California has established significant goals for postsecondary attainment, with the stated aim of having 70 percent of working-age adults hold a credential of value by 2035. To meet this goal, the state has invested time and resources into the community college system and upward transfer processes, seeking to create affordable and accessible pathways in and through higher education.

A recently published report by the Public Policy Institute of California Higher Education Center found that a large share of community college students are applying to and enrolling in state universities to complete a bachelor’s degree, but equity gaps persist among certain demographic groups.

The data highlights the importance of focusing on early benchmarks of academic progress—including credit completion rates, GPA and the stated goal of transfer—to help students succeed in making the transition to a four-year university. The report also underscores that some transfer students are willing to pay more and travel farther to attend a more selective institution.

The background: California’s public higher education system is the largest and most diverse in the country, the report authors note. The California Community College system includes 116 institutions enrolling over 2.1 million students, and the California State University system consists of 22 institutions educating nearly half a million students. Within the state, the system is the top destination for upward transfer, with 58 percent of community college students going on to enroll at a CSU campus.

Over the past decade, the two college systems have partnered to streamline transfer opportunities. One innovation is the associate degree for transfer (A.D.T.), a group of 40 academic pathways that guarantee admission to students who complete 60 credits toward a bachelor’s degree in a specific major. Another is the CSU Transfer Planner, which provides insights for students to navigate transferable credits, degree programs and campus requirements for transfer.

The report looks at student demographic information, academic progress and participation in transfer pathways such as A.D.T. to identify success indicators in the transfer pipeline.

The data: The average student spends nine semesters at a community college before applying to a CSU institution, researchers found.

Students are required to complete 60 credits to transfer with junior-level standing, but the median student completed 71.5 credits. Only half of applicants had earned an A.D.T. before applying, and 22 percent earned a local associate degree, meaning about 30 percent of students applied for transfer without a credential.

Researchers noted that students who made significant progress in their first year of community college were more likely to transfer. Those who successfully completed transfer-level math in their first year applied to CSU after seven terms on average, whereas student who didn’t applied after 10 community college terms.

Students who were 25 or older, Black or financial aid recipients were less likely to meet early milestones and therefore less likely to transfer. Conversely, students with high GPAs were more likely to transfer.

The data also indicated a gap between students eligible for admission at a CSU and those who actually applied. One in five students who completed an A.D.T. never applied to CSU despite having guaranteed admission. Of those, 43 percent enrolled at a different university, many in the University of California system.

In total, 87 percent of A.D.T. recipients declared a transfer goal while at community college, but approximately 20 percent of them didn’t continue on to a bachelor’s degree program.

A majority (92 percent) of all transfers were eventually admitted to at least one CSU, and 63 percent of all transfers enrolled. Three in 10 applied more than once, and almost half of them (47 percent) had their application denied the first time.

“It is possible that these students were initially rejected from the campus of their choice (or to all campuses), took more community college classes, and then gained admission,” researchers wrote. On the flip side, a large share of those whose transfer applications were rejected applied only once (88 percent), and to only one campus (61 percent).

Admissions data also revealed the importance of academic benchmarks early in the student’s community college career. Admission rates for students who took transfer-level math or English in their first year were higher compared to their peers who did not; similarly, students who earned 24 transferable credits were more likely to gain admission to a CSU. Unsurprisingly, students who stated a transfer goal, completed the A.D.T. or had a GPA of 3.25 or higher also had high admittance rates.

One trend researchers noted is that students who were admitted to a CSU but chose to enroll at a different institution were more likely to select a college that was farther away or more expensive, indicating that cost and proximity are not deciding factors. Transfers also enrolled at more selective colleges compared to their peers who opted to enroll at CSU, though some students selected universities with lower graduation rates than CSU.

Over all, transfer students had high graduation rates. Among the incoming fall 2020 cohort, 76 percent graduated with their bachelor’s degree in four years, and 69 percent completed it in three years. About 19 percent of students left the CSU system without graduating three years after enrolling, and these students were more likely to be Black, Latino, male or older or have financial need.

Recommendations: Based on their findings, researchers identified three opportunities for improvement:

1. Invest in the student’s first year. Interventions including dual enrollment, corequisite English and math courses, proactive advising, and flexible scheduling can promote early momentum and academic success for community college students.
2. Collect additional data on enrollment decisions. While system data showed that some students opt out of a four-year degree program, researchers emphasized the need for student voices to understand why those admitted would not enroll at CSU. Researchers also noted a need for campus-specific data, “because there is high variation across individual CSUs in both acceptance and enrollment rates.”
3. Create space at selective campuses and in high-demand majors. “Some of the students who were never admitted to CSU were competitive applicants, but they applied to the most in-demand campuses,” the authors wrote. To increase capacity for these students, researchers suggest flexible course scheduling options, co-locating campuses or expanding online degree programs.