Coronado High School 2013 graduate Emma Schwartz Lara launched The Go Abroad Pod in fall 2024, with her co-host, Ashley Warmington. On The Go Abroad Pod, the women discuss all things studying abroad and international education. Now the duo has moved from interviewing guests about going abroad to bringing community college students abroad with the Transfer Abroad Network.
Transfer to Global Universities Made Simple: The Transfer Abroad Network (TAN) connects U.S. community college students with world-class universities across the globe. Discover how your credits translate, explore programs that fit your goals, and take the next step toward an international degree that opens doors for a lifetime.
Creating Transfer Abroad Network
“It was truly a joint effort,” Ashley says on the creation of Transfer Abroad Network. “Emma and I were chatting over coffee. It was after our first year of doing the Go Abroad Pod together, and we were discussing how much of an opportunity there is for transfer students to go abroad, but how there’s no way to support them at that scale. Emma had experience working with a university to help students go overseas. We wondered if there was an application portal for everybody to connect.”
Breaking into a new field
“We saw the interest very early on – three, four years ago,” Ashley says. Not only was there a desire on the community college side, but also on the university side. “We’re doing the Go Abroad Pod. We interview Chris Torbio, who is the Director of Global Engagement at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, and he’s also a former president of IACAC, which is the International Association of College Admissions Counseling. We get to talking about him, about global transfer and global mobility.”
Emma chimes in. “I was talking to Chris, and working for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. It’s a fantastic institution for transfer students. A lot of students go to the UCs and CSUs, and that goes back to the main point that there’s a well-oiled path here in California and across the United States. You’re able to transfer your credits and go to a CSU that’s very well known.”
Emma and Ashley envision a system as streamlined and transparent as the California community college transfer program, but for students who want to earn a degree abroad. “It’s not well known to take your transfer units and go abroad, take your associates, take your two years under your belt, and go follow a dream to finish your degree in another country. This is not just a study abroad. This is getting a full degree in another country.”
From a dream to a movement
Emma worked for James Cook University in Australia and learned first hand about degrees abroad. “For students who wanted to transfer their associate’s degree in marine science, they could finish their two years at James Cook University for a bachelor’s degree in marine biology. [The university] is on the Great Barrier Reef. It made so much sense, and it would be a little cheaper than staying in California if you’re looking at tuition, room, and board. It’s actually more affordable for them to transfer overseas. It started this whole movement at Orange Coast College, and all the faculty began to be on board. We’re meeting with the President of Orange Coast College this Thursday. All of a sudden, it became a big part of the campus environment and campus tours. We started hearing high school students being very interested in this Australian pathway.”
Creating a portal for the Transfer Abroad Network
“I used to work for the University of Glasgow,” Ashley explains. “We used to get dozens upon dozens of applications from transfer hopefuls. They would end up applying through the university system and get lost in it. There wasn’t a streamlined process of evaluating them.”
This interest really pushed Emma and Ashley toward software development to make the application process more manageable. “We have this scenario where there was interest, but not the systems in place. What if we made it easy for the students? What if they had so much support, white glove service, somebody on the ground helping them? What if there was a way to facilitate that in the form of a platform where everything is clear, transparent, and easy to understand for the first time?”
Portal process
Ashley explains the portal. “There are tools and resources on the system that act like a bridge.” The university portal is geared toward what they need to know, and on the other side, students are completing the application in a way they will understand.
“The students are having this familiar process with the application, while telling the universities abroad exactly what they need to hear. One of our favorite things about the platform is that the system provides a profile fit score for the students, which matches them, gives a confidence rating of how far along they are, and provides encouragement.”
Transfer Abroad Network community college partnerships
The duo shares the community colleges they have already partnered with, including Orange Coast College, Santa Barbara City College, West College in Huntington Beach, De Anza College in Cupertino, Austin Community College in Texas, and Kapi’olani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii. They are also in the process of onboarding Portland Community College.
“There are 1,000 community colleges in the US, and we’re working our way and trying to forge relationships with as many as we can,” Ashley states. Until this point, Ashley and Emma have been building relationships on the ground floor. They are now making leaps. Emma says, “We are in conversations with the Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor’s office at California Community Colleges, and we are hoping to make this a statewide initiative. We’re flying up to Sacramento at the end of January to discuss how we can partner.”
Transfer Abroad Network International University Partnerships
“We have 11 universities that are in the process of signing off,” Ashley shares. “Most of them will be confirmed in January. Among those eleven universities, we have seven countries represented, which is so exciting.” Included among them are the University of Sterling in Scotland, the University of Limerick in Ireland, the University of York, St John’s University in England, Richmond University in London, John Cabot University in Rome, Murdoch University in Dubai, and the Business and Hospitality Management School in Switzerland.
Transfer Abroad Network is designed to offer a wide variety of options. Colleges range from city life to a more rural experience to a more outdoorsy one. They prioritize matching different transfer students’ desires. “We’re working hard to get all regions represented,” Emma says. “We’re reaching out to universities across Asian countries, across African countries, and across Latin American countries, and doing our best to have a great representation of regions on the platform.”
How to join Transfer Abroad Network
Emma walks through how students can join the Transfer Abroad Network. “Go to TransferAbroadNetwork.com. The landing page will tell them exactly the steps to take. They will create a profile and front-load their information. They’ll indicate the degree they’re seeking and list their credits in a related field. They can add their unofficial transcripts and passport and indicate whether they want a scholarship if they’re applying for financial aid. Then their profile is complete!”
After setting up their portal, students can start exploring universities. “The university landing page is really fun,” Emma says. “The ones in Rome have beautiful pictures of Rome and their student life. They’ll be able to watch YouTube videos within the platform. They’re never taken outside of the platform. We made everything very central and easy for them to navigate. It really serves the student in the best way possible.”
There is no cost to students to apply.
Two-plus-one Agreement
When completing a degree abroad, many universities offer a two-plus-one agreement and a two-plus-one-and-a-half agreement, which means a student completes an associate’s degree, transfers, and completes their bachelor’s degree in one year or one and a half years.
2026 goals and beyond
Ashley and Emma are set to help as many students as possible. Their 2026 goals include 1,000 students on the platform and fifty universities. To reach these quantities, Transfer Abroad Network will focus on quality. “This is a new frontier,” Ashley says. “It’s giving everyone the best possible service and experience. Not only will we be throwing events and personalizing the experience, but we will also consider feedback. More than any numbers, we want the students and the universities to be happy. We genuinely want the Transfer Abroad Network to be a network and a community.”
“United States international recruitment has been around for decades, and it’s getting more and more popularized among international students,” says Ashley. “Even though there’s been a 700% increase in the number of international universities with regionally-based staff in the last 10 years in the US, nobody has a streamlined transfer policy from a community college to an international university. It’s a really cool opportunity to see an untapped market within a very saturated one. The sky’s the limit for these universities and students.”
Ashley provides additional market research. “There’s a declining number of graduating high school students. From 2025 until 2040, there is meant to be a 15% decline in the number of graduating high school students. Somewhere between 9 and 10 million learners are enrolled at community colleges, and 8 in 10 of those students intend to transfer. Currently, no international university has cornered this market, so it’s an exciting time.”
A rewarding venture
For Emma and Ashley, helping students earn degrees abroad is rewarding. “It’s been just such an amazing journey together,” Emma says. “When you look back, you think, ‘Wow, that was a lot of hard work, but we had so much fun doing it,’ and I’m still having fun every single day. This morning, we were on a call with an Irish University. Tonight, we’re on another call. We’re constantly learning something new.”
“It’s so surreal,” Ashley says. “I couldn’t imagine a better co-founder. We’re just two English degree students who woke up one morning and said, ‘What? Like, it’s hard. Let’s start it.’” Emma adds, “I think our main advice for students would be to follow your dreams. Take control of your own fate.”
