Dive Summary:
- For six years, a National Student Clearinghouse Research Center study tracked 1.3 million students who enrolled at four-year institutions in 2005, painting a broad picture of enrollment and transfer trends.
- About 55 percent of the transfer group either stayed at community colleges or dropped out all together, though the data also shows that 78 percent of students at four-year institutions who took summer courses at a community college were more likely to complete their bachelor's degree.
- "The likelihood of returning to the original institution drops off pretty substantially after one semester," said Doug Shapiro, executive research director and study co-author.
From the article:
Large numbers of students at four-year institutions are transferring to community colleges, according to a new study from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Most of them don't come back, but that isn't always a bad thing. Roughly 14 percent of first-time students who enrolled at a four-year institution in the fall of 2005 had transferred to a community college by 2011, the study found -- excluding students who merely took summer classes at a community college. Of the transfer group, about 17 percent eventually returned to their original four-year institution. A larger gro...