Higher education takes on many forms: traditional four-year universities, private trade schools, specialty colleges, online universities and military schools. All types were represented Tuesday at Hancock College's Transfer Day.

Schools big and small, far and wide, on the ground and online all had a seat at the annual event, where Hancock students received information about continuing their education.

Jamie Shuffield, 33, is a mother of four from Orcutt who wants to continue an education she started nine years ago. She can't travel far, so she was interested in seeing if she could get a bachelor's degree in social services at either Cal Poly or UCSB.

She's also interested in night classes because of family demands. She found out the majority of classes at traditional universities are offered during the day, making it hard for her to consider either local university.

"There's no way I can leave the house unless we're going to soccer practice or football practice," Shuffield joked. "If it's nights from

6 to 10 (p.m.), I think I can do it."

The University of Phoenix, one of the pioneers in online education, seemed to make sense for Shuffield. The university is the largest private university in North America with approximately 400,000 students and 200 locations.

About half of its students strictly study online. The other half visit locations such as the Santa Maria Inn, where courses are taught locally, explained Bekki Miles, corporate relations spokesperson for the university.

"We have hundreds of campuses all over the country. That makes transfer from online to locations anywhere easy," Miles said.

The University of LaVerne, which has a central campus in LaVerne about

35 miles east of Los Angeles, also has a virtual campus. About 7,300 students occupy its traditional campus, but the majority of its students study online.

While the virtual universities service hundreds of thousands of students and can be dialed up with the click of a mouse, other schools, like UC Merced, sit at the opposite end of the spectrum. The newest UC campus is just four years old and sits in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada with only 3,200 students. There, students enjoy a small, growing campus with a 16-to-1 student-teacher ratio.

Schools from as far away as Honolulu (Hawaii Pacific University), Arcata, Calif. (Humboldt State University), Flagstaff, Ariz. (Northern Arizona) and Albuquerque, N.M. (University of New Mexico) also were represented at Transfer Day. Hawaii Pacific is in downtown Honolulu. Humboldt sits in the redwood forests of coastal California. And, Northern Arizona is perched high above the desert floor normally associated with the southwest, which is where the University of New Mexico rests.

While desirable locations and more favorable admission requirements attract some students, curriculum normally tops the list for most students.

Mary Worthington, 23, would like to transfer to either UC Davis or UCLA. A Cabrillo High School graduate, she's studied biochemistry at Hancock and wants to major in pathology to become a medical examiner. She said she wasn't inspired by the popular CSI television shows but by one particular teacher, Hancock professor Mick Bondello.

"There was one particular teacher who really gave it his all," Worthington said.

Bondello takes his classes to Cal Poly to visit the school's cadaver lab, where Worthington said she found her calling.

Worthington's two friends, Yong Kim and Samantha Tucker, also are looking to move on from Hancock. Tucker is considering UC Davis to study animal science and, eventually, become a veterinarian. Kim is considering applying to Cal Poly to study engineering or architecture.

Cal Poly is the university of choice for many local students, but many are turned away every year. The university has more than 18,000 students and admission is a tough ticket, said Walter Harris, admissions representative.

"Students compete for space. Admission to Cal Poly is a selective process," Harris explained. "Every major at Cal Poly has more applicants than space."

In all, more than two dozen universities, all branches of the United States military and a number of private schools were represented at Transfer Day.