Beginning Postsecondary Students Long Study

Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:1990/1994) to examine several ways of estimating the transfer rate from public two-year to four-year institutions. The report focuses on different approaches to defining the pool of potential transfer students or the group of community college students who appear to be planning or hoping to transfer to a four-year institution. The relationship of these definitions of potential transfers to student background characteristics is explored, as is the relationship of each definition to the resulting transfer rate. The report concludes with a discussion of the results in the context of other studies of community college students and transfer. Overall, 71 * of beginning community college students responded to a survey that they anticipated earning a bachelor's degree or higher. The majority of students also met three other definitions of potential transfers: (1) being enrolled in an academic program; (2) enrolling continuously in 1989-1990; and (3) enrolling during the 1990-1991 academic year. Less than half the students met another four definitions used in the report, and onl