Current policies and interventions to enhance student success and retention are often tied to full-time enrollment, which are substantiated by studies associating part-time enrollment with lower retention and poorer academic outcomes. However, these findings are limited to studies of first-time college students and do not represent today’s nontraditional undergraduate who may be transfer, online, and working adult students. To enhance retention of on-campus and hybrid online 2 + 2 transfer students in a STEM undergraduate program, need-based scholarships are awarded to students enrolled full-time as stipulated by the federal granting agency. Although the scholarship has helped >80 students to date, over 40% of eligible transfer students are excluded only because they are enrolled part-time, disproportionately affecting students in the hybrid online track who are more likely to be women and underrepresented minorities. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this study explores enrollment behavior of transfer students (online and on-campus), its relationship with student characteristics and academic outcomes, and implications for scholarship eligibility. Full-time enrollment is a significant challenge for transfer students. While scholarship requirements are a key factor influencing full-time enrollment, online transfer students additionally cite work and family obligations as drivers of enrollment behavior. Thus, online 2 + 2 transfer students face different challenges than on-campus peers and are more likely to enroll part-time out of necessity, yet still have comparable GPA and graduation rates. These findings support a growing awareness of barriers nontraditional students face questioning the relevance of policies driven by “traditional” student outcomes, which perpetuate inequity in higher education.

当前提高学生成功率和保留率的政策和干预措施通常与全日制入学率相关，这些研究证实了非全日制入学率与较低的保留率和较差的学业成绩相关联。然而，这些发现仅限于对首次上大学的学生的研究，并不代表当今可能是转学、在线和在职成人学生的非传统本科生。加强校内留存，混合在线 2 + 2 转学生在 STEM 本科课程中，根据联邦资助机构的规定，向全日制注册的学生颁发基于需求的奖学金。尽管该奖学金迄今已帮助超过 80 名学生，但超过 40% 的符合条件的转学生被排除在外，仅仅是因为他们是非全日制学生，这对混合在线课程中更有可能是女性和代表性不足的少数族裔的学生造成了不成比例的影响。本研究使用定量和定性方法，探讨了转学生（在线和校内）的入学行为、其与学生特征和学业成绩的关系，以及对奖学金资格的影响。全日制入学对转学生来说是一项重大挑战。虽然奖学金要求是影响全日制入学的关键因素，但在线转学生也将工作和家庭义务列为入学行为的驱动因素。因此，在线 2 + 2 转学生面临与校内同龄人不同的挑战，并且更有可能出于必要而注册兼职，但仍具有可比的 GPA 和毕业率。这些发现支持人们越来越意识到非传统学生面临的障碍，即质疑由“传统”学生成果驱动的政策的相关性，这使高等教育中的不平等现象长期存在。但仍然具有可比的 GPA 和毕业率。这些发现支持人们越来越意识到非传统学生面临的障碍，即质疑由“传统”学生成果驱动的政策的相关性，这使高等教育中的不平等现象长期存在。但仍然具有可比的 GPA 和毕业率。这些发现支持人们越来越意识到非传统学生面临的障碍，即质疑由“传统”学生成果驱动的政策的相关性，这使高等教育中的不平等现象长期存在。