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Among students who begin in a two-year college, only 12 percent of underrepresented minority students and 16 percent of other students transfer to a four-year institution. Among transfers, only 55 percent of the minorities and 61 percent of other students earn a bachelor’s within six years of transferring. In sum, then, only about seven percent of minority students—and 10 percent of nonminority students—who begin in a two-year college earn a bachelor’s degree from any institution in these large systems within 10 years of starting college. These rates are far lower than for students who begin even in nonselective four-year colleges.

. That’s not good for young people, many of whom are now trying to navigate their futures with high debt and no degree. Moreover, if we continue down this same road—spending precious grant dollars in our four-year colleges on students who don’t need financial aid and simply dumping low-income students and students of color into community colleges, even slightly better funded ones—it won’t be good for our country, either. Kati Haycock is the president of the Education Trust, a national organization she founded in 1990 to promotes high academic achievement for all students at all levels—pre-kindergarten through college. According to the group's website, the organization's mission "is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement that consign far too many young people—especially those from low-income families or who are black, Latino, or American Indian—to lives on the margins of the American mainstream." Before founding the Education Trust, Haycock was executive vice president of the Children's Defense Fund, the country's largest child advocacy organization. Her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New America Foundation.   Suggested Reading Memo to Colleges: Don't Leverage Pell Grant Funding Away Abandoning the Mission at Public Universities Guest Post: A Question of Priorities at Public Colleges Reality Check: The Privatization of Public Higher Education     A new way to join the conversation NewAmerica.net has improved and expanded comments by switching to Disqus. You must log in to particpate in the conversation, but may do so in several different ways -- by using a Twitter, Facebook, or OpenID account you already have or by creating a Disqus account that can be used on hundreds of sites across the web. Your email address, which is required for a Disqus account, will not be publicly displayed. And if you log in with Twitter or Facebook, you have the option of publishing your comments in those streams as well. Please pay careful attention to the options presented at sign-in, and cross-post or not as you see fit. Add New CommentRequired: Please login below to comment. Subscribe to all comments by emailShare on    Share this comment on...Configure options...Login and PostYou must be logged in to post a comment.Showing 0 commentsSort by Popular nowBest RatingNewest firstOldest first  Subscribe by email Subscribe by RSS Loading comments... 

We can’t afford to waste this much talent. Indeed, a recent report from the independent, congressionally chartered Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance painted a stark picture of the consequences of current attendance patterns. According to the committee’s calculations, the combination of three forces—the increasing cost of college, insufficient need-based grant aid, and an enrollment shift among college-qualified students toward the two-year sector—resulted in a loss of between 1.7 and 3.2 million bachelor’s degrees over the last decade.