Via The Olympian
No application fee, no essay, no recommendation letters and guaranteed admission.
It almost sounds too good to be true, but it’s all part of a new agreement announced by The Evergreen State College and South Puget Sound Community College to streamline the transfer process for those two-year students who want to attend the public, four-year school in Olympia.
For the community college, which also has its main campus in Olympia, the transfer agreement represents yet another tool in the toolbox for a school that continues to market itself as a cost-effective destination to launch degree-based goals. For Evergreen, like so many colleges and universities throughout the state and country, growing enrollment has been a focus of the school in recent years and the agreement represents another way to do just that.
First, though, Evergreen wants to get the agreement right by “running the best program we can by connecting with students as best we can,” said Tonya Strong, associate vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications at the school, “and then we can see what the numbers do.”
Although enrollment at Evergreen is still historically low, it is trending in the right direction. In fall 2021, total student enrollment —first-year, transfer and graduate students — stood at 2,103, but has since grown by more than 500 students to 2,667 in fall 2025, or 26.8%, said Strong. Evergreen had about 4,500 undergraduate students in 2010, The Seattle Times recently reported.
How will it work
In addition to no application fee and no essay, admission is guaranteed if the student completes an associate of arts degree in certain subjects, declares their intent to attend Evergreen and maintains a 2.0 GPA, according to SPSCC information.
Those initial subjects: science, business, government relations, public administration and law. For example if an SPSCC student studies government relations, public administration or law, it then connects to an Evergreen program called “business entrepreneurship, leadership and administration,” according to the SPSCC information.
The process also includes priority registration and personalized advising, according to SPSCC.
Historically, about 8% of SPSCC students transfer to Evergreen, while the most popular destination (17%) has been the University of Washington campus in Tacoma, said SPSCC spokeswoman Kati Sagawa. One of the challenges for the community college student has been Evergreen’s non-traditional approach to learning where “degrees are a little less defined,” she said.
Evergreen eschews letter grades in favor of narrative evaluations and takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning that results in an undergraduate degree, but with an emphasis in a range of studies instead of one focus topic.
Under the transfer agreement, however, those pathways are clearly mapped for students, Sagawa said.
“It will really help them understand what they need to do and where they will go,” she said.
In prepared statements, both college presidents praised the arrangement.
SPSCC president Timothy Stokes said: “We’re working to ensure students have clear degree plans, financial aid strategies and connections to their future transfer campus before they leave SPSCC — and ideally, before they even begin here.”
Evergreen president John Carmichael said: “Evergreen welcomes SPSCC students, and SPSCC students thrive at Evergreen,” he said. “We’re delighted to have new ways of easing that transition.”
How are things at SPSCC?
Many schools likely would be envious of SPSCC’s enrollment situation. For fall 2025, the school had 8,000 full-time students in credited programs, up 9% from fall 2024, Sagawa said.
“More people are seeing the value of community colleges,” she said.
It’s not a hard sell. For a full-time student at SPSCC it costs about $4,000 a year, compared to a one-year cost of $8,000 at a four-year public school and around $40,000 at a private school.
In addition to the Evergreen transfer agreement, the community college has similar arrangements with WSU Vancouver, UW Tacoma and expects to announce one with Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Sagawa said.
The school also recently announced a bachelor’s degree program in computer science — students actually attend SPSCC for four years to complete it — and the college’s brewing and distilling program remains popular at the two-year level.
Running Start, a statewide program that gives high school juniors a chance to begin work on an associate of arts degree, also is hugely popular here. About 1,400 of the 8,000 students in credited programs at the community college are in Running Start, Sagawa said.
Not every idea has worked out, she acknowledged. A bachelor’s degree program in applied science tied to the brewing and distilling program was not a hit.
“We tried for two years to recruit for that and it didn’t work out,” she said. “Students weren’t taking that next step.”
More from Evergreen
Evergreen, too, has taken other steps to grow enrollment.
The college’s Shelton Promise Program, which is open to all Shelton School District students, covers tuition and fees for four years and provides a grant to offset cost-of-living expenses. The state Legislature set aside funding for it, said Evergreen’s Strong.
This program is not unique to Evergreen, but the college did see an opportunity because the number of Shelton School District graduates moving on to college was low, she said. The program started with three students in 2024, but grew to 53 in 2025, Strong said.
The college also is set to introduce a new graduate studies program in 2027, she said. In addition to master degree programs in teaching, public administration and environmental studies, the college will add a master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in sustainability, Strong said.