Multiple Starting Lines: Pre-college Characteristics of Community College and Four-year Institution Engineering Students

In response to the pressing need to expand and diversify the engineering workforce, there has been a focus on using community colleges as pathways to four-year engineering programs. To date, there has been little empirical research on the effectiveness of transfer via this pathway for engineering specifically. This analysis compares the pre-college characteristics for students who identify as “pre-engineering” in community colleges with students who initially enrolled in or successfully transferred to a four-year undergraduate degree in engineering. It draws on data from a nationally representative study of 31 four-year engineering institutions and the 15 community colleges which produce the largest number of pre-engineering students in the United States. Specifically, this analysis focuses on the following pre-college characteristic categories: 1) sociodemographic characteristics; 2) high school academic preparation and achievement; and 3) personal and social experiences with which they arrive to college. Findings demonstrate considerable differences between the entering characteristics of community college preengineering students, successful transfers, and students first-enrolling in four-year engineering programs for all three categories. Based on these empirical results, we offer recommendations for programs to implement to work toward improving the community college-to-four-year engineering program transfer pipeline.