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Most discussions of the (re)structure of Australian tertiary education concentrate on the number of sectors (the most favoured being from one to three, with adult and community education (ACE) still ignored by most), the extent and nature of differences in the sectors' organisational and financial arrangements, and the division of sectoral turf in the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). This paper considers another factor in the structure of tertiary education, student transfers from vocational education and training (VET) to a higher sector. It compares rates of transfer from VET to highly selective and moderately selective higher education institutions in Australia and three US states. It finds that the so-called unified national system of higher education in Australia has more differentiated VET transfer rates than the formally segmented Californian system and less segmented systems in other US states. The paper concludes by considering the implications to differential student transfer rates for the structure of tertiary education and tertiary education policy generally.