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New Research Shows Increase in Reverse Transfers
By Catherine Groux
Posted July 25, 2012 10:57 AM
Many students no longer follow the traditional path to higher education.Although in the past the traditional route to higher education involved graduating from college and immediately enrolling at a four-year university, new research shows that today, many students are finding alternate paths to a degree. For example, a report by the National Student Clearinghouse® Research Center™ shows there has been an increase in the number of reverse transfer students, or those who begin at a four-year school and transfer to a two-year institution.
The new study looked at first-time college students who enrolled in four-year schools in the fall of 2005 and tracked them for six years. In doing so, researchers found that about 14.4% of these bachelor's degree seekers transferred to a two-year school in non-summer months. Only 16.6% of these reverse transfer students went back to the four-year school where they began their studies, while 28.3% returned to a four-year institution, but not the same one where they started their journey to a bachelor's degree.
While there is debate over the value of reverse transfers, the study suggests it depends on when and for how long students attend a two-year school. For example, only 33 to 40% of students who reverse transferred in non-summer months and returned to their four-year school earned a college degree. At the same time, 77.5% of students who enrolled in a two-year college for the summer then returned to their four-year university completed a degree program.
