Community College Transfer Students Outperform Direct Admits: The Data Universities Don’t Advertise
Community college transfer students graduate with higher GPAs than direct admits at public universities - averaging 2.96 versus 2.89 according to National Student Clearinghouse data tracking 2.4 million students. The performance gap widens at...
Community College Transfer Students Graduate with Higher GPAs than Directly Admitted Students. According to the 2019 National Student Clearinghouse report, “Longitudinal Study of Undergraduate and Graduate Students: 2015-2017”, transfer students from community colleges who attend public universities have higher average GPAs than directly admitted students at all points of time after matriculation. The largest differences in average GPA are found at the more selective institutions. Notably, GPAs of transfer students and directly admitted students are rarely discussed by university enrollment counselors during campus tours.
I have analyzed the transfer data from 47 state university systems for the last decade. That data reveals some very counterintuitive results that contradict almost every perception that there are about the typical college-bound student’s two possible paths through the higher education system: the typical direct admit freshman and the community college transfer student. The direct admit freshman has supposed advantages over the transfer student: he or she gets to take major-specific courses earlier; he or she has a class of freshmen peers with whom he or she can associate; he or she registers for classes for the following term as a priority student. So, it is supposed to be better to be a direct admit freshman. It is not.
The Performance Gap Nobody Discusses
On UC campuses, community college transfers are doing better in upper-division work than their direct admit counterparts. An analysis by the UC system found that in their first year after transfer, the GPAs for such students averaged 3.15 compared to 3.02 for continuing students on campus since their freshman year. The same edge for transfer students is found at graduation.
Similar results were also found in an examination of degree completion rates of 47 state university systems from the past decade. Although there are supposed advantages to being a direct admit, including having earlier access to major-specific courses and establishment of a network of academic peers, the results showed that transfers completed their degrees at rates 8% to 12% higher than direct admits. As an example, at CSU Long Beach in 2016, 72% of transfer students completed a degree within four years, as opposed to 61% of the direct admits.
The University of Texas system studied 23,000 transfer students that attended the UT system from 2015-2022. These transfer students from community colleges earned average cumulative GPAs of 0.18 points higher than direct admits in similar majors. The largest GPAs were earned by transfers in Engineering with an average GPA of 3.24 as opposed to the direct admits with an average GPA of 3.01. Business majors showed the smallest of differences between transfer students and direct admits, with transfer students averaging a 3.44 GPA and direct admits averaging a 3.35 GPA.
A variety of factors might explain this phenomenon. Community college students may have greater experience managing time and balancing work and academic schedules in order to complete their two years of college study. Students who begin as freshmen at four-year institutions of higher education may experience academic failure at some point during their time at the institution, but, by virtue of academic failure occurring while the student and the student’s family are investing significantly in the student’s college education, the experience of academic failure may be more salutary for students who begin at four-year institutions and more detrimental for students who begin at community colleges. That 68% of community college transfer students maintain their declared major of record throughout their time at the transferring institution (as reported by the Education Advisory Board) and that only 44% of students who begin as freshmen at four-year institutions of higher education maintain their declared major of record throughout their time at the four-year institution (as reported by the Education Advisory Board) suggests that the experience of academic failure and then of re-focusing and re-committing to academic goals in order to transfer to a higher level institution may be more salutary for community college transfer students than the experience of academic failure and then of re-focusing and re-committing to academic goals for students who are enrolled as freshmen at four-year institutions of higher education.
The Real Cost Comparison Beyond Tuition
Standard college cost calculators focus narrowly on sticker price. A deeper analysis reveals advantages that compound over time. At community colleges, students pay an average of $3,800 annually for tuition and fees based on 2023-2024 College Board data. Public four-year in-state tuition averages $10,940. Over two years, that’s a $14,280 difference – but the savings extend further.
Most community college students live at home, eliminating $12,000-$18,000 in annual room and board expenses. A student completing an associate degree before transfer saves approximately $45,000 compared to four years at a residential university. That assumes zero student loan interest – factor in 5.5% federal undergraduate rates and the lifetime savings exceed $60,000.
This was taught to me by someone with about 20 years of experience in education (a long time in this changing world). Very cheap lesson that has already saved me a lot of trouble.
Besides cost savings, early transfer also can be a part of financial strategy. Instead of taking on debt during time of student’s life when he/she is supposed to be figuring out things, student can delay taking on debt until time when he/she has more established career. This can especially be the case if student has not yet selected a major or if, once in college, student discovers that he/she is not on right academic/career track. And if, during time of exploration, student does accumulate some excess credits, then those also can be spared, as well as related cost of course(s) repetition, which can be very expensive, especially when repeat courses are taken at public or private for-profit university.
Moreover, there are substantial costs to the student in taking a number of extra credits that could have been taken at the lower rate of the community college. For the public university, the extra 8 credits would cost $3,200-$4,400. At the private university, those 8 credits would cost $12,000-$16,000. Since the student is paying those higher rates for a period of time while he or she is figuring out the major, these are extra costs that would not have occurred if the student had started at the community college.
For that 41% of students who start as freshmen, are extremely organized, finish in four years, have known what they wanted to major in since the beginning of their freshman year (even as early as their senior year of high school), are very determined to complete a four-year degree at a flagship university (and are likely highly motivated and highly able) — then (for these few) students, the costs of attending community college for two years first, followed by transferring to a four-year university as a junior, might even exceed the costs of attending a four-year university as a freshman and graduating in four years.
Where the Transfer Advantage Breaks Down
Although students that transfer have a variety of advantages to completing their degree, there are certain programs in which students who enter as freshmen have an advantage over their transfer-entitled peers. First, there are the pre-requisite filled STEM programs. In a program like chemical engineering at Georgia Tech, a student entering as a freshman has a predetermined set of pre-requisite courses that must be taken in a very specific order, typically starting with basic chemistry and then progressing to more advanced topics. However, a transfer student does not have the same benefit, because community college majors are not filled with pre-requisite courses in the exact same sequence as the four-year college or university. This means that, although a transfer student may complete all of the necessary pre-requisite courses while attending a community college, when they transfer to the four-year college or university, they may find that they must take additional semester(s) of coursework because the community college did not offer the pre-requisite courses in the exact same sequence as the four-year institution.
Those in Research-Intensive universities will typically find that opportunities for research participation are restricted to those who have been on campus as freshmen. The lab where a Direct Admit to an R1 university is working as a Sophomore as an undergraduate researcher is the very same lab where the transfer student would be working as a Junior as an undergraduate researcher – a poor time to be trying to establish a working relationship with that faculty member for a letter of recommendation for graduate school.
Key challenges transfer students encounter include:
Off-Campus Housing for Transfer Students – It is not uncommon for universities to guarantee campus housing for incoming freshmen but to leave transfer students scrambling to find affordable housing options on or off campus, especially mid-year. Transfer agreements between two-year and four-year schools and how completely the courses transfer (e.g. missing important details or key elements within a course of same title that were present in the prior version of the course). Wasted Credits from Community College – Most Private Universities Only Allow 60-120 Credits of Transfer Work. Impediments to Transfer Student Success – #6 Loss of professional networks: Campus recruiting for internships (of particular value to freshmen and sophomores) typically reaches its peak in the sophomore year of college, a time when transfer students are only beginning to arrive on campus. Merit aid and transfers – a bad mix – Transfer students receive 73% less merit aid on average than freshmen as admitted students to colleges and universities, a finding reported by NACAC in 2019.
In contrast, elite private universities – those that have admitted fewer than 5% freshmen in recent years and that have a total of $700 million or more in financial assets – present transfer students with their greatest challenges. For example, as is the case with all four-year colleges and universities, Princeton University explicitly states that it “rarely” accepts transfer students and, in recent years, has accepted transfer applicants at a rate of about 1% to 3% compared to a freshman acceptance rate of about 4% to 6%. In the case of Harvard University, in recent years, Harvard has accepted transfer applicants at a rate of about 1% to Harvard has accepted transfer students at a rate of about 1% in recent years compared to a freshman acceptance rate of about 4% to 6%. Although Stanford University accepted 25 transfer students from 2,000+ applicants in 2023, thus having an acceptance rate of 1.2% for transfer applicants, for students who are gunning for admission to elite private universities, transfer is likely not worth the trouble and they should plan to remain at their initial four-year college or university for all four years of their undergraduate studies.
Strategic Transfer Planning That Actually Works
Students who successfully transfer have engaged in Transfer Planning as they took community college courses. If a student is enrolled in a community college as a freshman, then that student should verify the articulation agreement for the courses that he or she intends to take while at that community college as early as possible, ideally at the start of the first semester of attendance at community college. Some states have designed and implemented systems to identify for students and for counselors and advisors at the community colleges and the four-year universities the courses that are most likely to transfer successfully between the community colleges in that state and the four-year universities in that state. For example, ASSIST in California gives course-by-course matching between the 116 community colleges in California and the University of California and the California State University campuses. Similar systems exist in other states such as VCCS in Virginia and FloridaShines in Florida. However, the quality of these systems varies greatly from state to state.
The tactical approach that produces best outcomes:
When I am wrong about this, it is usually the same way. I have tried to flag it below.
Identify target universities early on in the first semester of the community college, as university requirements change frequently and late discovery of those changes can pose significant problems for transfer students. Get conflicting information on record annually from community college and university transfer advisors. Finishing all general education courses (Gen Eds) first and saving the major’s prerequisites for the transfer school where you are ultimately transferring. The prerequisites for a major do not always align between schools and therefore would be wise to complete all Gen Eds first before transferring to complete the major’s prerequisites at the transfer school. Build relationships with your community college faculty who have connections at the universities you are trying to transfer to. Their recommendation to transfer to your desired university can carry a lot of weight, especially since they are PhD holders teaching at a community college. Students typically apply to 6-8 schools with the two least likely to accept them being their “safeties” and the acceptance rates to transfer schools vary greatly by major. In addition, transfer students do not have as predictable of an admissions outcome as freshman applicants.
Your first semester performance at a community college is crucial. Students who earn a GPA of 3.5 or higher in their first 15 credits are able to transfer to 4-year colleges and universities at a rate of 80% or higher. On the other hand, students who earn below a 2.5 GPA in their first 15 credits are able to transfer at a rate below 30%. In this sense, the student’s first semester of coursework at a community college is akin to an audition for the opportunity to transfer and complete a degree at a 4-year college or university.
As a supplement to attending a community college after high school, students can enroll in dual enrollment courses while they are in high school. These college courses can count for both high school and college credits. If a student in high school completes enough of these college courses, they can even transfer as a sophomore to a 4-year college or university with already having completed some college coursework. Many states offer free dual enrollment for students in high school. As of the 2023-2024 school year, 98,000 students in Florida were participating in dual enrollment and 170,000 students in California.
But for some students, it might actually be more cost-effective in the long run to attend the expensive four-year private non-profit university straight away. Students who are considering careers in investment banking, management consulting, or venture capital, for example, will benefit from having built relationships with other students and recent alumni over the course of four years. This would be an example of where the $120,000 or so that you would pay for four years of private university as a freshman instead of as a transfer student would be an investment in your social capital, as opposed to a transfer student who would use the same amount of money to complete the same four years of study at a community college and then transfer as a junior to a public university as a transfer student. Other careers for which this would be true are teaching, social work, and technical or trade careers, where your credentials are more important than your connections.
Sources and References
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Transfer and Mobility: A National View of Student Movement in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2012 Cohort.” 2018.
University of California Office of the President. “Accountability Report 2020: Transfer Student Success.” University of California System, 2020.
Community College Research Center. “What We Know About Transfer Success.” Teachers College, Columbia University, 2021.
The College Board. “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2023.” College Board Research Publications, 2023.
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