Some College, No Credential Report Finds College Stopouts Have Grown, but So Has Re-Enrollment
Transfer enrollment is making a comeback, surpassing 2020 figures. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s fall 2024 Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report reveals that transfer enrollment, which comprises 13% of non-freshmen undergraduates, grew for the third straight year.
The ability to transfer between institutions provides students with greater flexibility in their postsecondary educational pathways. The Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report, which replaces the previous Transfer and Progress report series, finds that college transfer enrollment is now 7.9% greater than in the fall of 2020.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions," said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs.”
Nearly 500,000 students transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution this past fall, a number that is now comparable to fall 2020 (-2,300, -0.5%). Although this remains the most common pathway for transfer students, the share of all transfer students that move from a two-year to a four-year institution declined 3.5 percentage points from fall 2020 to fall 2024.
Additional report highlights include:
Community College Transfer Enrollment: This past fall, 390,000 students transferred into a community college, an increase of 13.5% from the fall of 2020. However, total community college enrollment still has not recovered from pandemic declines (-52,300, -1.5% from fall 2020).
Continuing Transfer Students: The fall of 2024 saw the second straight year of enrollment growth for continuing transfer students — those who were enrolled at a different institution in the spring or summer term immediately prior.
View the complete Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions. That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs."
Doug Shapiro
Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
Additional Resources:
Some College, No Credential Report Finds College Stopouts Have Grown, but So Has Re-Enrollment
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s Some College, No Credential (SCNC) Student Outcomes: Annual Progress Report reveals that the “some college, no credential” (SCNC) population — former students who stopped out without earning a credential — is up 2.9% from a year earlier. As a result, more than 36 million adults under 65 have some college experience but no earned credential.
The report also found that more than 943,000 SCNC adults re-enrolled in the 2022-23 academic year. While that’s an increase of 78,300, or 9.1%, over the previous year, it represents only 2.6% of the SCNC population.
“It is encouraging to see an increase in the number of students re-enrolling this year, largely reversing the decline that we observed in last year’s report,” said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Higher education regularly generates more students leaving school without a credential than returning to finish one, however, which is both a persistent challenge and a continuing opportunity for the system to improve and grow.”
Other key findings:
- Pandemic-related enrollment declines at community colleges led to fewer Recent Stopouts between January 2021 and July 2022 compared to the same period a year prior.
- Declines in Recent Stopouts did little to impact the SCNC population, which increased in nearly all states.
- The SCNC population continues to be less White and more male than the overall undergraduate population.
- Recent Stopouts, however, continue to be younger and more female than the overall SCNC population.
- Men and Hispanic, Black, and Native American students are disproportionately represented among the overall SCNC population, while women and White and Asian re-enrollees are more likely to complete a credential in the first year or persevere into a second year of enrollment.
To learn more, read Some College, No Credential Student Outcomes.
This annual progress report was produced with support from Lumina Foundation.
“It is encouraging to see an increase in the number of students re-enrolling this year, largely reversing the decline that we observed in last year’s report. Higher education regularly generates more students leaving school without a credential than returning to finish one, however, which is both a persistent challenge and a continuing opportunity for the system to improve and grow.”
Doug Shapiro
Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
Additional Resources: