Community colleges represent a vital source of talent for four-year institutions seeking to expand the STEM pipeline and meet regional workforce needs. Analyzing National Student Clearinghouse data for the 2015-16 national cohort of four-year college entrants who completed a bachelor’s degree within six years—a total of 1,723,349 students, 19% of whom were community college transfers—this report shows that transfers accounted for nearly 56,000 STEM bachelor’s graduates. However, substantial untapped potential remains: Among bachelor’s completers, transfers were less likely than non-transfers to earn a STEM degree (17% versus 23%). Equalizing this representation would yield an estimated 18,400 additional STEM transfer graduates.
STEM transfer students face a longer path to bachelor’s degree completion, spending an average of 0.4 additional years at four-year institutions compared to non-STEM transfers—a pattern particularly acute in fields that require strict multi-course sequences, such as engineering. Black, Hispanic, and low-income students face the greatest barriers along transfer pathways. Women are the least likely to complete in STEM, but female transfer graduates demonstrate higher on-time bachelor’s completion due to spending fewer years enrolled pre-transfer. The report also considers enrollment in graduate study: Only 12% of STEM transfers enrolled in a graduate program in the year following bachelor’s completion, compared to 17% of STEM non-transfers.
Wide variation across state contexts and student backgrounds shows that better outcomes are achievable. Transfer graduates with prior dual enrollment were more likely to complete in STEM than transfer graduates in general (20% versus 17%), and they were substantially more likely to earn their bachelor’s degree within four years (24% versus 16%). States such as Washington and California—which feature strong transfer infrastructure and institutional alignment—had high outcomes on several measures. The report is accompanied by an interactive data dashboard [link] in which users can compare outcomes by state. It concludes with key recommendations for four-year institutions, community colleges, and state higher education systems.