How do Transfer Students Perform in Economics? Evidence from Intermediate Macroeconomics

For students taking intermediate-level economics, does it matter where they studied principles of economics? Does transferring college credit influence subsequent academic performance in economics? With a sample covering 19992008, the authors analyze in this article a group of nearly 1,000 students taking intermediate macroeconomics at a prominent state university. Despite seemingly impressive-looking grades from the principles of macroeconomics course, community college transfer students significantly underperformed their peers in the intermediate macroeconomics course, unlike transfer students from four-year institutions. Moreover, students who transferred other course work from community college (that is, other than the principles course) were relatively less likely to succeed in intermediate macroeconomics.