One way administrators and policy makers have responded to the complexity of the community college transfer process has been to create articulation agreements between two-year and four-year colleges in a state or region. Our study examines the effects of one such statewide articulation and transfer policy, the Ohio transfer module (TM). This agreement is intended to allow individuals who successfully complete the TM at one institution to transfer all of these credits to a receiving institution. We find that students who complete the TM are more likely to transfer to a four-year institution and earn associate's degrees than observationally similar peers who did not complete a TM. We also find suggestive evidence that students who complete the TM are able to bring more credits with them when they transfer. However, students who complete the TM also take slightly longer to complete their bachelor's degrees. Thus, although the TM may improve the probability that students will transfer, it may be inefficient for students, leading them to spend more time enrolled in college. Moreover, because only a small number of students complete the TM, this policy may not be far-reaching enough to dramatically improve Ohio's community college transfer rate.

As the college-going population becomes increasingly diverse and the cost of college continues to rise, it is critical that we better understand the underlying mechanisms by which prospective students make decisions about whether and how to finance their education beyond high school. Student loans are an increasingly necessary tool to help students pay for postsecondary education. Though 35% of all undergraduate students and 55% of all graduate students receive some type of federal loan to help finance their postsecondary education (Snyder & Dillow, 2015), there appears to be a subset of students who are averse to taking out loans and, thus, will choose not to borrow money to finance their college education (Callendar & Jackson, 2005; Cunningham & Santiago, 2008). Loan aversion, as it applies to postsecondary education, is generally defined as "an unwillingness to take a loan to pay for college, even when that loan would likely offer a positive long-term return" (Cunningham & Santiago, 2008, p. 10). Loan-averse students are those interested in investing in higher education but not willing to take out loans to do so (Palameta & Voyer, 2010). Although a handful of studies have provided initial evidence that loan aversion may affect students' decisions about investing in college, this study further tests the hypothesis that loan aversion exists and is widespread in the United States among current and prospective college students. Evidence of the existence of loan aversion has been found among students in various contexts (

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This study first examines whether public 2-year and for-profit colleges compete for the same students by examining how enrollments and program awards at public 2-year institutions are affected when a new for-profit college opens nearby. If public 2-year and for-profit institutions compete for some of the same students, then