The data, released by the and the , found about one-third of community college students transfer to a four-year school with less than half graduating within six years — equating to the net completion rate of 16 percent.

But the report, in collaboration with the , saw even smaller completion rates for students who are Black, Latino and low-income at 9, 13 and 11 percent respectively.

John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center, said this is because the transfer system is “riddled with barriers” from the historic lack of collaboration between community colleges and four-year schools.

“It’s not an equitable system when we rely on [community college] students to come in with knowledge of this hidden curriculum on how to transfer instead of holding institutions responsible for creating clear pathways and adequate advising along the way,” Fink said.

The confusion and lack of clarity has added to students’ growing disdain for working towards a four-year degree as recent enrollment gains come particularly from community colleges with a vocational program focus, Fink said. 

“The [transfer system] largely replicates existing societal inequities,” Fink said. “The folks who are going to community college in large numbers are from communities that have historically had less access to bachelor and graduate degrees — like low-income and students of color.”

“If there’s no additional resources and support to make up for this, you can expect to see these disparities in completion outcomes,” Fink said.

Disparate Bachelor’s Degree Outcomes

The report showed mixed four-year completion outcomes from community college transfers demographically, Fink said. 

Low-income, Black and Latino students saw completion rates below the national average, in addition to men and students 25 years or older.

But high-income, Asian and White students saw completion rates above the national average, in addition to women and students 18 to 19 years old.

Fink said completion rates have increased slightly compared to previous years — jumping from 14 percent in 2016.

But he noted the increase is “not a lot [and] definitely not where we need it to be.”

“There is so much potential here to create greater economic mobility, to further diversify student bodies and to bring in community college transfers that can perform at the same if not higher rates than non-transfer students,” Fink said.

Fink said creating a “sense of belonging” on campus and expanding core practices such as dual enrollment will greatly improve transfer completion outcomes.

“Visibility, belonging and inclusion are important things to think about in order to change some of these dismal outcomes nationally,” Fink said.

‘Exclusionary’ Transfer Practices 

Dr. Marielena DeSanctis, president of the , said the completion disparities for students from low-income backgrounds are troubling.

“There’s plenty of data that speaks to more and more jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree, so it’s concerning when you start limiting the number of people that can attain one,” DeSanctis said.

DeSanctis, who previously worked at , said Florida has a very different landscape for students to transfer from a community college to a four-year school compared to Colorado.

“There was no question that the courses you were taking were going to transfer and that it was going to be equivalent credits [but] here in Colorado that’s not the case,” DeSanctis said, noting the harm of “exclusionary” transfer practices she’s noticed from four-year schools.

“Because community colleges tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse, we should be telling students that community college is a vehicle to transfer to a university — particularly students that are ready to change the trajectory of their lives,” DeSanctis said. 

Debi Gaitan, vice president of student services at , agreed with DeSanctis, adding that constraints placed on students from low-income backgrounds shouldn’t hinder them from having access to a four-year school whether they decide to transfer or go straight into the workforce.

“San Antonio is very much a city where we can see where our communities of poverty reside and they feed directly into our institutions,” Gaitan said, noting that her students are often part-time, caring for family members and working to make ends meet.

“We want to ensure the stigma of not completing is not placed on this population,” Gaitan said. “It’s more about ‘did they reach their goal of being able to get a better job with better income to get out of poverty.’”

Gaitan said it’s important for both community colleges and four-year schools to actively reach out to students from low-income backgrounds.

“Students that have choices and are resourced know about us and know what we have to offer,” Gaitan said. “Therefore we need to shift to the communities that don’t know we’re here…[because] students from intergenerational cycles of poverty need those same resources our upwardly mobile, higher income communities already have.”

Gaitan said resources that have been effective in her community include counseling programs and “apartment starters” where students have access to microwaves, washing machines and other household needs so they can focus on their studies.

“These are communities that need us to be different and need us to be doing more,” Gaitan said. “We want as many people in higher education to know this as possible because that’s how we have learned and that’s how we have adopted and adapted some really promising practices.”

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

The found community colleges led overall undergraduate enrollment growth in the fall of 2023 by 2.6 percent, or 118,000 students, compared to the previous year.

Community college gains were carried by those with a vocational program focus — pointing to students’ growing disdain for working towards a four-year degree.

“We have shortages in a lot of jobs that require bachelor’s degrees,” said Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the , including well-paying careers in nursing, teaching and software engineering that pay north of $50,000 annually.

“So when we see students entering community college not in those liberal arts programs that lead to bachelor’s degrees, it’s troubling,” Wyner said, adding that a vocational degree won’t provide the long-term financial payoff that would more likely come from a four-year education.

Career-Driven Programs Lead Enrollment Growth

Community colleges with a vocational program focus grew 16 percent in the fall of 2023 compared to the previous year’s 3 percent gain — bringing them above their pre-pandemic enrollment by nearly 30,000 students.

But, transfer-focused community colleges only grew slightly by 0.2 percent in the fall of 2023 compared to the previous year’s 1.1 percent drop — continuing their pre-pandemic enrollment decline by more than 500,000 students.

“There’s fewer community college students entering a transfer pipeline that we can’t afford to lose,” said John Fink, a senior research associate at the .

This trend comes as community colleges remain in a “very deep hole” because their uptick in enrollment doesn’t come close to pre-pandemic numbers, he added.

The report found community college growth in the fall of 2023 brings current enrollment to about 4.5 million students.

Popular programs include computer science, business and health that grew by 9.1, 3.5 and 2.4 percent respectively. 

But, there were more than 5.2 million students enrolled pre-pandemic — leaving community colleges with a net loss of nearly 700,000 students.

“Community college growth is certainly an encouraging sign, but there’s still a long way to go to get back to where we were,” said Jeremy Cohen, a research associate at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Despite the growing number of companies no longer requiring job applicants to have a four-year degree, their hiring behavior hasn’t changed, Wyner said.

“The majority of good jobs in our country are populated by workers that have a bachelor’s or greater,” Wyner said. “So if students aren’t enrolling in community college programs that align with attaining a bachelor’s, we’re going to really struggle filling job vacancies in the future.”

Wyner said the main factor community college-goers rely on to decide whether a four-year degree is worth pursuing is “word-of-mouth” experiences from current students.

“If a student leaves [a four-year] college without a degree or with a degree that didn’t give them a better life than they would have had if they never attended, they’re going to go back to their communities and when people ask if it was worth it their answer is going to be no,” Wyner said. 

“So the decisions we’re seeing them make may be entirely rational because the educational system keeps failing far too many of them,” he added.

Transfer Student Declines Impact Four-Year Schools

This trend has implications for four-year institutions that rely on transfer students as part of their enrollment strategy, Fink said. 

“It might seem like this is a community college issue, but that’s going to translate in years forward to many four-year institutions,” Fink said.

Wyner added how leaders at four-year institutions need to play their part in correcting community college enrollment declines.

“Instead of lamenting the fact that student enrollment in community colleges has come down, four-year schools need to lean in and do something about it,” Wyner said, such as emulating Northern Virginia Community College’s that provides dual enrollment and guaranteed admission at George Mason University.

He said their program transfers more than 4,000 students every year to George Mason University and has a graduation rate of over 70 percent — higher than the national undergraduate average of .

“If you create really strong pathways for students, they’ll come back to community colleges,” Wyner said.

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

Sheikh experienced several hurdles, from losing community college credits to inconsistent academic advising, after transferring twice during the pandemic.

“When COVID hit, a lot of the resources I needed were cut off,” Sheikh told ����Ӱ��. “It was a bit of a struggle because I didn’t know the system very well, plus my parents never went to school here, so I was lost figuring out this process.”

As a South Asian immigrant woman, Sheikh’s experience speaks to the thousands of transfer students from marginalized communities who’ve had a difficult time achieving their dream to earn a four-year degree.

According to a new report from the , college transfer enrollment declined by 7.5 percentage points in fall 2022 and 14.5 percentage points since fall 2020 — the equivalent of 37,600 and 78,500 students respectively.

The steepest transfer enrollment drops were observed among lower income students who declined by 10.8 percentage points since fall 2019 — the equivalent of 225,200 students.

There was also a disparate enrollment drop for female transfer students compared to their male counterparts with a decline of 3.5 and 0.7 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 — adding to an overall decline of 9.2 and 3.9 percentage points since fall 2020.

In addition, transfer enrollment fell significantly for Asian, White and Native American students by 8, 6.1 and 3.5 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 — adding to an overall drop of 14.8, 12.2 and 7.8 percentage points since fall 2020.

“Even before the pandemic, that path from community colleges to four-year institutions was riddled with complexities and barriers that would hamstring even the most persistent students,” director Tania LaViolet told ����Ӱ��.

“So when you get the extreme hardships from the last few years and an experience that already isn’t built with you in mind, those things compound…and reflect the data we’re seeing.”

LaViolet said the inequities for lower income students to attend four-year universities needs more attention from policymakers and state leaders. 

“We know it isn’t a matter of if the talent is out there,” LaViolet said. “So how can we design better practices that serve the needs of lower income transfers? There are institutions out there who have done it, but the data shows it’s not happening at scale.”

LaViolet also said the disparities in female transfer enrollment doesn’t surprise her.

“Especially for those who are parenting students, who have families to care for and who have jobs, those real life circumstances combined with a challenging educational environment make it difficult for women to realize their educational goals,” LaViolet said.

Jeff Gold, the associate vice chancellor at the , agreed with LaViolet.

“When a pandemic hits, there’s existential challenges that come first and foremost if you’re caring for a family member, if you’re sick yourself or if you’ve got to go back to work,” Gold told ����Ӱ��. “But there’s certainly one that’s clear — child rearing responsibilities are disproportionately on the female side.”

Gold also said it’s troubling how transfer enrollment drops are not shared equally by students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“We have to remember that we’re still living in incredibly tumultuous times, so there’s a context behind these numbers and they’re not out of the blue,” Gold told ����Ӱ��. “So the fact that the drops for our most historically marginalized students are much larger than our other students is incredibly troubling.”

John Fink, senior research associate at the , pointed out how transfer enrollment drops may “be slowing, but are still moving in the wrong direction.”

Looking forward, Fink believes these enrollment drops have implications for four-year universities that rely on transfer students as a core part of their enrollment strategy.

“Four-year institutions have really taken transfer students for granted,” Fink told ����Ӱ��. “This really should be a wake up call for them to rethink and focus on how they can better partner with their community colleges.”