“Transfer Access to Elite Colleges and Universities in the United States: Threading the Needle of the American Dream” is available from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
Although more than 40 percent of undergraduates are enrolled in community colleges, fewer than one of every 1,000 community college students transfers to a four year, elite private college, according to a report.
The report—produced by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, a Landsdowne, Va.-based nonprofit organization—studied data from National Center for Education Statistics surveys examining high school classes that graduated in 1982 and 1992. Those surveys followed students through college and afterward. It also examined data from the College Board’s annual survey of college officials about students entering college in 2002.