To complete the bachelor's degrees that 82% of community college students aspire to and that the knowledge economy needs, there is an obstacle: most students have to transfer to a four-year institution. But less than one third of all students and about one sixth of Black, Latinx, and Native American, or underserved minority (USM), students get around the obstacle and transfer. Civil rights lawyers and a higher education review commission in California argued that institutional articulation agreements (IAAs) would remove one barrier: credits that do not transfer and would increase both overall and USM student transfer. Lawmakers echoed their claims. But almost no research has been done to test whether that is the case. Because many community college students are place-bound, a second barrier, geographical distance, keeps them from transferring. The physical proximity of four-year institutions was expected to influence both transfer and the efficacy of IAAs. However, no research has addressed those connections, either. Research questions addressed how three treatments, (1) the number of IAAs, (2) proximity, and (3) the interaction of IAAs and proximity, affect the number of total and USM students who transfer. A gravity model, using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood high-dimensional fixed effects (PPMLHDFE), was used to analyze a panel of 3,022 California community college-university pairs from 1991-2010 (57,232 pair-years), using fixed effects for IAAs and random effects for proximity. A theoretical framework of inter-organizational collaboration and racialized organizations was used to explain the effectiveness and equity of transfer. Findings showed that IAAs helped overcome the barrier of credits that do not transfer, while proximity helped overcome the barrier of distance. Adopting IAAs in high numbers of disciplines and programs was found to be associated with increases in transfer above 200%. Institution pairs within commuting distance had about 2000% higher transfer. Pairs of institutions that were both within commuting distance and had adopted high numbers of IAAs had over 7000% higher transfer. Effects were consistently higher for USM students than for white and Asian/Pacific Islander (non-USM) students. Because the percentage increases were applied to low numbers of USM transfers, however, increases in actual students who transfer were estimated to be greater for non-USM students. At the same time, the model estimated that when treatments were applied, the relative levels of USM to non-USM students became more equitable. Findings with random effects also contain unmeasured omitted historical, social, economic, geographic, and cultural variables related to proximity, biasing the estimates. The structure of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, multiple competing priorities, the self-interests of institutions in the pursuit of prestige and exclusion, and lack of funding to create capacity, inhibit adoption of treatments and impede transfer. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]