Understanding engineering transfer students : demographic characteristics and educational outcomes

Abstract—Transfer students make up a significant share ofengineering college graduates, yet their persistence is seldomstudied, largely because of the lack of longitudinal data. Thisanalysis used longitudinal data from 11 universities enrollinglarge numbers of engineering students to investigate thedemographic characteristics and educational outcomes oftransfer students in engineering relative to non-transfers. Wefind that students who transfer to four-year engineeringprograms are more likely to come from under-representedminority groups (URMs) and less likely to be women, althoughboth groups are over-represented at two-year colleges. Thefindings confirm existing research indicating that, on average,non-transfers outperform transfer students, and non-URMsoutperform URMs. But we also find that URM transfers, andespecially Black transfers, are no less successful than nontransferstudents—indicating that the transfer pathway is aneffective bridge to a four-year degree. This is partly true forwomen transfers who do as well as men but are outperformed bywomen non-transfers. Finally, we find significant variation inoutcomes between full- and part-time students, which may bedriving the observed differences by transfer status. Our resultsshould inform debates regarding the efficacy of the transferpathway in engineering, particularly for women and URMs.