About 45% of CCAC students who want to transfer enroll at a four-year university by the next academic year. That’s better than the national average. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Transferring from a community college to a four-year school can be fraught. CCAC believes the process is a key to strengthening the Pittsburgh-area workforce.
by Emma Folts, PublicSource
Nationwide, the vast majority of community college students want to transfer to a four-year university for a bachelor’s degree. But many struggle to understand the process, and when they run into barriers, they’re more likely to waste money on classes they don’t need or drop out.
Students who aim to transfer from the Community College of Allegheny County [CCAC], though, accomplish that goal more often than the average transfer student. About 45% of those CCAC students enroll at a four-year university by the next academic year, according to data from the last five academic years that PublicSource obtained through a Right-to-Know request.
That’s better than the national average: About 31% of community college students who enroll with the intent to transfer do so within five years.
At the University of Pittsburgh, nearly 80% of CCAC transfer students who enrolled in fall 2018 graduated within four years. At Chatham University, about 70% of the 175 CCAC students who’ve transferred since 2014 have graduated. Other Pittsburgh universities did not provide data to PublicSource.
Nationally, about half of students who transfer to public universities graduate within six years of enrolling at community college, and about 34% of those who transfer to private nonprofit universities do. It’s unclear how long the students at Pitt and Chatham were enrolled at CCAC.
When students transfer and graduate, they gain access to the increased earnings that bachelor’s degrees often provide, all while graduating with less debt. Those benefits can ripple through Pittsburgh: Nearly all CCAC graduates stay in the region, and when residents earn more money, they can buy more expensive homes, spend more at local businesses and potentially pay more in taxes.
The transfer process, if effective, can also support equity. Students of color particularly stand to benefit, as they fall behind their White peers in bachelor’s degree attainment. Black students made up 15% of CCAC’s student body in fall 2022, and Hispanic and Latino students made up about 4%.
CCAC, however, has lost about 35% of its student body since the pandemic. If would-be students are foregoing a college education entirely, there are fewer Pittsburghers accessing this path to economic mobility and, subsequently, pouring money back into the community upon graduation.
In an interview, President Quintin Bullock said that transferring from CCAC is a “great first step” for students because of the college’s supportive services, smaller class sizes and high-quality instruction, as well as the affordability of the process. Those supports are especially helpful to the many first-generation students the college serves, he said.
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