Using Academic Plans in Sociocultural Context as a framework, this study examined university personnel's perspectives of the Bachelor of Applied Science degrees. Through quantitative techniques, the findings from this study show university faculty and administrators associated with liberal arts education view Bachelor of Applied Science degrees…

Historically, the most common type of transfer student was described as traditional; they enrolled in a community college, earned an associate's degree, and transitioned to a four-year institution for degree completion. The highest degree of departure from one institution to the next occurs within the second year of enrollment (Hossler, et al.…

In the United States, transferring from a two-year program to a four-year program has become an increasingly important route toward a bachelor's degree. However, the pathway has an extremely high attrition rate. Utilizing two recent institutional reforms in the University System of Georgia, I show that allowing community colleges to offer…

The transfer between two-year and four-year colleges is a critical path to baccalaureate attainment. Yet students face a number of barriers in transfer pathways, including a lack of coherent coordination and articulation between their community colleges and four-year institutions, resulting in excess units and increased time to degree. In this…

This paper describes the results of a four-year follow-up of need-based scholarship awardees at a community college as they made progress toward their goal of associate's degrees and/or bachelor's degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. From 2014 through 2018, through National Science Foundation funding,…

This paper describes the results of long-term follow-up of need-based scholarship awardees at a community college as they made progress toward their goal of associate's degrees and/or bachelor's degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. From 2004 through 2012, through National Science Foundation funding,…

Though 80 percent of the 1.1 million community college students who enroll each year intend to transfer and earn a bachelor's degree, only about 14 percent of them end up getting a bachelor's degree within six years, according to a 2016 report from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College. Across the nation,…

For more than a century, community colleges have provided a postsecondary education alternative to the traditional, 4-year university. Enrolling disproportionate numbers of both disadvantaged and nontraditional students, the community college sector has seen unparalleled gains in enrollment over the past few decades. Along with these increases in…

Latino students attend 2-year colleges more often than 4-year colleges. This has an impact on the rate of bachelor's degree attainment, because the transfer rate between the 2 levels is low. The author uses national data to identify predictors associated with college-level choice and then uses social-cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, &…

This study examines the bachelor's degree attainment among students who first matriculate in four-year institutions but who then transfer to other four-year institutions. It constitutes a contribution to the research that has primarily studied transferring students who start at two-year colleges. This study uses Heckman's two-step model to correct…

Background/Context: Transfer from community colleges to four-year institutions remains a contentious issue in higher education, with proponents showing that students do indeed transfer to four-year institutions and opponents arguing that starting in community colleges hinders baccalaureate degree attainment. One particularly salient issue in this…

This chapter presents findings from two recent Pell Institute studies, which explored the characteristics and experiences of low-income, first-generation community college transfer students in Texas and two-year and four-year institutional approaches to facilitating transfer student degree completion. Specifically, the first study asked the…

Currently, 40 percent of all first-time freshmen begin their postsecondary careers in community colleges, the great majority of them intending eventually to complete a bachelor's degree. But along the way something happens, and for most of them that ambition is thwarted. The question is, to what extent does this pattern reflect students' choices,…

This article presents the results of a spring 2004 survey of state higher education agency officials on the current status of the transferability of two-year degree occupational programs, designated as the AAS degree in most states. Included in the discussion is the issue of transferable general education in these degree programs, the development…

This article offers a five-level variable that highlights the level and the consistency of a student's educational "anticipations," and tests the explanatory power of this approach to the histories of traditional age community college students using the postsecondary transcript files of the NELS:88\2000 longitudinal study. In logistic…