Collaborative Practices in Higher Education Counseling

Collaboration within the higher education community is necessary in order to ensure students the best possible service. College counselors and student affairs professionals are often in constant communication with other student affairs professionals and counselors from different institutions than their own. For example, a student affairs professional or counselor at the community college level in a transfer center might be in constant communication with an admission officer working at a four-year institution. The reason for the constant communication between these two professionals can be to clarify what the admission requirements are for the four-year institution. Since things are always changing in regards to transfer requirements, transfer

For example, while helping a student complete their CSU application, I stumbled across some information that was not making any logical sense to me. The student was towards the end of the application and it was asking for annual income in order to determine if the student qualified for the application fee waiver application. Based on the income that the student provided, the student was not granted an application fee waiver. However, through my experience of working with students and helping them with their CSU application, I was certain that there was a mistake on behalf of the intended CSU campus that the student was applying to. Therefore, I took the initiative to call the CSU campuses to seek some clarification. After talking to their admission officer and explaining the situation to them, I was granted a coupon that would waive the application fees. This experience was a testament that without collaboration between two institutions, students can suffer, which can result in them not transferring due to financial constraints. Having constant communication between different levels of higher education systems will ensure student success. Through my knowledge of working in higher education, I would say that it is impossible for either a four-year university or community college to function effectively without the other. Because there is one common goal that both institutions align with, which is to serve students the best way possible. And through collaboration between four-year institutions and community college, it can be