The Decline of Community College Transfer Rates

For at least a decade, concern has mounted about the transfer function of community colleges [19, 18, 24]. Scattered evidence from different states suggests that the absolute numbers of transfer students have declined and that the proportion of community college students successfully transferring to four-year colleges has decreased. In response, many programs to improve the articulation between twoand four-year colleges have developed, and strengthening the transfer function has become one of the principal concerns of community college leaders and policy makers [17, 25, 5, 23, 24, 26]. Given the other purposes of community colleges particularly their vocational and remedial functions and their various forms of community service and the many nontraditional students they serve, it isn't always clear why maintaining transfer programs at previous levels remains so important. Indeed, given the multiple purposes of community colleges and the varied goals of their students, one might expect a decrease in transfers. However, there are at least three substantial reasons for the continued importance of the transfer function, even after the community college has become a very different institution from what it was prior to the 1960s when it expanded so rapidly. The first is partly