GENERAL EDUCATION IN AN AGE OF STUDENT MOBILITY

What Do We Know About Student Transfer? An Overview

by James C. Palmer

Community college students seeking the baccalaureate must transfer. For them, transfer is neither an option nor a convenience. It is a requirement built into the structure of the higher education system. And because many minority, low-income, and older students begin their postsecondary studies at community colleges, their access to the baccalaureate depends (to a large degree) on a successful transfer experience.

Despite the importance attached to transfer from community colleges, however, longitudinal data on student movement between two-year and four-year colleges are collected less routinely and consistently than data on enrollments and other cross-sectional measures. Tracking students over time is more complicated and costly than counting students at individual institutions. But occasional longitudinal studies at the national and state levels offer at least some insights into the proportion of total postsecondary transfer activity that is accounted for by student movement from two-year to four-year colleges. The studies also reveal considerable variations between individual community colleges in the rate of student transfer, variations that can be attributed at least partially to the student educational intentions.

The overall transfer picture
Students transfer in all directions. The most recent nationwide picture stems from the U.S. Department of Education's longitudinal study of individuals who entered college for the first time during the 1989-90 academic year (Table 1). By the spring of 1994, 35% had moved on to at least one other institution. The study data showed student movement in all directions: traditional transfer (two-year college to four-year college), reverse transfer (four-year college to two-year college), and lateral transfer (two-year to two-year, four-year to four-year, etc.).

But of all the transfer routes, movement from community colleges to baccalaureate-granting institutions remains the modal pattern. Data on the "first transfer" of students in the Department of Education's longitudinal study bear this out (Table 2). Thirty percent of that first transfer activity was accounted for by students moving from two- and three-year colleges to four-year colleges; the next largest categories related to lateral transfer (that is, students moving between four-year colleges or between two/three-year colleges).

Occasional state studies yield similar results. For example, Oklahoma reports that of the students transferring from one Oklahoma institution to another in the fall of 1996, 38% were students moving from two-year to four-year institutions, 20% were moving between four-year institutions, 26% were four-year college students who moved to a two-year college, and 13% were students moving from one two-year college to another (Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 1997). Data from Illinois show that of the students transferring into public institutions from other in-state institutions in the fall of 1998, 49% were moving from community colleges to public universities; 16% were students transferring between community colleges; 15% were students moving from public universities to community colleges; 9% were students moving from independent, nonprofit colleges to community colleges; 6% were students moving between public universities; 5% were students moving from independent, nonprofit institutions to public universities; and 1% were students moving from independent, for-profit institutions to either a community college or a public university (Illinois Board of Higher Education, 1999).

The predominance of two-year-to-four-year transfer is more starkly evident from the university perspective, especially in states with large community college systems. For example, community college students accounted for the vast majority of new transfer students who entered the California State University and the University of California in academic year 1997-98: 81% and 74% respectively (California Postsecondary Education Commission, 1999). In Illinois, 82% of the students transferring to public universities from other in-state colleges during the fall of 1998 were former community college students (Illinois State Board of Education, 1999).

All of these figures point to the sizeable contribution of community colleges to baccalaureate education. Additional national data from the U.S. Department of Education reveal that of the students receiving bachelor's degrees from public universities during 1992-93, 18% had started their postsecondary careers at public-two year colleges, as did 11% of the students receiving bachelor's degrees from private, nonprofit colleges (McCormick and Horn, 1996, p. 39). This is just the tip of the iceberg. These figures do not include additional baccalaureate recipients who had started at a four-year college but nonetheless earned credit at a community college, either as a "reverse transfer student" or through concurrent enrollment at a community college.

Community college transfer rates
Aggregate data on the magnitude of transfer, however, mask considerable variations in the rate of transfer between states, individual community colleges themselves, and students. Assessing these variations became possible in the 1980s when researchers at the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, based in Los Angeles, applied a consistent definition to calculations of the community college transfer rate. The Center's formula focused on the transfer of first-time students within a four-year time frame. It calculated transfer rates as follows:

all students entering the community college in a given year who have no prior college experience and who complete at least twelve college units [at the community college] divided into the number of that group who take one or more classes at an in-state, public university within four years (Cohen, 1996, p.28).

This definition necessarily understates the transfer rate, excluding community college students who earned less than twelve credits before transferring, who moved on to out-of-state or who transferred to private institutions. But it at least provides a common framework for comparison between states and individua community colleges. It also provides a common reference for comparing the transfer rates of different student groups.

Applying this formula to the community colleges of fourteen cooperating states, the Center calculated an average transfer rate of 22% for first-time students entering community colleges in 1990. The average statewide transfer rates ranged from 11% to 40%. Within-state variations between individual community colleges also emerged; in California, for example, transfer rates for individual colleges ranged from 3% to 32% (Cohen, 1996, p. 29).

Center staff also found considerable variation in the average transfer rates of ethnic groups: 24% for Asians, 23% for Caucasians, 13% for African-Americans, and 12% for Hispanics. Yet these rates rose or fell depending on the overall average transfer rate of the institution. In the top institutional quartile (that is, in those community colleges with the highest overall transfer rates), the transfer rates for African-Americans and Hispanics were 20% and 23% respectively, compared to 32% for Caucasians and 27% for Asians. In the bottom quartile, African-Americans and Hispanics each had a 6% transfer rate, compared to 10% for Caucasians and 9% for Asians (Cohen, 1996, pp. 29-30). Institutional characteristics fostering transfer clearly affect students across all ethnic categories.

What might these characteristics be? A subsequent Center study comparing community colleges with high and low transfer rates revealed no differences in terms of articulation practices such as common course-numbering systems, faculty exchange with universities, orientation, or visits from university staff. However, colleges with high transfer rates did have "a visible and vigorous transfer center staff, an accessible university with low grade-point averages for transferring students, a staff with expectations regarding transfer, and a history of high transfer even as the population of the district shifted" (Cohen, 1996, p. 31). Transfer plays a more central role in the organizational cultures of some community colleges than others.

These institutional differences notwithstanding, student intentions exert a strong influence on the rate of transfer. For example, the Illinois Community College Board (1998, p. 26) used the Center formula to examine transfer rates for 1990 entering students. Results showed a 22% percent transfer rate for all students, a 29% transfer rate for students enrolled in baccalaureate/transfer programs, and a 34% transfer rate for students who enrolled in baccalaureate/transfer programs and who entered in the community college with the stated intent of transferring. The Illinois data also revealed a 10% transfer rate for all students in occupational programs and a 22% transfer rate for those occupational students who enrolled in the community college with the intent of transferring. Besides reinforcing the important point that students transfer from both occupational and academic programs, these data underscore the fact that transfer is only one component of the community college mission. Many students have no intention of transferring.

From "transfer" to "swirl"
At least two other factors complicate assessments of transfer from two-year to four-year colleges. One is the varying degree to which students stay at the community college before moving on. National data collected by the U.S. Department of Education in the early 1990s show that of the students transferring from two-year to four-year colleges, 9% did so after spending five months or less at the community college, 16% transferred at a point in time between six and ten months after initial enrollment at the two-year college, 33% transferred at some point between eleven and twenty months after initial enrollment, and 42% stayed at the community college for twenty-one months or more before transferring (McCormick, 1997, p. 10). Another study revealed that of the students transferring from community colleges to a sample of public universities in thirteen states during the fall of 1991, 25% had earned 1-49 semester hours of credit before transferring, 25% had earned 50-63 credits, 25% had earned 63-72 credits, and 25% had earned 72 credits or more; only 37% had earned the associate's degree (Palmer, Ludwig, & Stapleton, 1994, p. 6). While pursuing the baccalaureate, students use the community college in their own ways; many do not follow the traditional "2+2" pattern.

In addition, community colleges cannot be viewed simply as "feeder institutions" to the four-year colleges. Writing in 1990, officials of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) in Phoenix documented complex patterns of reverse transfer and concurrent enrollment between MCCCD and Arizona State University, arguing that the term "transfer," which implies linear movement between institutions, should be replaced by the notion that students "swirl between and among community colleges and four-year institutions" (de los Santos and Wright, 1990, p. 32). Researchers examining transfer between Portland State University (OR) and three neighboring community colleges documented similarly complex patterns of student movement in the early 1990s. They concluded that, from the student's perspective, institutional boundaries had little meaning: "We found the pattern of student movement between the community colleges and the university to be complex rather than straightforward. Students appear to use the public institutions in the metropolitan area as a system, even though the institutions are entities of four separate governmental agencies" (Kinnick and others, 1998, p. 98).

Our data collection systems, which have only recently offered credible insights into student movement between community colleges and four-year institutions, are just now catching up with this reality. It seems clear that a true understanding of how students experience higher education will depend on further efforts to track the way students themselves use community colleges and universities on the way to the baccalaureate. The key challenge is to augment our knowledge of the magnitude of the educational enterprise (as measured by enrollments) with indicators of student experiences over time.

References
California Postsecondary Education Commission. California Higher Education Performance Indicators, 1998 Student Access Context. Sacramento: CPEC, 1999. Available on-line at http://www.cpec.ca.gov/ab1808/final98/section4/trnsall.htm

Cohen, A.M. "Orderly Thinking About a Chaotic System." In T. Rifkin (ed.), Transfer and Articulation: Improving Policies to Meet New Needs. New Directions for Community Colleges, no. 96. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

de los Santos, A. G., Jr., and Wright, I. "Maricopa's Swirling Students: Earning One-Third of Arizona State's Bachelor's Degrees." Community, Technical, and Junior College Journal, 60(6):32-34 (1990).

Illinois Community College Board. Illinois Community College System Transfer Study. Springfield: ICCB, 1998. (ED 422 048)

Illinois Board of Higher Education. 1999 Data Book. Springfield: IBHE, 1999. Available on-line at http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/Data%20Book/1999/1999%20Data%20Book.htm#V.

Kinnick, M.K., Ricks, M.F., Bach, S., Walleri, R.D., Stoering, J., & Tapang, B. "Student Transfer Between Community Colleges and a University in an Urban Environment." Journal of Applied Research in the Community College 5: 89-98 (1998).

McCormick, A.C., and Horn, L. J. A Descriptive Summary of 1992-93 Bachelor's Degree Recipients: 1 Year Later. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Statistics, 1996.

McCormick, A.C. Transfer Behavior Among Beginning Postsecondary Students: 1989-94. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Statistics, 1997.

Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Student Transfer Matrix, Fall 1996. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 1997. (ED 416 799)

Palmer, J.C., Ludwig, M., and Stapleton, L. At What Point do Community College Students Transfer to Baccalaureate-Granting Institutions? Evidence From a 13-State Study. Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1994. (ED 373 844)