How Many Students Community Colleges Transfer to Four-Year Institutions Will Continue as a Major Policy Issue for 2001

December 21, 2000

How Many Students Community Colleges Transfer to Four-Year
Institutions Will Continue as a Major Policy Issue for 2001

It appears that Governor Gray Davis has not changed his opinion that the primary focus of community colleges should be to transfer students to four-year higher education institutions. Richard Leib, President of the Community College Board of Governors (a Davis appointee) has publicly indicated that transfer continues to be a high priority for the Governor and an issue that he will pursue as a Board member.

Language contained in the current year's State Budget required community college districts to increase the number of student transfers from low-transfer community colleges by an average of 15% annually. As a result of the legislative oversight that is being directed at community college student transfers, the Chancellor's Office has assembled a list that grades the system's 107 colleges using the California State University and University of California system transfers as the yardstick.

The list compiled by the Chancellor's Office identified 14 colleges as having the worst record for transferring students to CSU or UC. The list has its critics. Los Angeles Trade-Tech College, for example, was lowest on the list of schools with low transfer rates. However, Trade-Tech, as it advertises in its name, has primarily a vocational education function. Most students go to the school to learn a trade.

More than half of the 14 schools with the worst transfer rates are in the Los Angeles area. Other schools around the state included San Diego City College, Marin College, Monterey Peninsula College, Imperial Valley College, Barstow College and Lassen Community Colleges. There are several factors that contribute to transfer rates, such as proximity to four-year colleges, preparation of students upon entering college, and educational goals of students. Community colleges that have a UC or CSU campus as a neighbor usually send more students to that university than a campus farther away.

Chancellor's Office researchers collected data to compare transfer rates at the 107 colleges, coming up with an initial list of 26 campuses with problematically low transfer rates. To make colleges more comparable, researchers adjusted the transfer rates, factoring in the distance to the nearest CSU campus, the proportion of students under age 25, how many come from low-income house-holds and the proportion who entered college with a stated goal of completing a four-year degree. This list dropped to 14 with those computations.

Willard Hom, directing of planning and research for the Chancellor's Office, indicated that the study has many limitations. It ignores a relatively small number of successful students who continued their education at private universities or who transferred to institutions outside of California. Also, it doesn't factor in race or ethnicity. Although African Americans and Hispanics are often less likely than white or Asian American students to transfer to a university, researchers consciously excluded this as an adjustment.

Regardless of the merits of the study, it is probable that some portion of new funding for the community colleges in 2001-02 will be contingent upon how well the system improves its student transfer rates.

--Arnold Bray