The Impact of Institutional Resources on Articulation Agreement Coverage

This study examines how institutional and county-level resources influence the comprehensiveness of articulation agreements between two-year and four-year institutions. Guided by resource allocation theory, we incorporate multiple definitions of under-resourcing and estimate both binary and continuous indicators in regression models. Based on official data from the SUNY system office, we examine articulation agreements across 49 institutions, spanning 2-year and 4-year campuses. We use multiple linear regression to examine the influence of these under-resourced classifications on a recently introduced measure of institutional articulation coverage. Results indicate that two-year institutions serving high-poverty communities or serving populations where a higher percentage receive financial aid exhibit lower articulation coverage. Conversely, some four-year institutions in economically constrained areas demonstrate unexpectedly high articulation coverage, compared to their non-under-resourced counter parts. We also identify a distinct pattern among elite institutions, which, despite abundant resources, often display limited articulation coverage, possibly reflecting institutional preferences for exclusivity and curricular autonomy over transfer inclusion. While the study draws on SUNY data, the findings have broader implications for understanding how institutional resources shape articulation and transfer globally, a challenge faced in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. These findings underscore how both resource constraints and strategic priorities shape articulation outcomes and point to the need for greater institutional commitment to cultivating transfer-receptive cultures across the higher education landscape.