Do Transfers into the Community College Sector Graduate at the Same Rate? Evidence from Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT

The overwhelming majority of studies on transfer students have compared the outcomes of vertical transfer students (college-to-university) relative to “native” counterparts, referring to those that directly enter universities from high school and remain within them throughout the course of their studies. In turn, scholars have devoted only minimal attention to the outcomes of students that travel variable pathways into the community college sector (e.g. university to college). Through this study we attempt to correct such imbalance in the existing literature, leveraging various administrative files in Statistics Canada’s Education and Labour Market Linkage Platform (ELMLP) to analyze the pathway-based disparities in graduation rates among those students traveling various routes into the Ontario community college sector. Our logistic regression models reveal that students who transfer into the community college graduate at a rate that is 22 to 27% points lower than direct entries, and that these differences persist even after we control for student traits (e.g. age, sex), field of study, parental income, and familial characteristics (e.g. size, structure). Based on the observed findings, we theorize plausible mechanisms that could be suppressing the success of transfers into the community college sector and identify a series of potential strategies to ameliorate this situation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There are various types of reverse transfer that Hagedorn and Castro (1999) has defined, including concurrently enrolled students, “summer sessioners,” and post-baccalaureate reverse transfer, and foreign students with non-North American degrees who enroll in community college. Through this study we do not include any of these in our definition of reverse transfer.

2. Within the Ontario context, several organizations that previously adopted polytechnic (Ryerson) or community college-like (Ontario College of Art & Design) forms have transitioned into full-fledged universities recognized by the provincial government. Further, several large community colleges have publicly expressed their desire to become universities (e.g., Sheridan), and several others offer 4-year (applied) degrees and have research capacity in particular areas (e.g., Seneca). This blurs the boundaries between the community college and university sectors.

3. The comparative oddness of this dynamic is noted by Davies and Hammack (2005) who noted that: “it is difficult to imagine a recent Harvard or Stanford graduate seeking a diploma at a local and relatively unknown community college” (p. 98)

4. This remains a niche market targeted mostly by large, urban community colleges in the province. Indeed, the most recent data we have access to suggests 4-year applied degrees account for only roughly 8.7% of Ontario community college enrollments in 2021–2022 (Government of Ontario, 2023).

5. After the initial submission of this manuscript, the provincial government also announced that Ontario community colleges would be allowed to offer applied Master’s degrees. Details about this potential development have yet to be released. Nevertheless, this could have important effects on the structure of the sector, along with its relationship with universities, as it could further contribute to inter-sector competition.

6. Simple cross-tabs of the Postsecondary Students Survey (1983–1984) performed by the author show that among college students in Ontario, notable shares reported previous university (10.2%) or college (17.2%) experience.

7. Ideally, we would have utilized quasi-experimental techniques (e.g., propensity score matching) to perform more apples-to-apples comparisons between individuals traveling these pathways of interest. However, such methods require sufficient pre-treatment information to effectively model selection. In our case, and as we detail later, we have excellent coverage of covariates once a student appears in PSE, but not prior.

8. At the time of writing, the 2017/2018 academic year was the most recent file available for analysis.

9. At the time of writing, post-graduate certificates made up 11.7% of Ontario college enrollments (Government of Ontario, 2023). We are unaware of any arrangements that would facilitate transfer into these programs as they tend to be highly specialized and condensed in their delivery, while also being open only to degree holders without the option of transfer credit.

10. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

11. This non-STEM group consists of the Statistics Canada “BHASE” grouping, which includes business, humanities, health, arts, social science, and education fields.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT). Preliminary findings from this project were presented through a policy report published by ONCAT in 2022. The findings and views presented through this manuscript do not represent those of ONCAT, the Government of Ontario, nor the authors’ employers.