelor’s degree pathways so students can continue their education where they live, remain connected to their families and communities and prepare for greater economic mobility.”
Only about 1 in 5 students who began community college between 2017 and 2019 and intended to transfer to a four-year institution managed to do so within four years, according to a 2024 audit. Transfers from the community college system to the CSU remain lower than pre-pandemic levels. Some reasons for low transfer rates include the costs of higher education, difficulties in relocating for place-bound students and inadequate standardization of credits across institutions.
Offering flexibility
The new Arizona State partnership seeks to address some of these barriers. All 60 transferrable associate degrees offered by California community colleges will map directly to ASU bachelor’s degrees across nearly 100 academic programs, officials said. Students who enroll in aligned programs will enter as juniors, allowing them to complete their bachelor’s degrees with just 60 additional semester units.
The associate degree for transfer was created in 2010 to streamline transfers by packaging community college credits into a recognized degree and guaranteeing students admission to the CSU. Today, it includes partnerships with some private, online and out-of-state schools too.
Over and above the 100 aligned pathways at Arizona State, students will also be able to explore 500 other in-person bachelor’s programs and more than 200 ASU Online options. Though not directly mapped to the community college degrees, eligible coursework will still apply toward these programs.
Through the partnership, Arizona State seeks to provide community college transfers with more time and place flexibility via its online degree programs and multiple start dates through the year. The school touts its 20-year-old online program as unlike most other virtual degree options. Calling itself “the largest public not-for-profit university offering online degree programs,” the school says ASU Online has the same academic standards, faculty and degrees as its physical locations.
California students do not have to pay higher tuition than in-state students for these online programs and may additionally qualify for dedicated scholarship opportunities, though this is not the case for those who choose to study at Arizona State in person.
“The vision for Arizona State University is much bigger than serving Arizona,” said Jeff DeFranco, a special advisor to the ASU provost. “It’s a university that sees its charter as serving the world, and certainly a good place to start is your neighbors in California. President Michael Crow identified this as a priority, knowing there’s many California community college students who weren’t able to transfer for various reasons like affordability, schedule and geography. He recognized that and ASU made a commitment to it.”
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Approximately 25,000 California students enroll at ASU annually, the majority of whom opt for online programs. Nearly 10,000 ASU students who enrolled in 2025-2026 were from California community colleges.
ASU officials said in a news release they expect the new partnership to grow the school’s enrollment of Californians, which has been increasing over the last 20 years. Earlier this year, the university expanded a program to open online bachelor’s degree pathways for students from all 116 California community colleges.
It’s not ‘that the pie is only so big’
While Arizona State says its new partnership will add “critical opportunities” for students in California “where capacity at state institutions is limited,” some CSU campuses have experienced persistent enrollment declines and financial strain in recent years. The system has identified enrollment growth as one of its essential priorities.
This year, the CSU opposed proposed legislation that would allow community colleges to offer more bachelor’s degrees — a role that has historically belonged to the CSU. Officials were concerned it could drive down enrollment and affect the university’s budget. Instead, the CSU said the transfer pathway between community colleges and its campuses was the most effective way to increase access to bachelor’s degrees and emphasized investing in such collaborations.
Eventually, the bills passed, but only after significant amendments that community colleges said would actually create more barriers than support for the system’s growing baccalaureate program.
In this context, ASU officials said their new partnership with California Community Colleges is “not about taking away the existing students that are transferring” but “growing the number of students that could transfer.”
“It’s not this approach that the pie is only so big, and us and the CSU and all the independents need to compete for the same group of students,” DeFranco said. “It’s really that there’s this unmet need, and we could grow and serve that unmet need.”
Representatives of the CSU did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the University of California, which has a transfer admission guarantee program with community college students at six of its campuses, said they could not speculate on how the ASU partnership may affect the university system.
“California community college transfer students are central to UC’s mission of expanding access and opportunity,” the spokesperson said. “One in every three UC graduates start their education at a California community college, and we remain committed to continuing to support California community college students. In addition, California community college transfers succeed at UC, with retention rates nearing 95 percent and graduation rates approaching 90 percent.”
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