Abstract
Students’ re-enrollment in the subsequent semester after their first semester at a four-year institution is a strong predictor of retention and graduation. This is especially true for students who transfer from a community college to a four-year institution because of the many external or non-academic factors influencing a student’s decision to re-enroll. This research study examines student learner characteristics and course-taking behaviors at the community college and first-term GPA at a four-year institution to predict the likelihood of re-enrollment for 8,200 students from two community colleges who transferred to an online, public, four-year institution. The logistic regression models showed that gender, age, and first-term GPA at the four-year institution were significant predictors of re-enrollment. These findings contribute to the growing literature on transfer students and may provide researchers and practitioners a greater understanding of how community college factors influence the progression and success for transfer students at four-year institutions.
Highlights
Eighty percent of beginning community college students express an interest in transferring to a four-year university; within six years of transfer, only 15% of those students starting at a community college graduate with a four-year credential (Shapiro et al, 2012)
While much research has focused on the academic performance of community college students at four-year institutions, less attention has been paid to issues of student persistence (e.g., Townsend & Wilson, 2006; Glass & Harrington, 2010)
Demographic factors, courses taken at the community college, community college course efficiency, and first-term GPA at the transfer institution were all used to predict students’ persistence, measured as semester re-enrollment
Summary
Eighty percent of beginning community college students express an interest in transferring to a four-year university; within six years of transfer, only 15% of those students starting at a community college graduate with a four-year credential (Shapiro et al, 2012). While much research has focused on the academic performance of community college students at four-year institutions, less attention has been paid to issues of student persistence (e.g., Townsend & Wilson, 2006; Glass & Harrington, 2010). Develop a model to predict community college transfer students’ persistence at a four-year, online university. This paper operationalized persistence as students’ re-enrollment in the immediate semester after their first semester of transfer to the four-year institution. This measure of early persistence has been found to be a strong predictor of progress through the institution to graduation
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