Students' Characteristics that Facilitate the Transfer from Two-Year to Four-Year Colleges.

This article investigates the relative importance of social and academic background factors on the probability of transfer to a four-year college for a random sample of 2,500 students who entered community college within two years of graduation from high school in 1980. By four years after graduation from high school, 24.3 percent of those students had transferred to a four-year college. Factors describing the students' academic performance in community college were the strongest predictors of the eventual transfer in a path analysis design, but family background and high school factors exerted important indirect effects. Although broader access to community colleges may appear to increase educational opportunities for socially and academically disadvantaged students, the fact that more advanced students with better academic preparation in high school actually transfer to four-year colleges suggests that the community college experience may perpetuate, rather than ameliorate, social stratification in higher education.

[1]  Susan G. Broyles.  Fall enrollment in colleges and universities 1983 , 2011 .

[2]  Jerome Karabel,et al.  The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985 , 1991 .

[3]  W. Vélez,et al.  Two-Year College to Four-Year College: The Likelihood of Transfer , 1987, American Journal of Education.

[4]  Kevin J. Dougherty,et al.  The Effects of Community Colleges: Aid or Hindrance to Socioeconomic Attainment?. , 1987 .

[5]  Gary King.  How Not to Lie with Statistics: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Quantitative Political Science , 1986 .

[6]  W. Vélez.  Finishing College: The Effects of College Type. , 1985 .

[7]  Arthur M. Cohen,et al.  The American Community College. , 1983 .

[8]  Elizabeth Monk-Turner.  Sex, Educational Differentiation, and Occupational Status: Analyzing Occupational Differences for Community and Four‐Year College Entrants* , 1983 .

[9]  R. Alba,et al.  Community Colleges and Tracking in Higher Education. , 1981 .

[10]  G. McLaughlin,et al.  Explaining the academic performance of community college students who transfer to a senior institution , 1981 .

[11]  Fred L. Pincus.  The False Promises of Community Colleges: Class Conflict and Vocational Education , 1980 .

[12]  Leo A. Goodman,et al.  Analyzing Qualitative Categorical Data. , 1979 .

[13]  H. Gintis,et al.  Schooling in Capitalist America , 1976 .

[14]  J. Elashoff,et al.  Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research. , 1974 .

[15]  Jerome Karabel.  Community Colleges and Social Stratification. , 1972 .

[16]  Kristine L. Anderson.  Post-High School Experiences and College Attrition , 1981 .

[17]  D. Breneman.  Financing community colleges , 1981 .

[18]  J. A. Sawyer,et al.  The Fulfillment of the Democratization Role of the Community College. , 1980 .

[19]  C. V. Alstyne.  High Cost of Transfer: The Hidden Penalties. , 1974 .