The Study of Economic, Informational, and Cultural Barriers to Community College Student Transfer Access at Selective Institutions

Transcription

1 The Study of Economic, Informational, and Cultural Barriers to Community College Student Transfer Access at Selective Institutions Section I National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate Degree Attainment at Four-Year Colleges and Universities By Tatiana Melguizo University of Southern California and Alicia C. Dowd University of Massachusetts Boston The authors would like to thank Nancy Ludwig and Rhonda Gabovitch for valuable research assistance and are especially appreciative of helpful comments on earlier drafts of this report from Clifford Adelman, Anthony Carnevale, John Cheslock, Emily Froimson, Jeff Strohl, and Joshua Wyner.

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 3 Overview of the Presentation of Results... 6 Characteristics of Students Who Begin Postsecondary Education at Community Colleges Characteristics of Community College Transfer and Four-Year Native Students Graduation Rates of Transfer Students The Role of Selective Institutions in Promoting Bachelor s Degree Attainment Among Low-Income Community College Transfer Students Conclusion References Appendix A: Tables of Results Appendix B: Multivariate Analysis Sample and Methods Appendix C: Transfer Student Degree Attainment and Time to Degree at a Highly Selective Liberal Arts College Appendix D: Characteristics Affecting Transfer from a Community College to a Four-Year Institution: Selected Results from National Data Analyses National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 2

3 Introduction The research presented in this Section of the Study of Economic, Informational, and Cultural Barriers to Transfer Access characterizes the prevalence of transfer to highly selective, or elite, institutions by low-income community college students through analysis of national longitudinal data representative of the high school graduating Classes of 1982 and The findings also characterize the academic performance of transfer students in comparison to peers who began their studies in the four-year sector. The study provides a comprehensive portrait of the high school academic preparedness and bachelor s degree completion of traditional-age community college transfer students relative to those who began postsecondary education at a four-year college. Three important and powerful conclusions emerge from this analysis of the transfer experiences of community college students. First, transfer access from community college to highly selective colleges and universities is practically negligible for socio-economically disadvantaged students. Second, for those low socio-economic status students who do transfer to a four-year college of any level of selectivity, starting at a community college proves to be a smart move, because, when high school academic preparation is taken into account, community college transfers are more likely than their low-income peers who start at a four-year institution to achieve timely baccalaureate degree completion. Finally, the results show that community college transfers who do manage to enroll at highly selective colleges and universities earn bachelor s degrees at the same rate as students who enter these elite institutions directly from high school. This combination of low transfer access and high subsequent achievement for the few lucky students who do gain admittance from a community college to an elite four-year institution indicates that transfer does not expand National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 3

4 access to the bachelor s degree and subsequent positions of leadership in government, business, and civic affairs for socio-economically disadvantaged students in the ways that many policy makers would hope. The results indicate that from the 1980s to the 1990s students beginning their postsecondary education at community colleges have become more highly qualified, have parents with higher levels of education, and graduate with a bachelor s degree at higher rates. Of the Class of 1992, 13% starting at community colleges completed the highest level of mathematics in high school and over a third earned high grades in secondary school. Those community college transfers who enrolled at highly selective and selective four-year institutions graduated in high numbers. Seventy-five percent completed their degrees within 8.5 years, a figure that increases to 80-90% at elite institutions. A small increase in the number of low-income community college transfer students during this time period did not contribute substantially to the economic diversity of the four-year sector and the overall enrollment share of low-income transfer students 1 did not increase. Comparing real enrollment numbers against what would be expected under an equal representation by socio-economic status quintile, approximately 44,000 traditional-age lowincome students were missing from the community college transfer pipeline. The number missing is nearly equal to the 47,000 traditional low socio-economic status (SES) students who did transfer. To achieve equitable representation of the least affluent students in the transfer pipeline, the higher education system must therefore double its efforts to serve low-income families. 1 In this report, the expression transfer students refers to community college transfer students, unless otherwise specified. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 4

5 A mere three percent of community college transfers enrolled at and graduated from elite colleges, and most of these students were from affluent families. In fact, changes over the decade resulted in a higher proportion of affluent students among transfer graduates of selective institutions. The vast majority of community college transfers, nearly 80%, enrolled at nonselective institutions, where only half graduate within 8.5 years. In producing transfer graduates, selective institutions, with their graduation rates of 80 to 90%, have a special role to play. Though a larger pool of successful high school graduates followed the transfer pathway to the bachelor s degree in the 1990s than in the 1980s, elite colleges and universities were slow to respond and fell far short in providing access to this pool of talent. Transfer did not represent a significant pathway to attendance at elite institutions for any significant number of students. Those community college transfers who did enroll at selective four-year institutions completed their bachelor s degree at rates nearly equal to their peers with similar academic characteristics who began college in the four-year sector. In fact, low-income students who started at a community college and transferred were not disadvantaged in achieving their baccalaureate degree goals in comparison to those who began their studies at a four-year college or university. As the findings show, institutional selectivity is a key factor affecting degree completion. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 5

6 Overview of the Presentation of Results This component of the Study of Economic, Informational, and Cultural Barriers to Community College Student Transfer Access at Selective Institutions analyzes two nationally representative longitudinal data sets from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): the High School and Beyond Sophomore Sample (HS&B/So) and the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88/2000). The rich information contained in these data sets provides the basis for a detailed portrait of the individual characteristics of students who transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions and their counterparts who enrolled in the four-year sector from the outset (referred to here for simplicity as native four-year students). The fact that the data were collected two decades apart also enables comparisons of changes in the individual characteristics of transfer and native students over time. Where variables in the two surveys are not comparable and it is not possible to observe trends in the data, the analysis focuses only on results from the more recent cohort. The results of the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 analyses are presented in four subsections. First, examining the general population of high school graduates who enter college, the demographic characteristics of students who start their postsecondary careers at community colleges are discussed in comparison to those who start at four-year institutions. Changes and stability of these characteristics between the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 cohorts of high school graduates are noted. Second, based on analyses of the enrollment cohort, the demographic characteristics and high school academic preparation of community college transfer students are presented. The discussion focuses on low-ses students and the extent to which they transfer to highly selective colleges and universities. Estimates of the numbers of traditional-age transfer National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 6

7 and low socio-economic status (SES) students at highly selective and selective colleges are included here. Third, the graduation rates of community college transfer and four-year native students are presented, with a sensitivity analysis to examine the effect of available time to degree on the results. The analysis of graduation rates is complemented by information about the share and number of low-ses students among graduates of highly selective and selective institutions. Finally, results are presented of a multivariate statistical analysis examining the factors that affect baccalaureate attainment, with particular emphasis on the effects of a student s socioeconomic status and the selectivity of the four-year institution attended. The effect of community college attendance on bachelor s degree completion within 8.5 years is estimated. Each section is prefaced with a Q and A and figures are presented throughout the text to highlight key findings. Readers are referred to tables and notes in Appendices for the precise estimates and technical details, including the standard errors, which are the basis for conclusions about the precision of estimated values and the statistical significance of observed differences in the characteristics and educational outcomes of transfer and native students. Only statistically significant differences are reported in the text (unless otherwise noted). Though point estimates in the tables may differ, when the estimates fall in a broad range of values those differences are often not statistically different. In these cases, the estimates are treated as equivalent in the discussion. The number of low-income students at highly selective institutions, which is the primary focus of the Community College Transfer Initiative, as well as at selective institutions, is small. Therefore, estimates involving these groups of students tend to be imprecise. Conclusions drawn from these estimates are tempered to reflect that imprecision. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 7

8 Characteristics of the Data There are several advantages in using the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 to answer the questions central to our study. They provide a nationally representative portrait of the characteristics of two cohorts of students across two decades, the postsecondary institutions they attended, and their educational outcomes. The data also provide information taken from students high school and postsecondary transcripts, which is a much more reliable form of data than selfreported survey responses. In addition, extensive information about students demographic characteristics is included 2. The HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 surveys were conducted as two-stage samples. First, high schools were selected for inclusion, and then a random sample of students was surveyed from those schools. There was an over-sampling of schools in minority areas. Each of the surveys is a nationally representative sample of a graduating high school class. The results of analyses from HS&B/So can be generalized to the population of high school seniors in the Class of 1982 and the results of NELS:88/2000 to the Class of These cohorts of students made their way through college in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Table 1 in Appendix A summarizes the dates of the administration of the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 surveys. The data also have a notable limitation for the purposes of this study. Though the samples are representative of two cohorts of high school graduates, the surveys were not designed to be representative of college students enrolled at highly selective institutions. The number of lowincome students who transfer to four-year institutions is low, and, because the majority of 2 The postsecondary transcript study for the 1982 seniors consisted of 17,600 transcripts for 9,881students that were requested in By the end of the collection period, 13,358 non-duplicative transcripts for 8,395 students were received (Adelman, 1999). The postsecondary transcript study for the 1992 seniors consisted of requests to 3,213 postsecondary institutions that the NELS:88/2000 fourth follow-up study respondents reported having attended. Transcripts were requested for a total of 9,602 students and a total of 16,020 transcripts were collected from 3,027 institutions returning the transcripts (Curtin, Wu, Adelman, Daniel, and Scott, 2004). National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 8

9 transfer students enroll in less selective institutions, the number attending elite institutions is even lower. Consequently, the robust sample sizes and statistical power of the original surveys are diminished when we study transfer from community colleges to selective institutions. Results obtained with small samples tend to be imprecise and are less likely to have statistical significance. Where these limitations affect the results, they are noted in the discussion. Characteristics of the Samples Analyzed The study focuses on the educational experiences of traditional-age students. The analysis sample was restricted to students in the high school graduating classes of 1982 and 1992 who were either early or on-time graduates and who participated in all of the HS&B/So or NELS:88/2000 follow-up surveys. The vast majority of these students, between 95% and 97% of the samples analyzed in this study, started college within two years of their high school graduation, and 90% started within one year. Students who dropped out of high school were excluded. In order to summarize the characteristics of students who start at community colleges as opposed to those who start in four-year institutions, the analysis initially involves the entire population of high school graduates who took any college credits after graduating. The analysis then turns to focus on community college transfer students, where that group is defined by adopting the criteria set forth by Adelman (2005) in his comprehensive study Moving into town-and moving on: The community college in the lives of traditional-age students. Transfer students are defined as those who (a) begin in a community college, (b) earn more than 10 credits that count toward a degree at the community college before attending a four-year college and (c) subsequently earn more than 10 credits from four-year colleges. This sample is referred to as the community college transfer enrollment cohort. To conduct various types of National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 9

10 analyses, it is further refined in two ways. First, as part of the descriptive analyses, a graduation cohort is also identified, in which the sample is limited to community college transfer students who graduated from four-year institutions. This enables observation of the share of low-income transfer students in the cohort who graduated from highly selective institutions. Second, for a multivariate statistical analysis examining factors affecting the graduation rates of transfers in comparison to native students, a bachelor s degree aspirants cohort is defined. This cohort is limited to students who had consistent expectations of attaining a bachelor s degree throughout their participation in the NELS:88/2000 survey. Students who stated degree attainment aspirations lower than a bachelor s degree or whose aspirations wavered, referred to as experimenters, were excluded from this sample. The purpose is to compare students who have educational expectations similar to those of native four-year students, but who have chosen to start their postsecondary careers in a community college. This strategy is designed to answer questions about the effects of community college attendance on eventual baccalaureate attainment from three points of view, that of students, colleges and universities, and policy makers. Students who aspire to a bachelor s degree and plan to start at a community college a desire that may be influenced by any number of reasons, including to economize on college costs or to stay close to family and community would like to inform their enrollment decision by their prospects of eventually meeting their baccalaureate aspirations. Community colleges are interested in knowing how well they prepare those students who wish to transfer for success in the four-year sector, and four-year institutions are interested in ensuring the success of the transfer students they admit. Policy makers who view the community college transfer pathway as National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 10

11 an economically efficient strategy for public investment in human capital development must share this interest in student success for those investments to prove worthwhile. The definition of the bachelor s degree aspirants sample is intended to reduce variation in student goals in order to test the effectiveness of the transfer pathway to the baccalaureate specifically for those students who enter community colleges with the intention of setting out on that pathway. The factors affecting bachelor s degree completion are examined only among those community college bachelor s aspirants who do, in fact, transfer and complete at least 10 credits at a four-year institution, thereby excluding four-year college experimenters and those who do not persist beyond the first semester after transfer. This sample of relatively hardy persisters is essentially the cream of the crop of transfer aspirants, and the test of viability of transfer to the baccalaureate is based only on the experiences of this select group. Native students are defined, again following Adelman (2005), as those who began their studies at four-year colleges and earned more than 10 credits at a four-year college. This definition includes students who attended more than one four-year institution or who then transferred or alternated between a two-year and a four-year institution. In the multivariate analysis, examining factors affecting bachelor s degree attainment among native four-year and community college bachelor s degree aspirants, the sample is limited to native students who are rising juniors. Rising juniors are defined as those who began their studies at a four-year college and earned at least 10 credits in their junior year. As with the transfer bachelor s aspirants, this group is restricted to those who had consistent expectations of earning a bachelor s degree. The baccalaureate expectations and degree trajectory of these two groups of students are well established in their enrollment patterns. They provide appropriate transfer and native peer comparison groups for the purpose of our analysis. Both groups have been successful in their National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 11

12 initial postsecondary enrollment and have persisted to the thresholds set in defining the sample. By examining bachelor s degree attainment in these selective samples, the variation in student characteristics and aspirations is limited to specifically examine the comparative experiences of transfer and native students in the later years of their studies at the four-year institution. The analysis is designed to consider not only differences in the characteristics of transfers and natives, but also on the effect of four-year institutional characteristics, such as selectivity, that may expand or narrow the community college pathway to the baccalaureate. Key Variables Selectivity. Many students, including transfer students, attend more than one four-year institution, and often those institutions differ in terms of their institutional selectivity. Therefore, the institutional selectivity variable can be defined as the first, last, or most selective four-year institution attended. In this study, the institutional selectivity of a student s four-year college is represented by the most selective institution attended. The primary institutional selectivity index analyzed here was constructed by NCES using the 1987 selectivity ratings of the Cooperative Institutional Research Project and the Barron s Profiles of American Colleges. 3 The institutions were ranked into four categories: highly selective, selective, non-selective and non-rated. The rankings were revised during the period of the postsecondary transcript studies to reflect changes in institutional selectivity over time, which makes it the best selectivity variable for use in the trend analyses. The number of non-rated institutions is small and not of primary interest, so they have been incorporated into the nonselective category. 3 For more detailed description of Profiles of American Colleges, see Barron s 1982 and National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 12

13 The multivariate analysis includes a measure of selectivity based solely on the rankings from the Barron s Profile, which is based on the average SAT scores of an institution s freshman class. Though this definition of selectivity is not as robust, it is preferred for this analysis because it has fewer missing cases. Family Affluence. The level of affluence of a student s family is represented by a socioeconomic status (SES) index provided by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The index is based on the father s occupation and education, the mother s education, family income, and material possessions. Students whose SES index scores fall in the two lowest quintiles of the distribution are referred to as low-ses students and low-income students. Bachelor s Degree Attainment: Time to Degree. Members of the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 student cohorts who progressed to college immediately after high school graduation and completed college within the traditional four-year time span would have begun and concluded their collegiate studies exactly a decade apart. Many students, particularly those who start in community colleges, take longer than four years to complete college. They transition among colleges and sectors in complex patterns (Adelman, 2006) that defy any traditional sense of a 2+2 transfer pathway, in which students spend two years at the community college and neatly transition to the four-year sector. The longitudinal starting point for time to degree is set by the fact that upwards of 90% of the on-time graduates in the samples analyzed entered college immediately after high school. However, the HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 cohorts had an unequal amount of time for degree attainment during the span of the longitudinal surveys. Seniors in 1982 had about 11.5 years to complete a degree, whereas seniors in 1992 had 8.5 years. Two steps are taken to account for these differences in time to degree. In the trend analyses comparing changes in graduation rates over the decades of the Eighties and Nineties, National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 13

14 the HS&B/So time span is limited to 8.5 years to make it equal to that of the NELS:88/2000 cohort. This restriction is relaxed as part of a sensitivity analysis to examine the effect of time to degree on transfer student graduation rates. Estimation The HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 are complex survey samples with a stratified sampling design and unequal probabilities of selection. The findings are appropriately weighted (using the weights PSWT2 and F4F2P2WT) for point and population estimates. Similarly, robust methods were employed for variance estimation. The analysis was conducted in Stata, version 9 using the svy, and other functions. The instrumental variable and fixed effects models were estimated without correcting for variance estimation under complex survey sampling. An important caveat accompanies the national population estimates presented below. The HS&B/So and NELS:88/2000 surveys sampled graduating seniors nationally and the sampling plan was designed to be representative of the entire U.S., not of specific states or regions. The national estimates of low-income transfer students presented above are likely to be biased downward because California, with its large community college system and highly structured Master Plan mandating transfer as an access pathway to the four-year system, is not given special treatment in the sampling design. Highly selective universities in California enroll unusually high numbers of low-income students. The Los Angeles Times recently reported, based on an analysis by Thomas Mortenson of U.S. News listing of the top 50 universities in the U.S. that UCLA and UC Berkeley have by far the highest percentage of low-income students about one-third of undergraduates. Four other [University of California] campuses on U.S. News list of top 50 schools also enrolled a high percentage of low-income students. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 14

15 In addition, the article noted, [The University of Southern California] actually enrolled a greater share of low-income students (nearly a quarter of undergraduates) than any of the leading private colleges (Hong, 2005). Though these figures refer to enrolled students as a whole, not specifically to transfers, national estimates based on a sampling plan adjusted for the unique situation in California would likely be significantly higher. This is not meant to imply, however, that transfer students are predominantly low-income students. While this assumption is commonplace, it is not well supported by the results above or by the case study results presented in Section III. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 15

16 Characteristics of Students Who Begin Postsecondary Education at Community Colleges Q: How important are community colleges as a point of entry to postsecondary education for low-income students? A: Fifty-five percent of low-income students started at community colleges, while approximately a third began at four-year institutions. In contrast, only 25% of highincome students start at community colleges, while 70% enroll directly at four-year colleges. Before comparing community college transfer and four-year native students, this initial descriptive analysis presents a portrait of the characteristics of students who start their postsecondary careers at community colleges in comparison to those who start at four-year institutions. A substantial percentage of high school graduates start at a community college, around 40%. As shown in Figure 1, this was true for both the high school class of 1982 and This finding was previously reported by Adelman (2005, p xvi). Forty percent of traditional-age students who entered postsecondary education in the 1990s started out in community colleges, a slightly higher percentage than was the case for the 1970s (table 10). National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 16

17 Figure 1. During this time period, other sub-baccalaureate institutions, which include for-profit and not-for-profit two-year institutions, lost enrollment share, which was captured largely by increasing enrollment share in the four-year sector rather than in the community colleges. (For precise values, see Table 2, Type of first postsecondary institution attended by 12th-graders from the high school class of 1982 and 1992 by major demographic characteristics.) Fifty-five percent of low-ses students (from both the lowest and the fourth quintiles) start at community colleges, while approximately a third begin at four-year institutions. In contrast, the percentage of students in the highest income quintile starting at community colleges is about 25%, while 70% start at four-year colleges. Over the decade, the percentage of students at four-year institutions from low socioeconomic quintiles increased only slightly. (Table 2) The percentage of first-generation students who attend community colleges is higher than the percent attending four-year institutions. In the 1980s, it was 45%, compared to 37% at four- National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 17

18 year colleges, and increased to 52% over the decade. This growth appears to come from the decrease in enrollment share of sub-baccalaureate institutions, indicating that as first-generation students left that sector they migrated to the community college, whereas those whose parents were college educated migrated to four-year colleges. (Table 2) The racial/ethnic composition of students starting in the two-year and four-year sectors differs. Over 50% of Hispanic and American Indian students start their postsecondary education at the community college. In comparison, approximately 50% of White, African American, and Asian students start their postsecondary education at a four-year institution. These differences remained constant across the two decades 5. (Table 2) The results above illustrate the differences between the socioeconomic characteristics of students who first attend community colleges and four-year colleges. Consistent with expectations based on prior reports, the students at community colleges are disproportionately from low-income households. They are also more likely to be the first ones in their family to pursue postsecondary education. 5 In this report, when the standard errors of the estimates indicate that apparent differences in the estimated values are not statistically significant, the value of the estimates are treated as equivalent. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 18

19 Characteristics of Community College Transfer and Four-Year Native Students Q. How did the population of community college transfers change over the decade and how well represented were low-income students in this population? A. The population of traditional-age community college transfer students grew across the decades from approximately 165,000 to 230,500. While the population of low-ses transfer students also grew slightly, to approximately 47,000 among the Class of 1992, the enrollment share of the least affluent students did not increase, remaining stable at five percent from the lowest SES quintile and 15% from the second lowest quintile. Demographic Characteristics The population of traditional-age community college transfer students grew across the decades from approximately 165,000 to 230,500. The population of low-ses transfer students also grew slightly. The numbers in the lowest-ses quintile increased from 9,000 in the 1980s to just over 12,500 in the 1990s, and in the fourth quintile from 21,000 to 35,000. Therefore, the number of low-ses traditional-age transfers from the Class of 1992 totaled approximately 47,000. (For precise values, see Table 3, Population of transfer and native students.) Few differences exist in the gender and second-language characteristics of transfer and native students. In contrast, there are some notable differences in the socioeconomic status, racial-ethnic characteristics, and parental education of transfer and native students. As shown in Figure 2, in 1992, the share of native students in the highest SES quintile was about 40% compared to 30% for transfer students. These enrollment shares of traditional-age students by socioeconomic status remained virtually the same across the two decades. (For precise values, see Table 4, Transfer and native four-year college students by major demographic National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 19

20 characteristics.) This stability in the SES distribution may be unique to traditional-age students. Analyses of two cohorts of new college entrants of all ages in the federal Beginning Postsecondary Students data (BPS:90/94 and BPS:96/01) indicate that the percentage of lowincome and minority students enrolling at community colleges increased in the 1990s (Horn & Berger, 2004)]. Figure 2. Consistent with expectations based on prior reports, the share of transfers who are Latino is higher than in the native four-year student group. This stems mainly from the higher number of Latino students who start at a community college. In contrast, the share of African Americans native to four-year colleges is higher than their transfer counterparts. The racial composition of students starting at the two types of institutions did not change substantially across the two decades. However, the racial composition of the transfer cohort did change, with the percentage of Latino and Asian transfer students almost doubling by the 1990s. This indicates that the transfer rates of Latino and Asian students increased over time. (Table 4) National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 20

21 Two additional demographic characteristics complete the portrait of transfer and native students. First, the parental education of native students was typically higher than that of transfer students. For the 1982 cohort, 45% of the parents of native students had earned a bachelor s degree, compared to 37% of transfer students. This parental baccalaureate degree gap remained essentially constant across the two decades. However, the educational attainment level of the parents of the transfer students did increase. About 50% of the parents of the 1990s cohort had achieved some level of postsecondary education as opposed to 37% a decade earlier. Second, the percentage of English language learners increased over the decade, consistent with the changes in the demographic characteristics of the student population in the latter decade. 6 (Table 4) While the characteristics of the transfer cohort changed over the decades with respect to racial-ethnic composition, students English language background, and parental education, notably few differences are observed between the two cohorts of native students. There was a slight increase in the percentage of female students with parents and those whose parents had some postsecondary education. There was also a slight decrease in the percentage of White students, but there were no major changes in terms of their socio-economic characteristics. This finding indicates that any increases in the economic and racial-ethnic diversity of traditional-age students in the four-year sector during the 1980s and 1990s depended on increasing diversity in the two-year and four-year transfer population. While increasing shares of the Latino community college transfer population contributed to greater inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups in the four-year sector, the slight increase in low-income transfer students observed during this time period did not contribute substantially to economic diversity. (Table 4) The economic diversity of the overall four-year college population (both traditional- 6 Horn & Berger (2004) in their analysis of the broader population of students in the BPS data also find an increase in parental education in the 1990s. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 21

22 and non-traditional-age students) did increase, but this appears to be due to increasing enrollment of non-traditional age students (Horn & Berger, 2004). High School Academic Performance Q. Did the academic preparation of transfer students change over the decade? A. The percentage of transfer students completing the highest levels of mathematics in high school increased from only 8% in the 1980s to 13% in the 1990s. Q. What percentage of community college transfers had high school grades placing them in the top quintile of their graduating class? A. Over one-third of community college transfer students from the Class of 1992 earned high school grades placing them in the top two quintiles of their graduating class. Close to 26,000 students with top high school grades entered four-year institutions through community colleges. The number approaches 68,000 when students in the top two GPA quintiles are counted. As illustrated in Figure 3, a substantially lower percentage of transfer students reached the highest levels of mathematics in high school. In the 1980s, only 8% of transfers took either pre-calculus or calculus in high school compared to 23% of native students. These values increased for both groups to 13% and 37%, respectively, over the decade, but the increase for natives was bigger than the one for transfers. A similar gap is observed in the study of trigonometry. (For precise values, see Table 5, Transfer and native students by highest level mathematics completed in high school.) National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 22

23 Figure 3. Moving down from Algebra 2, where completion rates are nearly equal between transfer and native students, to Algebra 1, we see an inversion in participation, with transfer students completing Algebra 1 at higher rates than natives. This suggests that transfer students are less likely to have been placed out of Algebra 1 in their freshmen year, limiting their potential to enroll in calculus by the time they were seniors. These findings indicate a clear and persistent mathematics preparation gap between transfer and native students one that may begin to take shape as early as eighth grade. (Table 5) Across the decades, the high school mathematics preparation of transfer students increased, but the same was true to an even greater degree for native students. Therefore, the preparation gap not only persisted but increased, shaping student enrollment options as they entered college. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 23

24 High school grade point average (GPA) provides another indication of the academic preparation of transfer and native students. For students in the Class of 1982, the HS&B/So provides GPA data regarding the completion of academic courses. In contrast, the GPA data in NELS:88/2000 for the Class of 1992 is based on completion of both academic and vocational courses. These differences in the GPA variable preclude a trend analysis, so the analysis focuses solely on the later Class. Figure 4 shows that the share of transfer students from the Class of 1992 whose high school GPA was in the highest quintile was only about 14% compared to 38% of natives. In the second highest quintile, the values were 22% and 28%, respectively, for transfers and natives. The majority of transfers, 64%, placed in the remaining lower quintiles, which is a value nearly twice as large as the 34% share of native students. (For precise values, see Table 6.A, Transfer and native students by high school grade point average.) National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 24

25 Figure 4. These results suggest that community colleges served as a gateway to the baccalaureate degree for students who were relatively poor academic performers in high school, providing a second chance for young adults to mature in terms of their academic interests and commitment and for those who were shortchanged by under-funded and under-performing schools to gain an education. While on average transfer students were less academically prepared than their peers who entered the four-year sector directly, over one-third of transfer students from the Class of 1992 earned high school grades placing them in the top two quintiles of their graduating class. The population estimates associated with these proportions show that close to 26,000 students with top high school grades entered four-year institutions through community colleges. The number approaches 68,000 when students in the top two GPA quintiles are counted. These results National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 25

26 demonstrate the existence of a large pool of successful high school graduates who follow the transfer pathway to the baccalaureate degree. (For precise values, see Table 6.B, Population of transfer and native students by high school grade point average.) Numbers of Low-Income Transfer Students Enrolling at Highly Selective and Selective Institutions Q. What percentage of transfer students enrolled at highly selective colleges? A. The vast majority of transfer students enrolled in non-selective institutions, nearly 80% in the 1990s. The proportion of transfers enrolling at highly selective institutions was quite small in both decades only about three percent of transfers were at elite colleges. Q. What was the socio-economic distribution of the transfer students enrolling at highly selective and selective colleges? A. The majority of transfer students enrolling in highly selective and selective colleges were from families with high socio-economic status. Sixty percent of transfers enrolled at highly selective and selective institutions were from the top two SES quintiles. Only 20% of transfer students enrolled at competitive institutions came from the two lowest SES quintiles combined. Q. What percentage of transfer students from the two lowest SES quintiles enroll at highly selective institutions? A. The percentage of transfer students at the most highly selective institutions who are from the two lowest SES quintiles is practically negligible, three percent in the 1990s National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 26

27 when the estimates are combined. The picture does not improve considerably at selective institutions, where the proportion is still quite low, only 9%. Q. How many socio-economically disadvantaged transfer students enrolled at highly selective institutions? No more than 7,000 of the least affluent transfer students enrolled at highly selective and selective institutions from the Class of As reported above, the population of two-year transfer students grew by 40% across the decades from approximately 165,000 to 230,500. However, the share of low-ses students among transfers remained stable over the decades. From the Class of 1992, five percent of transfers, or 12,500 students were from the lowest SES quintile, and 15%, or 34,700, were from the fourth quintile. In fact, the total of about 47,000 low-ses students (summing the two lowest quintiles) is only slightly higher than the 46,000 students from the middle quintile alone. In addition, there also was no appreciable increase of the lowest SES students among native fouryear students. (Table 3) These results indicate that transfer pathways were not serving, as many policy makers would hope, as an effective way to bring greater numbers of the lowest income students into four-year institutions. In fact, if income were not a barrier to initial college participation, the proportion of students in each quintile would equal 20% of the transfer enrollment, or slightly above 46,000 students in each quintile. As illustrated in Figure 5, compared to the numbers expected under an even quintile distribution, the real numbers of students in the lowest quintiles are in deficit and the real numbers in the highest quintiles have a surplus. The difference between the expected and observed values in the two lowest quintiles indicates there were approximately 44,000 National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 27

28 traditional-age low-ses students missing from the community college transfer pipeline. That is the sum of the difference between the expected value of 46,000 in each quintile and the real numbers of 12,500 transfer students in the lowest income quintile and almost 35,000 in the fourth quintile. Figure 5. The 44,000 missing students nearly equal the 47,000 traditional low-ses students who actually did transfer. This implies that to achieve equitable representation of the least affluent students in the transfer pipeline, the higher education system must double its efforts to serve lowincome families. It is important to note, also, that this estimate of missing students is based on the number of community college students who did in fact transfer from the Class of Taking into account the fact that many community college students who aspire to a baccalaureate National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 28

29 never manage to transfer, the overall number of transfers, as well as the representation of lowincome students in that population, arguably should be much larger. As illustrated in Figure 6, in both decades, the vast majority of transfer students enrolled in non-selective institutions, nearly 80% in the 1990s. This represents a proportional decrease in enrollment at non-selective institutions of about 10% from the 1980s. During that time, a corresponding increase in transfer enrollment took place at selective institutions, which enrolled 18% of transfers by the later decade. The proportion of transfers enrolling at highly selective institutions was quite small in both decades. Though imprecise due to small sample size, the best estimate indicates that by the 1990s only three percent of transfers were at elite colleges. The top of the range of the estimate provides a generous but still tiny estimate of five percent. The distribution of native four-year students across selectivity levels is similar, with the exception that a slightly higher percentage (6%) enrolled at highly selective institutions and a slightly lower percentage at non-selectives. Clearly transfer does not represent a significant pathway to attendance at elite institutions for any significant number of students. (For precise values, see Table 7, Transfer and native students by selectivity of four-year institution attended.) National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 29

30 Figure 6. Given the very small number of transfer students enrolling at highly selective institutions, the categories of highly selective and selective institutions were combined to estimate the population of transfer students at what may collectively be termed competitive institutions. The number of two-year transfers enrolled at competitive institutions did increase over time, approaching 50,000 students in the 1990s. (Table 3) This growth, and the similar increase of native students at these institutions, may well be due to the fact that over time a larger number of institutions, particularly public flagships, became designated as selective. This trend is observed in our analyses of data from the Annual Survey of Colleges of the College Board 7, which is 7 Source of Data: the Annual Survey of Colleges of the College Board and Data Base, Copyright 2004 College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 30

31 presented in Section II of this report, and has also been reported by the Carnegie Foundation (1994) 8. However, it is notable that the percentage of transfer students at selective institutions increased across the decades, while the percentage of native students remained stable. (Table 7) This suggests that the more structured transfer and articulation policies adopted by many states (Education Commission of the States 2001; U.S. DOE, 2005) has increased transfer access. The increase in transfer enrollment did not diminish the disproportionate enrollment of high-ses students at highly selective and selective institutions. Sixty percent of transfers and 70% of natives enrolled at these institutions were from the top two SES quintiles. (These estimates are the sum of the rounded values in rows 1 and 2 of Table 8, Population of transfer and native students at highly selective and selective institutions by socio-economic status.) These results indicate that the transfer pathway opened the door to competitive institutions only slightly wider for less affluent students than did direct enrollment as freshmen. Twenty percent of transfer students enrolled at competitive institutions came from the two lowest SES quintiles, which is slightly higher than the 16% from these quintiles among native four-year students (sum of estimates in rows 4-5, Table 8). The population estimates associated with these shares of low-ses student enrollment are highly imprecise, due to the small number of cases. However, treating the two lowest quintiles as the low income group, even the most generous estimate indicates that no more than 7,000 of the least affluent transfer students enrolled at highly selective and selective institutions from the 8 The data from the classification of postsecondary institutions compiled by the Carnegie Foundation reflect that there was an increase in the number of public Doctoral-Granting institutions between 1987 and The number of Research I institutions increased by 14 and the number of Doctoral-Granting Universities II increased by five (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The Carnegie Classification of Higher Education, Princeton: NJ Edition.). National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 31

32 Class of 1992 (rows 4-5, Table 8). The middle range of the estimate indicates that the number of low-income students is closer to only 4,000 students. Another way of characterizing low-income student baccalaureate participation in higher education through transfer pathways is by looking at institutional profiles by the socio-economic backgrounds of the transfer students enrolled at each level of selectivity. Figure 7.A illustrates the distribution of transfer students at highly selective, selective, and non-selective institutions by SES quintile, in the 1980s and 1990s. (For precise values, see Table 9.A Institutional profiles of transfer students by socio-economic status.) Though the share of students coming from the highest and second highest quintiles varied somewhat across the decades, and the estimates are imprecise due to small sample size, it is clear that the majority of transfer students enrolling in highly selective and selective colleges were from a high-ses background. The results indicate that the enrollment share of affluent students exceeded 70% at these competitive institutions in both the 1980s and the 90s. In addition, there is some evidence, though not robust, that the share of high income students has increased over time. (Table 9.A) On a national scale, the percentage of transfer students at highly selective institutions who are from the two lowest SES quintiles is practically negligible, three percent in the 1990s when the estimates are combined. Moving down a selectivity tier, the estimates of transfer students from the two combined low-income quintiles at selective institutions is still quite low, only 9%. (Table 9.A) National Estimates of Transfer Access and Baccalaureate 32