Crossing the Boundaries: STEM Students in Four-Year and Community Colleges

In this paper we consider the role of community colleges for four-year STEM students as they move through their educational careers. We examine a student cohort who began their freshman year at a four-year college and the pathways that lead them to coursetaking or degrees at a community college. We identify three distinct roles of community colleges as used by four-year college students: (1) reverse transfer; (2) supplemental course taking while pursuing a four-year degree; (3) post-graduate community college coursetaking and/or enrollment. There are other variations on these three basic patterns but limited data and sample size constrain our analysis to these broader patternsArticle commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Board on Science Education, for the project, "Barriers and Opportunities in Completing Two and Four-Year STEM Degrees".Peer reviewe