Identifying Effective and Equitable Institutional Pairs in Postsecondary Transfer

• In Event: 43.024 - Examining Institutional Strategies for Success Among Transfer Students

Abstract

Extant postsecondary transfer scholarship fails to acknowledge that the community college and the four-year university in tandem share responsibility for transfer student outcomes. A paucity of research examines these postsecondary organizations as institutional pairs and aside from recent work by Xu and colleagues (2018), no identification strategies exist to discern the positive (or negative) effect that institutional pairs may have on a transfer student’s educational outcomes. In this study we leverage extensive administrative data and multilevel modeling to conceptualize transfer students as nested within institutional pairs. With a focus on racial equity, we add to the emerging scholarship and policy research that acknowledges the importance of community colleges and four-year universities as partners in the postsecondary transfer process.

Authors

• Grant Blume, University of Washington

• Elizabeth Apple-Meza, University of Washington

• Debra D. Bragg, University of Washington - Seattle