Students who transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions having already earned either a certificate or an associate degree are more likely to make it to the finish line, especially if they plow straight through rather than take time off, according to a report released on Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The report is based on a study of the six-year outcomes of students who started at two-year colleges and transferred to four-year institutions during the 2005-6 academic year.
Those who completed certificates or associate degrees before transferring had a better chance of coming out with a bachelor’s degree: 72 percent of them earned B.A.'s, compared with 56 percent of students who had moved on without a credential. Other factors, including what type of institution students transferred to and whether they enrolled part or full time, also seemed to affect students’ outcomes.
Over all, 62 percent of the transfer students earned at least a bachelor’s degree within six years of leaving their two-year colleges; 8 percent were still enrolled at a four-year institution; and 4 percent either were re-enrolled or had completed a credential back in the two-year sector. The remaining students, more than 26 percent, appeared to have dropped out.
“While questions certainly remain about equitable access to a bachelor’s degree for students who enter two-year institutions,” the report says, “the majority of students who transfer are successful in pursuing a four-year degree.”
In examining an earlier cohort of students, the center found that the bachelor’s-degree-completion rate after eight years was higher for students who had started at two-year colleges and transferred than it was for students who had first enrolled at four-year institutions. While the overall difference was seven percentage points in breakdowns by sector, the transfer advantage held true only at four-year public institutions.
And the authors cautioned that starting at a two-year college and transferring does not necessarily increase a student’s odds of graduating. The transfer students the researchers tracked were a select group who changed colleges without taking time off and probably had more momentum than the typical student, the report says.
Results by Sector
Nationally, more than 40 percent of students enrolled in higher education are at community colleges, and more than two-thirds of them expect to pursue a bachelor’s degree, the report says, citing outside research. The relative success of transfer students demonstrates “the key role two-year institutions can play in increasing the number of students who graduate with bachelor’s degrees,” the report says.
The type of college that students transferred to made a difference (see chart below). For every 10 students, about seven went to a public institution, two to a private nonprofit college, and one to a for-profit institution.
Those who went on to public universities had the highest completion rate, 65 percent. Beyond cost, that may be due to many transfer agreements that streamline the credit-transfer process in the public sector. Sixty percent of the students who ended up at four-year private nonprofit colleges earned bachelor’s degrees, while only 35 percent of those who transferred to four-year for-profit colleges did so.
Across all sectors, a minority of students, 37 percent, enrolled at their new institutions full time, and those students had the highest completion rate, 80 percent. Most transfer students attended in some combination of part and full time.
For years, the National Student Clearinghouse has worked to promote a nuanced picture of community-college completion rates, in part by tracking what happens to transfer students, which the federal data system has yet to do.
Typically, about two-thirds of those who transfer to a four-year college do so without a degree or certificate, the report notes. That means that if they don’t graduate from the four-year college, they have no credential to show for their efforts.
“We know that a lot of students who start in community colleges are from low-income families or are students of color, so these findings have equity implications,” Afet Dundar, associate director of the research center and a one of the report’s authors, said in an interview.
Promoting Credentials
Some colleges are reaching out to students who transfer without an associate degree to encourage them to finish what they started. That may help not only students but also two-year institutions: Improving their completion rates has become increasingly important, as more states are tying a portion of their higher-education allocations to such performance measures.
As part of a “transfer back” policy, Camden County College, in New Jersey, applies credits that its former students have earned after leaving the college. This year it awarded the chairman of its Board of Trustees, John T. Hanson, an associate degree, determining that credits he had subsequently earned at Drexel University satisfied the requirements he still needed.
Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas have passed laws governing such “reverse transfer,” and about a dozen other states are developing policies to help colleges retroactively award associate degrees, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Economic benefits of associate degrees accrue to individuals and to states, according to a recent study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Over 20 years, students who had finished an associate degree at a community college in North Carolina before transferring to a four-year institution came out $50,000 ahead of those who transferred without a two-year degree, the study found.
The National Student Clearinghouse report recommends that community-college counselors encourage students to earn a credential before transferring—or at least to choose their courses carefully so that most of their credits will transfer. Counselors should also urge students to make the switch as quickly as possible, the report says. Not surprisingly, “if they wait more than a year in between, their outcomes are much worse,” said Ms. Dundar.
At four-year institutions, administrators should develop academic-support programs for delayed-entry transfer students, the report recommends, “much like the targeted support programs at many institutions that assist native first-year students who have been identified as at risk.”
The report, which was supported by a grant from the Lumina Foundation, is part of a series jointly produced by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center and Indiana University’s Project on Academic Success. Titled “Baccalaureate Attainment: A National View of the Postsecondary Outcomes of Students Who Transfer From Two-Year to Four-Year Institutions,” it is available on the center’s Web site.
