The College Transfer report shows the transfer patterns, demographics, and performance data for students who transferred into or out of a Michigan college or university.

The data are important because the more our higher education institutions understand student transfer patterns and characteristics, the better they can support student success. Colleges can see where students are transferring to and from, along with demographics and aggregate grade point averages (GPAs) earned after transferring. Both K-12 and college program service coordinators (registrars, placement and orientation services, advising, counseling, outreach, and more) can use this information. The data can also lead to collaboration between schools that commonly share students to improve student achievement.

This report illustrates transfer patterns and characteristics within Michigan but may not capture every instance where a student transfers to and from a college or university. This is because of how a transfer student is defined for this report (see About the Data), and because we can’t always match students who have transferred to an independent institution, out of state, or out of the country.

Select the college or university you’d like data for in Find Location. Then under Report Settings, you can choose what types of transfers you’d like to see in relation to your chosen location (e.g., transfers between your school and 4-year colleges and universities).

Exploring the College Transfer report can answer questions like:

Where are students from my college/university transferring to? And where are my new transfers coming from?

Select College Type: Individual College under Edit Report - Find Location. Then select your college/university’s name. For Report Type, choose Transfers by College. Click the View Results button. Your report will provide a graph and table showing the colleges and universities that your students transferred to and from.

Did more males or females transfer from my college/university to another specific college/university?

Select College Type: Individual College under Edit Report - Find Location. Then select your college/university’s name. For Report Type, choose Transfers by College. Click the View Results button. When the report appears, click on the bar in the graph representing the college to get a demographic breakdown. Using the percentage toggle at the top of the report will also provide a helpful view.

Do students leaving my school tend to transfer to a community college or a university? And how many students do I receive from colleges/universities of the same type as my own?

Select College Type: Individual College under Edit Report - Find Location. Then select your college/university’s name. For Report Type, choose Summary of College Transfers Statewide. Click the View Results button. Your report will provide a graph and table showing the college types that your students transferred to and from, both In- and Out-of-State.

Did my college/university successfully prepare students to continue at their new college/university?

Select your college/university under Edit Report - Find Location. Select the school year, and the Report Type Transfers by College. When the report appears, click on the bar in the graph representing the college/university that the students transferred to. If reported by the new institution, you will see the count or percentage of students with a grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 or higher as well as those with a GPA under 2.0, and at the bottom of the report the average cumulative GPA of all students who transferred.

The College Transfer report is a school year report reflecting students who attended a college/university in one academic session and a different college/university in the subsequent academic session. All transfers in this report are at the same enrollment level undergraduate or graduate. Courses taken outside of a school’s standard Fall/Winter or Fall/Spring sessions (like summer classes) do not make a student eligible to be counted as a transfer, since it is common for students to take such a class at a different school without actually transferring there.

This report is based on data collected from the Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository (STARR) and National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) StudentTracker. All Michigan public colleges participate in the STARR collection, but currently only a few independent colleges participate. NSC StudentTracker is used to locate transfer students who attend colleges that do not submit data in the STARR, which includes any out-of-state colleges and several Michigan independent (nonpublic) colleges. Not every college in the U.S. submits data to NSC, so not every student can be located.

The number of Michigan students who transferred schools statewide may be less than the sum of all college transfers reported because the count of transfers allows for one student to have more than one transfer (e.g., a student enrolled at two schools simultaneously and then transferring to a third, or a student who transfers to one school in the Fall and another in the Spring).

This report includes all students that a college or university reported as a transfer in STARR as well as transfers identified by CEPI. Note that colleges and universities use a variety of factors when determining the time a student is considered to be enrolled at their college (e.g., matriculation or first day of class). Because of this, the report may display different numbers than what colleges and universities reported to IPEDS, Perkins/Activities Classification Structure, or Community College Services.

Details about how CEPI identifies transfers:

• Students who renewed enrollment in a college/university they have previously attended are not classified as a transfer.
• Students must have stopped enrollment at their previous college/university to be counted as a transfer.
• Students must be enrolled at the same level at each college/university for a transfer to be counted. If a student was an undergraduate at College A, and began graduate school at College B, this would not count as a transfer from College A to College B.
• For more information on the rules on what constitutes a transfer, see these transfer examples.&

For the available colleges/universities that students transferred out of, the report provides the average of the cumulative grade point averages (GPA) earned by those students at any of their new institutions at the end of their first semester at the new institution, along with a table displaying the count and percentage of those with a GPA of 2.0 or higher and under 2.0. Not all schools provide cumulative GPA data, and the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) does not report cumulative GPA, so in some cases, these data may not appear. This data is more complete in more recent school years.

The gender and race or ethnicity characteristics of transfer students reflect what the student reported while attending their previous college/university.

The data provided in this report comply with state law section 284 of Public Act 201, 2012, which required Michigan’s public 4-year colleges to inform our 2-year colleges regarding the academic status of their transfer students, and to inform the public on community college success in preparing students for transfer. We encourage college/university users with a secure login to also see the Student Pathways report, under Data Files, which provides even more rich and detailed information about student enrollments, coursework and achievements.

Because CEPI uses a unique student identifier to collect and match the data sets, the numbers reflect the actual patterns of the individual students, not merely the aggregate number of enrollments.

To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI uses data suppression rules. Whenever report settings for confidential information such as grade point average would yield fewer than 10 students, less than 5 percent, or over 95 percent in any grouping, the data will not display unless you are logged in as an authorized user.

The data are collected in fall, and the report will be updated each winter.

The College Transfer report was developed in collaboration with a workgroup of community college, university, and higher education association representatives.

Transfer counts will likely vary from previous versions of this report, due to differences implemented in the fall of 2014. The older version only examined transfers from 2-year colleges to 4-year universities. It didn’t consider transfers that occurred during the school year, distinguish between enrollment level (undergraduate/graduate), or allow for multiple transfer instances for one student. It also had less complete GPA data.

Data Definitions

School Year: The year of enrollment at the new college or university.

Race/Ethnicity: Race and ethnicity definitions follow U.S. Department of Education guidelines.

Out-of-State: Any college or university (2- or 4-year, public or nonpublic) outside of Michigan but within the U.S. that reports to NSC.

Transfers to/from Selected College(s): The total number of students who were enrolled in one college/university during their previous academic session, and in their subsequent academic session enrolled in another at the same enrollment level (undergraduate/graduate). These students are no longer enrolled at the first college/university.

Percent of Incoming/Outgoing Transfers to Selected College(s): Transfer student count for an institution, GPA category or demographic group dived by the total student transfer count in the selected college(s).

Percent of All Incoming/Outgoing Transfers: Transfer student count for an institution, GPA category or demographic group divided by the total student transfer count in the entire state.

Grade Point Average: The cumulative GPA earned at the institution at the end of a student's first semester after transferring, separated into the number or percent of students with a GPA of 2.0 or higher and under 2.0.

Count of GPAs Reported: The number of students whose GPA was reported by the new college/university, separated by GPA of greater than or equal to 2.0, and under 2.0.

Percent of GPAs Reported: Of those students whose GPA was reported by the new college/university, the percent with a GPA greater than or equal to 2.0, and the percent with a GPA less than 2.0.

<10, <5%, >95%: These labels will be used in place of the actual data when there is a risk of identifying an individual student (unless you have logged in as a secure user).

Data Collection

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC)& and the Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) collected the data used to compile this report. The databases used include:

• CEPI's Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository (STARR), which is a collection agency within MSDS, to identify students who enrolled in a public Michigan college, university, or participating independent (nonpublic) postsecondary institution. STARR was also used to derive age, degree-seeking status, and demographics. Details can be found at CEPI's STARR collection web page.
• The NSC StudentTracker database to locate enrollment from an out-of-state or a non-STARR participating college or university.

Data Calculations

Average GPA = sum of transfer student GPAs / count of availabe GPAs.