Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts Grant Program

Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts Grant Program

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: The Teagle Foundation Incorporated
Amount: Up to US $350,000
Last Updated: January 29, 2026

Summary

The Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts Grant Program, sponsored by the Teagle Foundation and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, aims to enhance transfer opportunities between community colleges and private four-year liberal arts institutions. With grants up to $350,000, this initiative supports partnerships that promote timely degree completion for underrepresented students, fostering diversity and enriching academic environments. The program addresses transfer challenges, ensuring alignment in curricula and maximizing credit transferability to facilitate successful transitions to higher education.

Overview

NOTE: Prospective grantees should submit brief concept papers. More information on concept papers can be found here. After review of the concept papers, a limited number of applicants will then be invited to submit full proposals. Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts The Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative is jointly sponsored by the Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to support statewide, regional, or consortial academic partnerships between public two-year and private four-year colleges to facilitate transfer and completion of the baccalaureate in the liberal arts. Grants up to $25,000 over 6-12 months for planning and up to $350,000 over 24-36 months for implementation will be made to institutions participating in this initiative. The size of the grant award will be based on the number of institutions involved and the scope of the project. Planning grants are strongly encouraged. We expect this grant program will remain open for approximately three to five years. Rationale Community colleges now enroll roughly one-third all undergraduates nationally, most of whom aspire to transfer to four-year baccalaureate-granting institutions. Yet fewer than a third of those who hope to gain a baccalaureate degree transfer-in to a four-year institution, and only 13 percent actually earn their bachelor’s degree in six years. Policymakers have understandably focused on making provisions for transfer between two- and four-year institutions in the public sector. However, strengthening transfer pathways between public two-year colleges and private four-year liberal arts colleges remains an overlooked mechanism for enhancing access to the baccalaureate. Curricular bridge-building between public two-year colleges and private four-year colleges provides transfer students with more options to complete their education in a timely fashion. Small independent colleges in particular are especially well-suited to serve transfer students by providing personal attention to help them reach their goals. At the same time, community college students bring important benefits to private colleges in the form of diversity of background and lived experience, enhancing the educational environment for all students. Students are often stymied by confusing curricula and guidelines on transferability that discourage them from taking the next step in their education and interfere with completing the baccalaureate on time, if at all. The prevailing state of affairs facing community college transfer aspirants can undermine the purposes of a college education: to help students cultivate the knowledge, skills and capacity for leading considered lives, to enable and encourage them to participate effectively in our democracy, and to pursue fulfillment in their professional and personal lives. Goals The Teagle Foundation and Arthur Vining Davis Foundations are jointly sponsoring Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts to bring the lifelong benefits of a liberal arts education to students who historically have been excluded from higher education—including low-income students, first-generation students, students of color, and immigrant students—who now constitute the “new majority” of undergraduates and depend on community college as their gateway to higher education. The initiative aims to support building comprehensive curricular frameworks between community colleges and independent colleges and ensure alignment in learning objectives between lower and upper division coursework; transferability and applicability of credits; and timely completion of the baccalaureate in the liberal arts. We give priority to projects that involve multiple four-year independent colleges coming together with community college partners to develop statewide, regional, or consortial approaches to promote transfer in the liberal arts. Proposals for bilateral agreements between pairs of institutions will not be considered. Transfer has academic, cultural, and financial dimensions. The academic dimension is paramount because it influences the other two dimensions. Nearly half of all transfer students lose more than ten percent of earned credits in the transition. This is especially discouraging for students who cannot afford to extend their time in college in order to earn additional credits for graduation. Such students often discover belatedly that credits that have been technically accepted by their new institution toward the overall graduation requirements in the form of electives may not be counted toward requirements within the student’s desired degree program. Such loss of credits prolongs time to degree, which can have a major impact on students’ financial aid eligibility and can make the cost of completing the baccalaureate appear financially daunting. Lack of clarity around how credits transfer also adversely influences the quality of academic advising and blunts the impact of other cultural practices that institutions might adopt to become more transfer-friendly, such as establishing centers on campus dedicated to transfer students. This is especially true for independent colleges, which historically have had little experience with recruiting community college transfer students and have designed their curriculum on the assumption that students will be on campus for four years. This grant program is focused on addressing obstacles students face in the academic dimension of transfer and ensuring their coursework transfers and applies towards baccalaureate degree program requirements. These issues are directly within the control of faculty and influence the cultural and financial dimensions of transfer. Focusing on the academic dimension has a useful precedent in the public sector, on which independent colleges can base their own efforts by looking to curricular mechanisms to promote transfer to four-year public institutions that have been enacted as a matter of state policy. This work in the public sector provides a model for ensuring alignment in learning outcomes between lower- and upper-division coursework. Independent sector institutions would benefit from statewide, regional, or consortial frameworks to streamline academic requirements for transfer in order to provide a competitive alternative to public four-year institutions and raise their visibility as a transfer destination in the eyes of community college students.

Eligibility

We've imported the main document for this grant to give you an overview. You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. The Teagle Foundation awards grants only to tax-exempt 501(c)3 organizations that are based in the United States.Our grantees include residential liberal arts colleges, community colleges, comprehensive institutions, research universities, community-based organizations, non-profit organizations, higher education associations and consortia, and disciplinary associations.Institutions and organizations of particular interest to us are those that:explicitly put engaged student learning in the liberal arts at the center of their mission; allocate their resources to sustain this mission; have stable enrollments and finances;achieve good graduation rates, typically 65% or more after six years;systematically assess student progress;serve underrepresented populations and communitiesAppropriate applications of Teagle funding include:stipends for project leader(s),stipends for faculty participants,reasonable honoraria or fees for visiting experts or consultants,U.S. domestic travel related to the project or for dissemination at conferences,meeting expenses and meals for working dinners or similar occasions,office and research materials and assistance,and the costs of support staff.Please show cost-sharing wherever possible. Cost-sharing should be for those direct costs borne by the institutions.

Ineligibility

The Foundation does not make grants to individuals. Proposals for bilateral agreements between pairs of institutions will not be considered.The Foundation does not cover indirect or overhead costs or support activities that take place internationally (e.g., international travel).