More than a third of community college students have vanished in the United States

[sanantone]

There are lot of young people who don't want to go to college at all these days, but the administrative issues have long been a problem at community colleges. When students get frustrated, they often go to for-profit colleges, which make it easier to enroll, but have outcomes that are just as bad or worse than those of community colleges. I agree with Dfrecore, though. Many community college students have no intention to graduate, but they select a degree program so they can receive financial aid. Some of them will transfer to a 4-year school before graduating with their associate's degree.

My daughter went to a CC, then another (actually she's taken courses at 4 of them), with the intention to either get her Bachelor's (as a transfer student but not with a degree) or else an AAS maybe - she may do the first year of a 2yr program to get a couple of courses she needs to become something that just needs those 2 courses, but the school won't let her take without being in the full degree program.  We set it up so that she has all of the pre-reqs she needs to do this particular program, but also has all of the courses needed for a 4yr school that her work will pay for, as well as UMPI and/or TESU.  So she has a good amount of credits, and lots of options going forward - but will be considered a "failure" or "dropout" to her current CC.

I went to 3 CC's and 3 4yr schools, and I'm a "dropout" at most of them - even though I was able to get all of my credits to transfer to TESU and get a degree later.  I also took 5 courses at one of the 4yr schools in order to get a certificate, so I guess they don't think of me as a loser, lol.  But the fact is, I was at a CC first to get gen eds, then to get some accounting courses under my belt (my manager suggested it), and just slowly worked my way through over the years.  I didn't actually NEED a degree at any point along the way, I just needed some of the knowledge from some of the courses I took.

I was also a degree-seeking student at a couple of community colleges. Even though I transferred dozens of CC credits to TESU to finish two bachelor's degree, I would be counted in the statistics as a dropout. This reminds me that an advisor at one of the CCs I attended warned me about the courses I was signing up for. I was a criminal justice major, but I wasn't following the degree plan because I knew what I needed to transfer to TESU. I prioritized finishing the BA at TESU over finishing the associate's at the CC, and the government saved money because I could have ended up receiving the Pell Grant for another year if I had focused on fulfilling the requirements for the associate's. 

I've also seen courses that do not allow a student to enroll unless they've been admitted to the program. These are often healthcare and other vocational courses.