30 percent of community college students transfer to another school

Complete report

For years, federal data essentially ignored the outcomes of the typical community college student. The official Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) graduation rate counted only students who had enrolled in college for the first time and attended full time. It did not count transfer students or part-time students, even though 65 percent of community college students are transfers, part-time students, or both. And students who took longer than four years to finish school weren’t counted as graduates at all.

Last year, however, the federal government took a big step toward rectifying that with a new set of data called Outcome Measures that includes both part-time and transfer students. This column analyzes how community colleges’ results on the Outcome Measures compared with their IPEDS four-year graduation rate. The new data show that community colleges do a better job supporting their students than the graduation rate has given them credit for.

What the new data reveal about community college students

Community colleges offer an open door to qualified students, and they are a low-cost option for many people to explore their interests and get a taste of college life. That’s why successful outcomes data cannot only include students who earn a credential at the college in which they first enrolled, but also those who transferred to another college. Policymakers, however, have paid little attention to how well that mission is fulfilled, in part because of limitations in the data that were available before the Outcome Measures debuted.

This analysis finds that 30 percent of community college students transfer to another school—far more than the 20 percent of students who graduate from the same institution within four years. To be sure, community college student outcomes remain far from what they should be: More than 40 percent of students neither complete college nor transfer to a different school. The data therefore point to the need for community colleges to improve how they serve their students as well as the need for policymakers to provide community colleges with the funding and support they need to carry out that mission. In addition, because the Outcome Measures still fall short of capturing students’ lived experiences, these results highlight the need for more comprehensive data collection.