Assessing the Role of Spatial Inequality in Transfer Student Success

Objective: Vertical community college transfer has become an essential pathway for many students who hope to attain bachelor’s degrees. Prior literature indicates that institutional supports, like transfer articulation agreements and transfer advising, have a positive influence on transfer success. Yet, spatial inequality theory indicates that these resources may be distributed unevenly over geographic context. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between spatial context and transfer student success. Methods: Using data from the University of North Carolina System, we estimate a series of regression models, to determine the relationship between county-level measures of rurality, economic distress, and access to broadband internet and the number of credits transferred from the community college to the 4-year institution, excess credits at graduation, and number of major changes at 4-year colleges. Results: The results of our analyses indicate that that the spatial context in which colleges are situated has a relationship to transfer student success. In particular, students transferring from counties that are more rural and economically distressed and have less access to broadband internet may experience worse transfer outcomes. Conclusions: The results of our study indicate that spatial inequality is complex and can be defined in many ways, which has implications for those who use geographic boundaries to identify areas for inquiry or intervention. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of considering variation in resources across spatial context when addressing educational inequality. Further study is necessary to understand the mechanisms driving our results, as well as other ways to measure spatial inequality.