Guest editorial

Abstract

Guest editorial Transfers transform higher education Currently college attendance (including where individuals go to college) and academic success reflect and enable modern social stratification. Transferring between colleges is an avenue for social mobility first because a bachelor's degree offers more economic advantages, and second because attendance itself at more selective, larger and/or higherquality schools opens opportunities (Fink, 2017): Institutions of higher education are broadly viewed as engines of social mobility. But [sic] economic stratification among students attending different types of colleges is limiting that role. Wealthy students outnumber poor ones at the most selective colleges by 14 to one. A similar but reverse pattern holds true for the least selective colleges, including community colleges, which enroll 45 per cent of all undergraduates in the nation. (Huober, 2015