Perceptions of community college transfer students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Limited research exists on the transfer student. What research there is focuses primarily on the students academic success after transferring. As the attraction of community colleges has grown, the need to understand the transfer students has become more critical. This study was intended to gain some insight on the perception of the community college transfer student about how they mattered to the University. As more students transfer, and retention of students becomes a larger issue, the need to understand the transfer student becomes a more important issue. The Mattering in Higher Education instrument was administered to 460 community college transfer students who entered the University of Nebraska Lincoln during the 1998–1999 academic year. The student selected must have transferred a minimum of 12 credit hours from a regionally accredited community college. A return rate of 41.1 percent was achieved. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests and ANOVA. Significant differences were found leading to the rejection of three of eight hypotheses. Differences existed based on the UNL college in which the student was enrolled, and when analyzed by the students race, the students intention to achieve a bachelor\u27s degree, and by the students age