Transfer & Mobility: A National View of Student Movement in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2008 Cohort (Signature Report No. 9)

This is the second report on transfer and mobility, examines multiple transfer pathways for the cohort of students who started postsecondary education in 2008. It reveals how student enrollment patterns that involve multiple movements among two or more institutions and across state boundaries has become the new normal, demonstrating the need for a comprehensive view of student transfer and mobility to inform education policymaking and institutional improvement efforts. The report also provides discussion comparing the 2008 cohort's outcomes to those of the 2006 cohort. Of the 3.6 million students who entered college for the first time in fall 2008, over one third (37.2 percent) transferred to a different institution at least once within six years. Of these, almost half changed their institution more than once (45 percent). Counting multiple moves, the students made 2.4 million transitions from one institution to another from 2008 to 2014. This report defines student transfer and mobility as any change in a student's institution of enrollment irrespective of the timing, direction, or location of the move, and regardless of whether any credits were transferred from one institution to another. The transfer rate reported here considers the student's first instance of movement to a different institution, before receiving a bachelor's degree and within a period of six years. For those students who began at two-year public institutions, we also include transfers that happened after receiving a degree at the starting two-year institution. Findings of the report provide evidence of the role played by community colleges in students' pathways, even though the students often do not earn associate's degrees. Nearly a quarter of the students who started at a community college transferred to a four-year institution within six years. Yet, only 3.2 percent of this cohort, roughly one in eight of those who transferred, did so after receiving a credential from their starting institution, either a certificate or an associate's degree. The vast majority transferred without a degree. This proportion has shrunk from the first transfer and mobility report, released in 2012. That report, which looked at students who started in fall 2006, found that one in five transfers from two-year to four-year institutions were post-degree. The higher proportion of students transferring without an associate's degree may create a growing case for reverse transfer initiatives currently being pursued in many states. These initiatives facilitate the transfer of student credits back to two-year institutions that may be able to award a degree. [For the first report, "Transfer & Mobility: A National View of Pre-Degree Student Movement in Postsecondary Institutions. Signature Report No. 2," see ED536121.]