NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, no. 106, Summer 1999 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 1

EDITOR’S NOTES

Traditional views of college enrollment and retention assume two paths to thebaccalaureate. The more traditional one, in which students receive their degreefrom the four-year college at which they began as freshmen, underlies mostfour-year colleges’ retention efforts, as well as many educational policymakers’understanding of college attendance. The other path is vertical transfer, inwhich a student transfers to a four-year school after completing a two-yearassociate degree.

In reality, only one out of three students graduates from the college wherehe or she started (Tinto, 1987). This phenomenon occurs partly because of thevertical transfer pattern. The vertical model of transfer, assumed by many pol-icymakers to be the primary transfer function of two-year colleges, underliesthe emphasis on two-year colleges’ transfer rates.

Transfer studies conducted over the past few decades demonstrate theinadequacy of these two enrollment and retention models. Many students actu-ally attend a variety of colleges in their path toward a degree, sometimes attend-ing two schools simultaneously. Institutional attendance patterns may includestarting at a two-year college, transferring laterally to another two-year school,and then vertically transferring to the four-year school from which they finallygraduate. Another pattern is for a student to start at a four-year college, trans-fer to a two-year school, and then transfer again to a second and even a thirdfour-year college before completing the baccalaureate. In yet another pattern, astudent may begin at a two-year college, transfer to one four-year school andthen transfer to another four-year school. Occasionally, students transfer amongthree or more four-year colleges (Kearney, Townsend, and Kearney, 1995).

This issue addresses a pattern that is emerging in importance for the two-year college: the pattern whereby students matriculate at a four-year collegeand transfer to a two-year school. Often labeled reverse transfer students, thesestudents can be placed into two groups: (1) undergraduate students, who starttheir undergraduate education at a four-year school and then transfer to a two-year school, and (2) postbaccalaureate students, who complete a bachelor’sdegree or higher and then enroll at a two-year college. Students in this secondgroup have been considered reverse transfers because at many, perhaps all,two-year colleges they can transfer in credits from their baccalaureate degreetoward a certificate or an associate degree.

Administrators and faculty at two-year colleges have been aware of bothtypes of reverse transfers since at least the 1960s. However, the presence of post-baccalaureate reverse transfers has recently been attracting national attention inother educational circles. For example, a 1997 Chronicle of Higher Education arti-cle bore the headline, “A Community College in Virginia Attracts Ph.D.’s—asStudents” (Gose, p. A33). According to the article, “10 to 20 per cent of stu-dents at community colleges have at least a bachelor’s degree” (p. A34).

2 UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF REVERSE TRANSFER STUDENTS

The recruitment of reverse transfer students is a market niche for many two-year colleges, depending on their geographical location and nearness to univer-sities. This issue explores the presence of reverse transfers and their impact ontwo-year colleges by presenting both previous research (Chapters One, Four,Five, and Seven) and research conducted for this issue (Chapters Two, Three,and Six).

In Chapter One, Barbara K. Townsend and John T. Dever describe the phe-nomenon of reverse transfer students by reviewing previous studies conductedat the institutional, district, state, and national levels. How enrollment of thesestudents fits within the mission of the community college is also discussed.

The next three chapters focus entirely or primarily on reverse transfer stu-dents’ reasons for attending community colleges. Chapter Two, written byLinda Serra Hagedorn and Consuelo Rey Castro, focuses on both undergrad-uate reverse transfers and postbaccalaureate reverse transfer students. Theauthors first detail enrollment patterns on a statewide level, particularly as theyhave been affected by California’s decision to increase fees at its two-yearschools, and then present interview results indicating why students havesought to attend the community college.

Next, James L. Catanzaro speaks from the perspective of a two-year col-lege president when he writes in Chapter Three about recruiting reverse trans-fer students. Catanzaro profiles the different types of reverse transfers, the wayshis institution (Chattanooga State Technical Community College in Tennessee)has recruited each type, and his reasons for encouraging their enrollment.

In Chapter Four, John W. Quinley and Melissa P. Quinley present a typol-ogy of postbaccalaureate reverse transfer students’ motivations for attendingtwo-year schools. The chapter draws on the results of interviews with fortypostbaccalaureate reverse transfers in North Carolina.

The next three chapters focus primarily on reverse transfer students’behavior and their enrollment patterns while at a community college. Chap-ter Five, written by Susan K. Bach, Melissa A. Banks, David K. Blanchard, MaryK. Kinnick, Mary F. Ricks, and Juliette M. Stoering, examines the enrollmentpatterns of undergraduate students who began at Portland State University andthen transferred to one or more of three two-year colleges in the area beforetransferring back to the university.

Chapter Six, by Terry L. Barnes and Laura M. Robinson, examines whatreverse transfer students are like in Missouri. Included are the results of a sur-vey of the chief academic officers of Missouri’s twelve community college dis-tricts regarding their perceptions of this phenomenon.

In Chapter Seven, Barbara K. Townsend and Rivkah Y. Lambert draw fromcase studies they conducted separately to provide profiles of bachelor’s-degreestudents at a technical institute in Tennessee and two community colleges inMaryland. Based on the results of student interviews, the authors indicate stu-dent behaviors that are both beneficial and potentially problematic for two-year colleges.

3EDITOR’S NOTES

In Chapter Eight, Daniel J. Phelan discusses implications at both the insti-tutional and external policymaking levels, given the growing presence of bothtypes of reverse transfer students.

Chapter Nine, by Christine M. LeBard, provides a look at additionalsources of information about reverse transfer students.

These chapters demonstrate that reverse transfer students contradict thetraditional models of transfer on which so many retention studies have beenbased. Rather, these students’ transfer behavior suggests a new model—one inwhich students switch from college to college, much the way television view-ers switch channels. As long as a college serves students’ purposes, they willstay, but once it no longer meets their needs, they will switch to another col-lege. Perhaps they experience some temporary disconnect in attendance as theymove from college to college, but they are ultimately in charge of their educa-tional experience as they seek to achieve their educational goals.

Awareness of the growing presence of these self-directed students mayserve as a catalyst for innovative state-level discussions about the missions oftwo-year colleges vis-à-vis those of four-year colleges. Policymakers, especiallylegislators, need to realize that serving undergraduate reverse transfers adds anew dimension to the two-year college’s transfer function: that of receivingtransfers from four-year schools. The growing presence of postbaccalaureatereverse transfers at two-year colleges also highlights the attraction of the com-munity college to all classes and types of students.

Leaders of four-year colleges might see the reverse transfer pattern as awake-up call regarding the nature of undergraduate students’ experience atthe four-year college and the value of the four-year degree in the job market,in the case of postbaccalaureate reverse transfers. Leaders of two-year col-leges will be better able to understand the impact of reverse transfers on theircolleges. Certainly, two-year college leaders, faced with insufficient statefunding and high demand for student seats in competitive programs, willneed to address the implications of reverse transfer students on their origi-nal mission of serving students not served by other institutions. Addition-ally, both two-year and four-year college leaders need to be cognizant thatreverse transfers’ switching back and forth among institutions is not fullyunderstood by the general public nor by state policymakers. These students,especially “summer sessioners,” may be counted as dropouts in state countsof enrollment, thus potentially affecting institutional funding and account-ability measures.

Knowledge of reverse transfers may also lead to rethinking the motiva-tions for student transfer, so that undergraduate students who leave an insti-tution are no longer pejoratively viewed as dropouts but rather as students whoknow what they need and know where to get it. In addition, those who studystudent retention and enrollment patterns will better understand the com-plexity of these patterns and perhaps rethink models of undergraduate collegechoice.

4 UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF REVERSE TRANSFER STUDENTS

References

Gose, B. “A Community College in Virginia Attracts Ph.D.’s—as Students.” Chronicle ofHigher Education, July 11, 1997, pp. A33–34.

Kearney, G. W., Townsend, B. K., and Kearney, T. J. “Multiple-Transfer Students in a Pub-lic Urban University: Background Characteristics and Interinstitutional Movements.Research in Higher Education, 1995, 36 (3), 323–344.

Tinto, V. Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition. Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1987.

BARBARA K. TOWNSEND is professor of higher education at the University of Missouri–Columbia. While a professor at the University of Memphis, she worked in the Officeof Academic Affairs on transfer and articulation issues. She is a former communitycollege faculty member and administrator.