Community college students, who are disproportionately low-income and first-generation, frequently “undermatch” by transferring into schools that have “selectivity levels below the students’ level of academic preparation,” the authors note.
When community college students do transfer to four-year institutions, however, they tend to perform as well as or better than those who enrolled right after high school, according to recent research published by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. That holds true even at the most selective institutions, despite the fact that they enroll a relatively small share of community college transfers.
