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“Do Transfer Students Harm Direct Admits? A Peer Effects Case Study”
In recent years, policymakers across the United States have established more programs to help community college students transfer to four-year programs to earn bachelor’s degrees. Evidence from recent papers (Bianchi, 2020, Genakos and Kyrkopoulou, 2023, Machado et al., 2025) suggests that the implementation of similar programs to expand educational access to non-traditional students may have detrimental effects on traditional students. By using administrative and post-graduation survey data from one of the University of California schools, this paper is the first to investigate the peer effects of community college transfer students on students who are admitted through traditional channels (direct admits). To identify these effects, I compare students with similar academic preparation and course preferences who are exposed to different shares of transfer students in their courses due to randomness in the scheduling of courses. In the short run I find a small, statistically significant positive effect of transfer exposure on direct admits’ grades that is visible in upper and lower division courses and for all fields of study. These effects appear to be driven by a “curve effect”: because transfer students academically perform worse on average, they increase the ranking of direct admits. Controlling for the major choice of direct admits (which is minimally impacted by transfer exposure), I find that direct admits who are more exposed to transfer students in their college career graduate faster. I do not find statistically significant effects on labor market outcomes, though the estimates are noisy.
“The Transfer Student College Experience: Differences, Discrimination, and Peer Effects”
In recent years, policymakers across the United States have established more programs to help community college students transfer to four-year programs to earn bachelor’s degrees. Prior evidence (Ehrenberg and Smith, 2004, Nutting, 2005) using aggregate data finds mixed evidence for whether increasing transfer student numbers helps or hurts transfer students themselves. By using administrative data, post-graduation survey data, and student interviews from UCLA, this paper provides a more recent update on the performance of transfer students and investigates the peer effects of community college transfer students on one another. Reduced-form evidence shows that transfer student academic outcomes have improved over time, but the gap between transfer students and their direct admit counterparts remains roughly the same. Student interviews show signs of discrimination, mainly from competitive student clubs, against transfer students. To identify peer effects, I compare classes in the same quarter over different years to leverage the variation in transfer student percentages due to enrollment numbers and avoid seasonality in transfer percentages due to being in-sync or falling behind other transfer students. In the short run I find a small, statistically significant positive peer effect for transfer students that is visible in upper and lower division courses and for all fields of study. For long-run outcomes, I use first quarter transfer exposure as an instrument for cumulative transfer exposure. I find evidence of positive effects for academic outcomes but possibly negative effects for post-grad labor market outcomes.
“Did COVID-19 Academically Scar College Students?”
This project uses administrative student data for students that enter between 2012 to 2019 to determine if students who took foundational classes remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly performed worse in advanced classes than peers who took foundational classes in-person before the pandemic. Preliminary results show similar findings to other related papers, such as a large decrease in time-to-degree and larger graduation rates for cohorts affected by the pandemic. By liking the data to a university survey, this project will also be able to document how students’ post-graduation outcomes were affected by the pandemic.
“Coming From Quarter Versus Semester Systems – How Transfer Students Fared” (with Tihi Gatihi and Carlos Rodriguez)
(Analysis in progress)
“Predicting Community College Student Success and Decision-Making”
(Analysis in progress)