Racialized Geographies of Transfer: Relational Racial, Spatial, and Organizational Processes in a Stratified Higher-Education System

Despite decades of reform, racial disparities in vertical transfer between community colleges and universities continue to persist. In this article, I conceptualize vertical transfer as an opportunity structure shaped by relational racial, spatial, and organizational processes within a stratified higher-education system. Leveraging a latent space approach to network analysis, I examine transfer ties between 113 community colleges in California and nine University of California campuses between 2012 and 2022. The results highlight how organizational scale and geographic proximity operate as racialized resources. Organizational scale is associated with amplified transfer opportunities for community colleges that serve larger proportions of Black and Latine students, and geographic proximity to different four-year sectors (i.e., regional state vs. public “elite” universities) shapes transfers in both diversionary and racially differentiated ways. The findings demonstrate a racialized geographies of transfer opportunity and suggest how relational racial, spatial, and organizational processes interplay to stratify transfer and higher-education opportunities.