New data show that college transfer rates, especially among community college students moving to four-year institutions, were up this fall — a positive sign following the upheaval brought on by the Covid pandemic.
Overall, college transfer enrollment increased this past fall from fall 2022 by 5.3%, led by a 7.7% increase among upward transfers from community colleges to four-year institutions, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center.
“Students are on the move again, and this is good news,” Doug Shapiro, the center’s executive director, said in a release. “More community college students entering bachelor’s degree programs this fall means greater access to four-year degrees, especially for those from lower-income backgrounds.”
The center’s in-depth annual report examines transfer trends among students at all undergraduate institutions, demographics and more and indicates largely good news. For example, disadvantaged students, including those from low-income backgrounds, Black and Hispanic groups, and rural community colleges, saw large increases in transfer enrollment, the report shows.
Overall, transfers increased for both students with continuing enrollment into fall 2023 (a 6.5% gain) and among students returning to college after a stop-out (a 3.7% increase). Together, these transfer enrollments represent 13.2% of non-freshmen undergraduates, which is about a full percentage point higher than in 2021, the center says.
Returning students are increasingly attending a different institution from where they last enrolled: 51.2% of returning students are transfers this year, up from 44.4% in fall 2021, the report says. The most frequent destinations for these students are community colleges (a 6% increase), primarily online institutions (a 12.6% increase) and private, for-profit four-year institutions (a 20.7% increase).
Transfers, especially from community college to a four-year institution, have garnered much national attention recently, particularly as an affordable postsecondary pathway. But upward transfer students have relatively low success rates, which has prompted several education advocacy groups and the U.S. Education Department to focus on ways to hurdle some of the main barriers these students face, such as four-year institutions’ inconsistency in accepting transfer credits.
Details on upward transfers
Among upward transfers, there was an 11.8% increase among continuing transfers students — a big reversal from the -10.8% drop in fall 2022, the report says. Students who were returning to college after a stop-out were less likely this fall to do so at a four-year institution, with a -0.4 dip, following a 12.1% increase the previous fall.
Continuing students at community colleges also cooled on lateral transfers to another two-year college. Continuing students saw a -2.4% decrease in fall 2023 after a 5.5% increase in fall 2022. But returning students doing a lateral move jumped 5.5%, following a 3.9% increase in fall 2022.
There were similar patterns among reverse transfers (four-year students who transfer to two-year colleges). Continuing students saw a -4.8% decrease following a 5.4% increase in fall 2022, while returning students saw a 6.7% boost, following a 5.1% increase in fall 2022.
Upward transfers this fall also showed increases in transfers to more selective institutions. There was a 7.8% increase among transfers to highly selective institutions and increases of 13.1% to very competitive institutions and 3.9% to competitive institutions following decreases across the board in fall 2022.
The percentage of upward transfers with an associate degree grew by 2.4% after diving in fall 2022 by almost -10%. Still, the share of students transferring with an associate degree continued to decline, from 37.4% in fall 2021, to 33.5% in fall 2023, the report says.
The NSC Research Center also looked at transfers in-state and out-of-state. Not surprisingly, in-state upward transfers increased 6.7%, following a -7.4% drop in fall 2022. But there also was an 8.5% increase among out-fo-state upward transfers, following a 2.4% bump the previous fall.
Other key findings
Nearly all racial/ethnic groups saw increases in upward transfer enrollments — with rates ranging from 6.0% to 7.9% — reversing declines in fall 2022. Asian students were the exception, seeing a -4.5% decline in the fall.
Over half (54.1%) of all transfer students changed majors when they moved to another institution. The report noted that more students changed their major regardless of transfer status in 2023, but the increase was much higher for transfers than for non-transfers — 7.2% compared to 1.3%, respectively. It observed that transfer students who previously majored in liberal arts and sciences, general studies and humanities changed their major most often, especially among upward transfers.
The NSC Research Center is also following cohorts of transfer students who start at community college and their attainments over a six-year period. The data show that the portion of community college starters who completed any credential within six years increased by 33.1% for the 2014 cohort to 35.2% for the 2016 cohort. It was the result of an increase in completions among upward transfers and non-transfer students, the report said.
More than two-thirds (68.5%) of community college starters with an upward transfer completed a credential within six years for all cohorts studied, which included cohorts that started during the pandemic. In comparison, students who transferred laterally or didn’t transfer all had lower completion rates, 30.7% for lateral transfers and 22.7% for non-transfers for all cohorts.
