Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Alicia Mason, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Troy Comeau, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Kristen Livingston, Ed.D.

Abstract

U.S. higher education institutions (HEIs) consistently invest in evaluating existing communication practices and creating new strategies to increase their enrollment and degree completion rates, with recent efforts motivated by predictive trends of an enrollment cliff among traditional first-year student populations. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) estimates that due to declining birth rates during and after the 2008 Great Recession, the nation’s number of high school graduates will peak in 2025, followed by a significant decline through 2041 (WICHE, 2024). As a response to these indicators, institutions are interested in refining their transfer student recruitment, advisement, and retention strategies to offset projected waning freshman enrollment numbers by bolstering other student populations. However, transfer students have unique needs, motivations, and challenges that must be taken into consideration for these efforts to produce stable and enduring enrollment outcomes. Applying a universal communication plan to all prospective student populations, a common approach used by HEIs, may signal to transfer students that uncertainties they experience, such as transferability of credits and their applicability to degree programs, unanticipated financial incurrences, and expectations for interactions with advisors and other student services staff, are a consequence of their own inability to navigate complex and inconsistent institutional policies and procedures specific to the transfer process and deter them from completing the transfer.

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