Helping Tulsans Earn More Money

Published

Helping Tulsans earn more money is the focus of a new initiative between OSU-Tulsa and TCC. The two schools are working together to make it easier for students to move from an associate degree into a bachelor’s degree.

A major barrier to college completion is the transfer process. Across the country, students lose an estimated 43 percent of college credits on average after transferring to a four-year institution from a community college, according to the federal General Accounting Office.

OSU-Tulsa and TCC are launching the Transfer Map initiative to ensure students have a step-by-step guide from TCC to OSU.

“Too often, students spend a lot of time and effort gathering information from several different places to transfer to another institution, only to miss a step or take an unnecessary class,” OSU-Tulsa Provost and OSU Vice-Provost Pamela Fry said. “We created these maps to make the transfer process much simpler, and to help students reach their educational and career goals.”

Currently, Tulsa is behind the national average when it comes to the percentage of residents who have a bachelor’s degree. The work to increase the number of individuals with bachelor’s degrees in the Tulsa area has real implications for an individual’s earning potential. An individual with an associate degree will earn $8,800 more a year at a midpoint in their career than with a high school diploma. For a bachelor’s degree, that jumps to more $14,000 a year.

“TCC and OSU have a long history of collaboration to help students complete their educational goals. Of the students who transfer to a four-year institution from TCC, one in four transfer to OSU,” said TCC President & CEO Leigh B. Goodson, Ph.D. “While TCC has transfer agreements with a number of four-year institutions, we are excited about this next step that helps with the hand-off as a student finishes an associate degree at TCC and moves into a bachelor’s degree at OSU.”

These transfer maps are based on existing transfer agreements between TCC and OSU. Business Administration, Computer Information Systems/Computer Science, Elementary Education, Psychology, Political Science, Sociology are just a few of the TCC programs that will transfer to OSU. The transfer maps detail the requirements of the TCC associate degree and the aligned OSU bachelor’s degree. The 19 transfer maps show the specific classes and include all the information a student needs in one place:

  • Time and financial commitment
  • Salary potential
  • Class load
  • Year-by-year to-do list

Additional maps will be rolled out as new transfer agreements between the two institutions are negotiated.

TCC students should check with their academic advisor and prospective students should check with Academic Advising to get additional information.