We present a large-scale combination of near-infrared (near-IR) interstellar polarization data from background starlight, with polarized emission data at sub-millimetric (sub-mm) bands for the Vela C molecular cloud. The sub-mm data were obtained by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) during the 2012 flight in Antartica. The near-IR data consist of more than 6700 detections in the I-band, covering a wide area around the cloud, mostly in the range of visual extinctions between 2 and 16 mag. The main goal was to determine the polarization efficiency ratio Reff , defined as p500/(pI/τV), where p500 is the polarization fraction at 500 μm and optical depths τV are estimated from cataloged near-IR photometry. To ensure that the same column density of material is producing both polarization from emission and extinction, we introduce a new method to select stars that are located in the near-background, the Gaussian-logistic (GL) technique. The polarization efficiency ratio is critically affected by stellar objects with background contamination from the diffuse Galactic material, emphasizing the need for a careful selection. Accounting for the statistical and systematic uncertainties from the GL method, we estimate an average Reff value of 2.4 ± 0.8, which can be used to test dust grain models designed specifically for molecular clouds. Reff appears to be relatively flat as a function of the cloud depth, suggesting that significant grain modification might occur only at higher densities.