Skip to main content
This story is published in cooperation with Willamette Week and Portland State University.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, if you had asked Alice Yvonne Evans if she planned to return to school and earn a degree, the answer would have been unclear. But after months of isolation, Evans felt a need to find the kind of close-knit community you can only find in higher education.
“It was a very tough time for many people. The best choice for me was to attend Portland State to find that community and build skills and meet new people. Portland State has a lot of community and diversity that I was really looking for in my life,” says Evans, who is in her final year of pursuing an environmental studies degree.
Evans transferred to Portland State University (PSU) from Portland Community College (PCC) in 2023. Along with her B.S., she’s completing PSU’s Indigenous Traditional Ecological Cultural Knowledge certificate and simultaneously reinvigorating her connection to the city she grew up in.
“I’m making it my own and trying to find purpose here in Portland,” she added.
Evans isn’t the only transfer student making the most of their time at Portland State. PSU welcomes more transfer students than any other Oregon college, many of whom follow non-traditional paths. Like Charlene Kepner, a PSU student majoring in child, youth and family studies, who has worked as a preschool teacher for the last 20 years. Kepner started her degree at PCC in the early 2000s and recently decided it was time to complete her studies at PSU.
“I chose PSU when I was looking to come back to school. It was important to me to have an in-person experience,” Kepner says. “And then when I saw that the motto of the school was ‘Let Knowledge Serve the City,’ I knew I was in the right place.”
She felt supported at PSU almost immediately, thanks in large part to the Transfer & Returning Student Resource Center (TRSRC). PSU established the TRSRC in 2020 to provide support to transfer students and students returning to their education after a significant break. The center was also designed to reduce barriers for traditionally marginalized students.
A college education is one of the most effective ways to increase social mobility and advance economic opportunity, yet obtaining a degree often feels out of reach. Community college students are also more likely to be first-generation and identify as Black, Indigenous or Latiné and continue to experience barriers that contribute to racial inequities.
“There are a lot of offices here that are meant to help students that face any barriers toward pursuing a degree here at PSU,” says Hana Guerrero, a PCC transfer student majoring in social work. “A lot of the problems that you could face, there’s people here that have been through it before that know how to handle these things.”
The TRSRC offers students 1:1 advising as well as step-by-step instructions to help students apply to PSU and ensure their credits transfer. The center hosts workshops and events tailored specifically for transfer students — like Transfer Student Climb Night at Campus Rec — to provide a space for students to socialize and build community with like-minded peers.
The TRSRC also maintains a robust list of resources to help to reduce any barriers students may feel finding the help they need. These resources include connections to financial and career assistance, health and well-being programs and academic services like tutors and academic coaching.
“Any question I ever had for them, no matter how big or small, they were very gracious and able to help me work through whatever issue was coming up,” Kepner says of the resource center. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”
PSU is building even more supportive programming for transfer students thanks to a recent award from the U.S. Department of Education. PSU was awarded nearly $8M to fund the Access, Connect, Complete, Engage (ACCE) program in partnership with Clackamas Community College (CCC) and Mt. Hood Community College (MHCC). ACCE will initially serve 2,000 transfer students from CCC and MHCC, who will receive comprehensive, personalized and extended support while seeking their degree.
“Providing equitable access to education is at the very core of our mission and this opportunity to work with our community college partners to improve that access will be an exciting endeavor,” says PSU President Ann Cudd.
These new transfer students will join PSU’s thriving community of more than 9,000 transfer students, who are furthering their goals and learning from each other.
“(At PSU) I’m not only around people that had taken some time off from college, but I’m around people with vastly different life experiences that led them to take a different journey toward higher education,” Guerrero says. “It has all just been a really great experience.”
To learn more about transferring to PSU, visit pdx.edu/transfer-student.