Something to Fall Back On: Community Colleges as a Safety Net

In the context of rapidly expanding postsecondary enrollments, community colleges have the potential to play a critical and often overlooked role as a postsecondary safety net for initial four-year students who are ill prepared to successfully complete or finance their college educations. A growing proportion of the population served by community colleges engages in reverse transfer: they begin their college careers in a four-year institution but transfer to a community college prior to earning a degree. We use the National Education Longitudinal Study to examine the causes and consequences of reverse transfer for students who were expected to complete high school in 1992. Using propensity scores to control for selection into a community college, we find that the safety net function of community colleges is especially important for disadvantaged students who are significantly more likely to transfer down or drop out of higher education entirely without completing a bachelor's degree. Although reverse transfers do not fare as well as students with exclusive four-year college enrollment, they have more favorable academic and labor market outcomes than otherwise similar students who drop out of postsecondary school altogether. Community colleges may therefore lower the cost of dropping out of a four-year college.