College Hopping

Abstract

Lateral transfer (between community colleges) is second only to upward transfer (to a 4-year institution) among community college students' most common patterns of transfer. Yet, upward transfer is the focus of innumerable studies, while lateral transfer has received very little empirical attention. This study explores the occurrence and frequency of lateral transfer in California and its consequences for the measurement of one particular outcome, namely, completion of a credential. The results indicate that students transfer laterally quite frequently, leading to substantial undercounts in rates of credential completion when measured from the standpoint of a single community college or single district. Furthermore, the frequency of lateral transfer varies systematically with a number of student characteristics of recurrent interest in the literature, leading to exaggerated differences in the likelihood of credential completion between some groups of students and inaccurately attenuated differences between other groups, when measured under the single-college and single-district analytical frameworks.

The Relationship Between State Policy Levers and Student Mobility

“…Moreover, students are more likely to transfer laterally early in their enrollment (Bahr 2012). Lateral transfer at community colleges also appears to be related to race/ethnicity and grant aid (Bahr 2009a), with African American or Black students more likely to laterally transfer than white students. Increased grant aid was associated with a decrease in likelihood of lateral transfer as well.…”

“…In education, research on student mobility has encompassed movement from one school to another (e.g., Rumberger andLarson 1998, Swanson andSchneider 1999;Bach et al 2000) residential mobility and it subsequent effects on changes in primary or secondary school (e.g., Kerbow 1996); transitions in grades or educational levels (e.g., Boudon 1974;Breen and Jonsson 2000); and course taking (e.g., Lucas 1999;Bahr 2009a), as a few examples. Even within a single field of study such as higher education student mobility is multifaceted.…”

“…Even within a single field of study such as higher education student mobility is multifaceted. It is inclusive of persistence (Goldrick-Rab and Pfeffer 2009), lateral transfer (Andrews et al 2014); reverse transfer (Bahr 2009a); concurrent enrollment (McCormick 2003); multi-institution attendance (Adelman 1999); the international movement of students (Bhandari and Blumenthal 2013); credit transfer (Di Paolo and Pegg 2013), and more. Much of the work on mobility in higher education has focused on movement between institutions (Bahr 2012).…”

“…Consistent with prior research (Bahr 2009a(Bahr , 2012, we defined the primary institution as the one in which a student enrolled in the most credits in a given academic year. In our sample, concurrent institutional enrollment ranged from a low of 3 % in year six to a high of 12 % in year two.…”

No Longer Junior Colleges: Integrating Institutional Diversity in Graduate Higher Education Programs

“…However, transfer pathways between two and fouryear institutions are complicated: only 24% of community college students who indicated a desire to transfer actually enroll in a four-year institution six years later (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). In addition, research has found patterns of lateral transfers (Bahr, 2009), reverse transfers (Friedel & Wilson, 2015;Winter & Harris, 1999), and co-enrollment (Wang & Wickersham, 2014) between two and four-year institutions creating a student swirl among community colleges and universities. Given this complexity, some researchers have called for call for alternative classifications of higher education institutions not just by the type of credentials awarded but through a more multifaceted approach related to program and student characteristics (Skolnik, 2011).…”