Educational Outcomes for Community College Transfer Students

This paper examined the educational outcomes for community college transfer students compared to native 4-year students. Using a quantitative analysis, I analyzed the most significant quantifiable metric in evaluating undergraduate student success, grade point average. This study analyzed a sample of 385 community college transfer students and data pertaining to 56 4-year schools’ average cumulative GPA. The results showed that community college students who transferred to a 4-year school performed better than students that attended the same school directly out of high school with respect to year of matriculation and major/program of study, averaging GPAs that were 0.32 points higher than their peers after transferring. Community college transfer students also outperformed their respective institutional benchmarks by about 77% of the time.