by Javier Ramirez
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently released a report tracking year-over-year transfer enrollment changes. The report analyzed data on transfer enrollment patterns throughout the pandemic, comparing spring 2020 and spring 2021enrollment data. The report details five major findings:
- The spring 2021 semester had the steepest decline in transfer enrollment (9.6%) since the beginning of the pandemic.
- Non-transfer enrollment, enrollment by students who continued on at their institution, declined by 6.5%.
- Enrollment rates for non-transfer students increased 8.9% at public four-year institutions and 18.4% at private, non-profit four-year institutions
- Enrollment rates for non-transfer students decreased 13% at public two-year institutions.
- Enrollment rates for returning transfer students, students who had previously dropped out but are returning to higher education at a different four-year institution, increased 1.9% at public four-year institutions.
- Enrollment rates for returning transfer students to two-year institutions decreased 11.1%.
- Upward transfer, which occurs when a student transfers from a two-year institution to a four-year institution, increased 1.5% during the pandemic, up from a pre-pandemic rate of -5.5%.
- Lateral transfers, which occur when a student transfers from a two-year institution to another two-year institution or from a four-year institution to another four-year institution, among continuing students declined 17.4% and declined 8.5% among returning students.
- Public four-year institutions remain the sector least affected by transfer enrollment, declining 1.5% during the pandemic, compared to -6% before the pandemic.
- Two-year institutions were the sector most affected by transfer enrollment, declining 16.3% during the pandemic, compared to -8% before the pandemic.
- Transfer enrollment among Asian and Latinx students at public four-year institutions increased by 1.8% and 1.9% respectively, whie declining 6.2% among White and 2.8% among Black students
- Transfer enrollments declined by at least 10% at community colleges among all four racial/ethnic groups.
- Transfer enrollment at primarily online institutions, where at least 90% of students were enrolled exclusively online pre-pandemic, declined 7.7%
