Community College Transfer Student Bias and Discrimination in University Students

University students that have previously attended community colleges frequently report feeling stigmatized at their new institution. Though most research has focused on transfer students and their perceptions of stigma, less is known about potential sources of these stigma, such as their fellow students. To examine the bias university students may have towards peers enrolled at their school who had previously attended community college, I conducted a factorial survey experiment. Students at a large public university were asked to evaluate randomly assigned student profiles with different educational backgrounds. This experimental design addresses common concerns with under-reporting of socially unacceptable forms of bias and exclusion. My analysis suggests that community college transfers are not evaluated worse than other students in terms of academics or overall, except for one specific test condition. Comparing students who had low GPAs but had taken rigorous courses, community college transfers were rated worse than traditional students in terms of their academics. Interestingly, there were no differences between holistic rankings of students who had previously attended community college and students who either matriculated directly in a four-year university or transferred from a comparable four-year institution. This may suggest that university students hold stigmatizing views of community colleges.

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