What drives student success? Assessing the combined effect of transfer students and online courses

Four-year institutions of higher education in the United States are experiencing two major trends: 1. a growing number of transfer students and 2. students taking an increasing proportion of their courses online. Here, we look closely at the extent to which these two trends impact student success. Using the University of Central Florida as our case study, we examine the success of political science majors, taking into account demographics, achievement, transfer status, and the mix of course modalities students take (n = 1,173). Through descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and predicted probabilities, we demonstrate that students are less likely to be successful, as measured by fall-to-fall retention, as they take a greater proportion of their course load online. This decline is particularly dramatic for transfer students. As universities seek to address these two major trends, our data indicate that they need to be particularly sensitive to the combined effects of transfer status and online course modality.