Dive Brief:

• Students who begin their post-secondary education at a community college are less likely to earn bachelor’s degrees than those at four-year colleges because of credits lost during transfers, according to a new report.
• The report, from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, shows a 21% gap between the bachelor degree attainment rate of students who start at a community college and those who begin at a four-year school.
• Community college students don’t begin to fall behind their four-year-school peers until the third year of college.

Dive Insight:

This study should help policymakers in their efforts to help students manage the less-expensive, and often second-chance, route to degrees through community colleges. According to the CUNY report, community college students who do manage to transfer to a four-year school are just as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree as their four-year peers. Only 58% of the transferring students are allowed to carry all or almost all of their credits to the four-year schools. More study is needed on the effects of remedial classes, according to the report.