Persistence to the Baccalaureate Degree for Students Who Transfer from Community College

This article investigates the probability of attaining a baccalaureate degree for students who enrolled in community college after high school graduation and subsequently transferred to a four-year college. With logistic regression methods, this probability is compared with that of their counterparts who entered four-year institutions directly from high school. Using four waves of data from the high school class of 1980 from High School and Beyond, we compared the random sample of 422 transfer students with the sample of 1,899 four-year college students to determine the relative probabilities of their college graduation by 1986. Even though community college transfer students were from families of lower social class and were less likely to engage in behaviors that demonstrated their integration into the academic and social aspects of their college experiences, the probability of attaining the baccalaureate degree by 1986 was equivalent for the two groups (69 percent). The groups did not differ, moreover, in the relative likelihoods of either their aspiring to, or being enrolled in, graduate school. The authors explore probable reasons why their findings depart sharply from the conclusions of previous research on this topic, as prior studies have consistently decried the disadvantages of community college attendance on the subsequent educational attainment of their students.