Attrition and performance of community college transfers

Community colleges are an important part of the US higher education landscape, yet the aptitude and preparedness of student transfers to baccalaureate institutions is often called into question. Examining transcript records and demographic information of nearly 70,000 students across over 15 years of registrar records at a public university, this study performed a descriptive analysis of the persistence, performance, and academic migration patterns of community college transfers, transfers from four-year institutions, and freshmen entrants. We found little difference between community college transfers and freshmen entrants in terms of post-transfer grades and persistence. Transfers from four-year institutions had higher grades but also had higher attrition rates than their peers. This study also found no strong evidence of transfer shock on students’ post-transfer grades. When examining the tendencies of students to shift fields of study during their educational pursuits, the academic migration patterns of transfer students were more concentrated than those of freshmen entrants.

[1]  B. Long,et al.  Do Community Colleges Provide a Viable Pathway to a Baccalaureate Degree? , 2008 .

[2]  Kevin J. Dougherty.  The Contradictory College: The Conflicting Origins, Impacts, and Futures of the Community College. SUNY Series, Frontiers in Education. , 1994 .

[3]  J. Conrad Glass Jr,et al.  ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE TRANSFER STUDENTS AND "NATIVE" STUDENTS AT A LARGE STATE UNIVERSITY , 2002 .

[4]  Dorothy M. Knoell,et al.  From junior to senior college : a national study of the transfer student , 1965 .

[5]  V. Lee,et al.  Persistence to the Baccalaureate Degree for Students Who Transfer from Community College , 1993, American Journal of Education.

[6]  Patricia E. Diaz.  EFFECTS OF TRANSFER ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS AT THE FOUR‐YEAR INSTITUTION , 1992 .

[7]  William R. Doyle.  The effect of community college enrollment on bachelor's degree completion , 2009 .

[8]  C. Lockwood Reynolds,et al.  Where to attend? Estimating the effects of beginning college at a two-year institution , 2012 .

[9]  Abdulaziz Alsunbul.  THE ACHIEVEMENT OF TWO‐YEAR TRANSFER STUDENTS IN FOUR‐YEAR INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY , 1987 .

[10]  Stephen R. Porter.  Assessing Transfer and Native Student Performance at Four-Year Institutions. AIR 1999 Annual Forum Paper. , 1999 .

[11]  Xianglei Chen.  STEM Attrition: College Students' Paths into and out of STEM Fields. Statistical Analysis Report. NCES 2014-001. , 2013 .

[12]  John R. Hills,et al.  Transfer Shock: The Academic Performance of the Junior College Transfer , 1965 .

[13]  Barbara K. Townsend.  Redefining the Community College Transfer Mission , 2001 .

[14]  Liza Reisel,et al.  Competing Explanations of Undergraduate Noncompletion , 2011 .

[15]  Jevin D. West,et al.  Predicting Student Dropout in Higher Education , 2016, ArXiv.

[16]  The Role of Two-Year Colleges in the Improving Situation of Hispanic Postsecondary Education , 2006 .

[17]  B. Clark,et al.  The "Cooling-Out" Function in Higher Education , 1960, American Journal of Sociology.

[18]  Cecilia Elena Rouse,et al.  Democratization or Diversion? The Effect of Community Colleges on Educational Attainment , 1995 .

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

[20]  Mariana Alfonso,et al.  The impact of community college attendance on baccalaureate attainment , 2006 .

[21]  Susan B. Twombly.  The American Community College , 2014 .

[22]  A. Gill,et al.  Do community colleges really divert students from earning bachelor's degrees? , 2003 .

[23]  S. Peng,et al.  Differences between vertical transfers and native students in four-year institutions , 1977 .

[24]  A. Nancy Avakian.  Race and Sex Differences in Student Retention at an Urban University. , 1982 .

[25]  Brent D. Cejda.  AN EXAMINATION OF TRANSFER SHOCK IN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES , 1997 .

[26]  C. Rouse.  Do two-year colleges increase overall educational attainment? Evidence from the states , 1998 .