Transfer Delay Mitigation via In-System Retention
Low-income community college students often experience early non-completion or premature stop-outs by transferring unguided out of their primary institution before completing basic core requirements or earning an associate's degree.
Picture this
Retaining students at their primary campus during early semesters is like keeping a long-distance train at its main hub for essential safety checks and fuel top-offs before sending it down a cross-country track; skipping the initial hub maintenance increases the likelihood of a breakdown before reaching the final destination.
What the evidence says
After two semesters, program participation produced a statistically significant 28.9 percentage point increase in enrollment at TCC (TOT = 0.289, p < 0.05), preventing early campus departure while overall all-college persistence differences remained small (TOT = 0.072).
- Who
- N = 869 low-income community college students (569 females, 300 males) at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas.
- How
- Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) evaluating short-term (two-semester) persistence outcomes comparing local TCC retention vs. external postsecondary transfers via National Student Clearinghouse records.
What to do
Structure early case management benchmarks around institutional retention at the primary community college to ensure foundational credit completion prior to four-year transfer.
From the source
"It appears that after only two semesters, STC is effective at keeping kids from transferring from TCC, but not necessarily at increasing overall persistence in community college."
Increasing Community College Completion Rates among Low-Income Students: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluation of a Case Management Intervention