Peer Mentor Jeremy Quinones transferred to Lehman College to pursue a Bachelor’s in Social Work.
Peer mentor Jeremy Quinones' cubicle at Hostos Community College is adorned with banners from other institutions, such as Lehman College, Pace University, York College, and NYU. As he prepares for his day, he notes, “We’re working on a big list.” This list helps the Transfer Peer Mentor Program at the College track recent associate degree graduates who have completed the first step toward continuing to four-year degrees rather than moving on directly to careers.
Jeremy, a Puerto Rican Bronx native, is one of four peer mentors at Hostos who is dedicated to ensuring these students have a plan for when they complete their associate degrees. This summer, Quinones, Kristina González, Lorelyn Cespedes, and Ghina Alrefee aim to ensure that each student accepted to a four-year college follows through with enrollment, registers for classes, and starts on time.
“If the student was accepted, we make sure they’ve completed enrollment. If they’ve completed enrollment, we make sure they’ve registered for classes,” Jeremy adds about the process the peer mentors follow weekly. Jeremy will spend his week reminding students to follow up with their admissions process and asking if they need support.
National surveys suggest that roughly 80% of community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree. However, a 2024 report from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University found that only 16% ultimately do so, with about a third of community college students transferring to four-year colleges. Of those who transfer, only 48% will obtain a bachelor’s degree within six years of graduating with their associate's. This phenomenon is known as the “leaky transfer pipeline.” The Transfer Peer Mentor Program, funded by the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation and the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, aims to fix this pipeline and make transfer after graduation an expectation for students, not just a goal.
Jeremy manages the logistics for the small team, documenting each point of contact and ensuring the team has up-to-date contact information for students, making call lists, and writing phone scripts to ensure consistent communications. Hailing from Santo Domingo, mentor Lorelyn Cespedes tracks students’ transfer progress in a color-coded spreadsheet.
Peer Mentor Lorelyn Cespedes transferred to City College.
“Pink means they should have registered somewhere—either at Hostos or their four-year—but didn’t, so they get one type of follow-up. Green means they have started the application process, so I keep track of where they have applied. Blue means they’re where they should be and registered. White means they should have graduated from Hostos but are still registered,” explains Lorelyn about her detailed task list.
For her part, Kristina González handles most of the outreach. “Sometimes students just decide they don’t want to continue, so we let them know we’re here if they change their minds. Sometimes, students got frustrated in the process and just didn’t know that they could come back here for support.” Peer mentors also accept walk-in appointments where they provide direct support with applications, enrollment, CUNY First (CUNY’s student management platform), and more. They are trained to navigate the intra-CUNY transfer management program Transfer Explorer (T-Rex) to help students see exactly how each course and each major will transfer, where it will be accepted, and what degree pathways it connects to.
A majority (95%) of Hostos students are low-income, most (75%) work while taking classes, and many (roughly 33%) are parents. With busy lives and scarce resources, students can become easily discouraged when administrative processes are unclear or burdensome. As recent Hostos graduates themselves, the peer mentors are very familiar with the challenges students face when transferring from a small, highly supportive campus, like Hostos, to a larger school. “Last week, I met with a former student who had transferred to the College of Staten Island, but it didn’t work out for him. So, he came back here to get some help transferring to Lehman College. I’m a current Lehman student, so I knew how to help him with the process.”
“When a student hits a roadblock,” Transfer Services Director RocÃo Rayo emphasizes, “our goal is to connect the student with a person, not an office.” Under Rayo’s supervision, the Transfer Peer Mentor Program has boosted Hostos students' transfer application rate from 23% in Fall 2022 to 75% in Spring 2024. “We want students thinking about transfer from day one at Hostos. We want them taking classes because they know they will transfer, choosing their major because it will transfer.” However, the transfer application is just the beginning. From there, the peer mentors work to ensure students understand how to enroll, register for classes, transfer their FAFSA, and connect with academic and social services offices at their transfer institutions.
Whereas the average starting salary for someone with a high school diploma is $33,000, an associate’s degree holder earns an average of $43,000. But for those with a bachelor’s degree, that number rises dramatically to $73,000, according to New York State. Consequently, ensuring successful student transfers is a key focus area for the College, as our mission is to transform lives through increased social mobility. So, when the Littauer Foundation invited a proposal for a new program, Interim Transfer Manager Marsha Milan-Bethel wanted to utilize peer mentors. She had seen the impact of peer mentor programs through the College’s Strive for Success initiative, which supported first-generation college-goers by pairing them with near-peer mentors. A similar program, College Allies, managed by College Access: Research and Action (CARA), was in its first semesters at Brooklyn College, John Jay, and Lehman College, so Hostos partnered with them to provide training for peer mentors.
In the original design, students would be assigned to a cohort based on their intended transfer institution, and that cohort would navigate the transfer together. When Rayo took over the program, she adapted the model to match the talents of the peer mentors. “Some are great at logistics and data; some are amazing facilitators.”
Collectively, the peer mentors made more than 7,000 contacts with Hostos students across all phases of their degree progress. In addition to one-on-one advising, the program also hosts workshops and events on campus that aim to provide support and raise awareness of the transfer process. “We’re in classrooms, we’re at freshman orientation. We meet students where they are.” But Rayo acknowledges there is a long way to go. “We’re getting really good at getting students to apply. Now we have to help them stick with it.” The program is entering its third year, so the data is still developing.
Transfer Services organizes various events every semester to inform students about their transfer options within and outside of CUNY.
Thanks to additional funding from the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the program has added more workshops, procured a mobile lab, and provided more competitive pay to retain peer mentors who receive intensive training to support their work. In addition to supporting students, the transfer office, as a function of the CUNY Transfer Initiative, works with four-year CUNY colleges and Hostos’ academic departments to ensure that courses are developed with transfer in mind. “If a professor plans a great course, but it won’t be acknowledged by the four-year college, we’re not operating in the best interest of our students. Also, if a course meets the qualifications for transfer, but the four-year college won’t accept the credits toward the degree, then we need to make sure the four-year college makes that change.”