This paper reviews state cross-institutional policies designed to better integrate state community colleges with traditional four-year college and university system schools, commonly referred to as ‘transfer and articulation policies’, and examines how patterns of college attendance, transfer, and degree earning vary across states with different policies.
While a descriptive analysis such as this can not confirm whether the policies actually change students’ behavior, our findings of a positive (though not consistent) association between state policies and student post-secondary attendance and transfer rates give good reason to continue exploring the role of these policies in students’ post-secondary decisions and successes.
