The Choice: 4 Out of 5 in Community College Want to Transfer, Report Says

As many as four out of five community college students in the United States want to transfer to a four-year institution so they can obtain a bachelor’s degree, according to a report released Thursday by the College Board.

The report, on the challenges facing students who transfer from two-year public colleges to four-year institutions, also found that two of every five undergraduates in the United States is enrolled in a community college.

The report, “Improving Student Transfer From Community Colleges to Four-Year Institutions,” draws on interviews with 21 administrators from 12 universities, including Georgetown and the University of Southern California.

The popularity of community colleges can be attributed to a number of factors, including proximity to home and rising tuition at four-year institutions. The average tuition at a public community college is 36 percent of that at a public four-year university, according to the report.

The main problem colleges face in the process of admitting transfer students, the report says, is advising. While first- and second-year undergraduates have usually completed a general education program and decided on a major, transfer students may have taken completely different classes that make the advising process complicated.

“This is an exaggeration, but you can take care of a first-year student in a minute, and then your next appointment is a community college transfer student and you’re talking about an hour,” Steve Farmer, director of admissions and associate provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is quoted as saying in the report. “There are no rules that apply adequately to the personal circumstances of these students.”

Institutions like U.C.L.A. and U.N.C. have been building programs to ease the transition from community college. At U.C.L.A., students between high school and community college spend time on campus to experience what being a student there is like. Such students are also encouraged to plan their community college course schedules with an eye on what they might need should they return to the U.C. system.

Still, the report, and the administrators quoted, repeatedly emphasize the importance of these students to four-year colleges. Transfer students often add to the diversity of the student bodies of four-year colleges, as many community colleges are made up of minority students. Moreover, these students are often academically successful: “Of the 10 outstanding senior awards U.C.F.? awarded last winter, seven were community college transfers,” the report found, referring to the University of Central Florida.

View the original article here