Dive Brief:
- The Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College has found only 14% of community college students across the country transfer and graduate in six years, though 80% of them enroll saying they want to earn a bachelor’s degree.
- In a new report that analyzes more than 700,000 degree-seeking students who first enrolled in community colleges in 2007, researchers offer state-by-state comparisons, finding Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Texas have better-than-average transfer and bachelor’s degree attainment rates for this population.
- For community colleges, report authors analyzed transfer-out, transfer-with-award, and transfer-out bachelor’s completion rates, and they examined the transfer-in bachelor’s completion rates for four-year colleges, finding some states have lower than average transfer rates but higher than average completion rates among this smaller pool of students.
Dive Insight:
Improving community college transfer could be the key to improving graduation rates nationwide, especially when it comes to low-income and underrepresented minority groups who are increasingly less likely than their white peers to graduate with a four-year degree. The gap in degree attainment represents an equity problem for higher education that policymakers and institutional leaders are working to solve.
The latest report from the Community College Research Center is just the first phase of a major initiative to provide colleges with the tools they need to improve transfer and graduation rates. The CCRC and the Aspen Institute plan to release a playbook for community college and university administrators this spring to guide them in creating effective transfer partnerships.