ERIC Number: EJ1352260
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1557-3060
EISSN: EISSN-1557-3079
Improving Graduation Rates in the Two-to-Four Pathway to Bachelor's Degrees
Zhu, Zhengren
Education Finance and Policy, v17 n3 p432-453 Sum 2022
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 bachelor's degrees and consolidating institutions increase two-year students' bachelor's degree attainment by around 3 percentage points, which represents a 20 percent improvement. Both reforms increased two-to-four transfer rates, and institutional consolidations also increased bachelor's degree attainment, conditional on transferring. Moreover, I find evidence that reduced loss of credits during transfer is the driving force of the improvements. In particular, the reforms reduced credits lost during transfer by around 36 percent.
Descriptors: Graduation Rate, Two Year Colleges, College Transfer Students, Bachelors Degrees, Student Attrition, Universities, Educational Change, Transfer Rates (College), College Credits
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Two Year Colleges
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Georgia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A