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Feb. 19
The ‘Other’ Transfer of Credit Problem
As higher education issues go, “transfer of credit” is about as mundane and arcane as you can get. It’s roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-your-hands-dirty type work, involving transcripts and course numbers and modes of delivery and degree audits and other nuts and bolts details of the college admissions and registration process.
Related stories
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- The Geography of Educational Segregation, Jan. 19, 2007
- Automatic Access or Raised Retention?, Jan. 10, 2007
- Closing the High School-College Gap, Feb. 23, 2006
- High Schools and High College Costs, Nov. 3, 2005
Yet over the last few years, the question of whether and how students are able to transfer their academic coursework from one college to another has gained a relatively prominent place in the higher education policy world, earning prominent mentions in the 2006 final report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, a role as one of the most hot-button issues in last year’s negotiations over possible changes in federal rules governing accreditation, and becoming a key battleground in debate over renewal of the federal Higher Education Act.
What became clear Monday, though, on the first day of a two-day meeting on transfer of credit sponsored by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, is that the transfer of credit issue atop the federal agenda — whether or not academic credits accumulated by students at nationally accredited institutions (many of which are for-profit) will be accepted if their students try to transfer them to regionally accredited public and private nonprofit colleges — is not the transfer of credit issue that most higher education officials are worrying about and working on.
What is consuming the 200-plus admissions officers, registrars, transfer coordinators and state higher education officials at Monday’s meeting is the reality that students from all types of colleges and universities are changing institutions (or studying at multiple colleges at the same time) in ever-greater numbers, and that students too often find themselves having to repeat coursework because of a lack of coordination and alignment between their previous and current institutions. But as a 2005 Government Accountability Office study showed, and as various speakers at Monday’s meeting reaffirmed, the vast majority of those students are seeking to transfer from community colleges to other public or nonprofit private institutions in their states.
And most of the work that is occupying college and state higher education officials is in trying to knock down the barriers and smooth the connections within state systems or between individual colleges, to ease students’ transition from one institution to another.
“Transfer and mobility is a good thing, and we want to facilitate them when they are appropriate,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director at the registrars’ group. “Our job is to bend over backwards to say Yes when we can. But there are times that it is appropriate to say No.”
Nassirian and AACRAO have been among the leading opponents of federal legislation that would in some way dictate transfer of credit policies, and they have criticized the single-minded focus of federal policy makers on the narrow piece of the transfer of credit problem that is related to students from nationally accredited institutions seeking to switch to regionally accredited ones. This, Nassirian said, despite the fact that the 2005 GAO study showed that just 4 percent of transferring students nationwide move from a for-profit to nonprofit college.
Monday’s meeting was not meant to dismiss that problem, Nassirian said; his group, like most other higher education associations, has endorsed the idea that colleges should not have policies that reject a student’s academic credits based solely on the accreditation status of the institution from which he or she earned them. (Those pushing for federal transfer of credit legislation note that significant numbers of colleges still have policies that are biased against students from nationally accredited institutions, and argue — so far unsuccessfully — that federal legislation may be the only way to end such discrimination once and for all.)
Instead, the AACRAO meeting was designed to lay out the complexity of the transfer of credit issue and to showcase the efforts that various states and colleges have adopted or are adopting to improve mobility where they see it impaired the most.
Administrators at Anne Arundel Community College, in Maryland, described the confounding number of factors and types of decisions that the institution’s three-person transfer staff must consider as it weighs thousands of requests (nearly 9,000 from 4,500 students since August): The “dizzying array of types of credit that can be transferred,” as Judith Coughlin, Anne Arundel’s registrar, put it (traditional courses from individual institutions and nontraditional credits such as AP exams, military experience and work force training); the varying layers of requirements (state, regional accreditor, etc.) to which the college must adhere; and the many institutions to which and from which the college’s students transfer.
Officials from Iowa State University and the University System of Maryland discussed elaborate transfer systems in their states — Maryland’s, which has been around in one form or another for nearly two decades, and those that Iowa’s public universities are building now in response to a 2005 legislative mandate.
In both cases, enrollment numbers gave a sense of why the transfer issue has risen on the agenda of state policy makers. The proportion of new students entering the University System of Maryland who had transferred rather than starting as full-time freshmen grew to 59 percent in 2006, up from 55 percent in 2000. (About half of the transfers were from community colleges.)
And of the 4,347 new students at Iowa State University in fall 2007, 1,527 (or 30 percent) of them were transfers. About two-thirds of them were from community colleges, and 416 of the transfers were members of ethnic minority groups, a far greater proportion than the university’s student body as a whole. So not only is transfer a crucial source of students for a university in a state where the traditional college-age population is expected to dip sharply in the next decade, but it is an important outlet for minority access to higher education, said Marc Harding, director of admissions and enrollment services at Iowa State.
Much work remains to be done in those states and nationwide to make it easier for students to transfer credits from one institution to another, Nassirian said. But given the complexity of higher education and the diversity of mission and standards of the country’s 6,000 colleges and universities, he said, the degree of student transfer “is already breathtakingly remarkable in its own right.”
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Comments
Where are the Faculty?
Do faculty actually want anything to do with this? I imagine many admissions officers and registrars would appreciate the involvement.
KP, at 8:45 am EST on February 19, 2008
An Idea
In addition to “colleges should not have policies that reject a student’s academic credits based solely on the accreditation status of the institution from which he or she earned them” I will add one more “Transfered-in students should be reported as part of the graduation rate.” — I understand this will create some technical problem, but it can be worked out.
The idea is to give receiving institution freedom, yet, holding them responsible. By requiring institutions to report the success of transfer students, receiving institutions need look hard to see the impact of accepting a given transfer student. If the student is well prepared, accepting it will simply benefit the school. On the other hand, accepting an ill-prepared students, the receiving college is better prepared to put in extra efforts.
This is an important issue. Opinion welcome.
Duncan, at 9:35 am EST on February 19, 2008
Faculty Involvement
I used to be an academic advisor, and faculty were involved in two ways, at least at the school where I was evaluating transfer credit. One was that credit transfer is often determined by a comparison of syllabi, which the faculty write. The other is that when a transfer might be controversial we’d ask a department chair’s opinion.
The truth is that most of the courses we handled weren’t particularly hard to determine, especially as most transfer credit came in from nearby institutions with which we were well familiar.
Steve Foerster, at 9:55 am EST on February 19, 2008
transfer.
See the preliminary report of the New York State Commission on Higher Education, page 30 for a discussion of this issue.http://hc.bbprod.cuny.edu/webapps...n%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_27205_1
peggy tirschwell, assistant provost at Hunter College, at 9:55 am EST on February 19, 2008
Faculty and Transfer Articulation
I think having faculty involved in these discussions is wonderful. I’m sure everyone would like to see faculty more involved. That being said, I have a concern over how faculty treat trasnfer of credits from community colleges.
Community colleges do not necessarily mean that someone is less prepared than someone transfering from a 4 year institution. Faculty, and I realize I am generalizing, have a tendancy to assuem that credits earned at a community college are not of the same quality than those at a four year institution. The reality is that credits earned at community college can be just as challenging as at a four year institution. I fear that faculty involvment could actually hinder the process.
For faculty your chosen field of study is very much a piece of who they are, more so than other careers, because it is that which they study and have devoted a tremendous amount of time and gained expertise in. Thus, when it comes to accepting credits from other universities, there are assumptions made that have little to do with actual knowledge of the quality of the courses. Faculty at community colleges often have their Ph.D’s (or may very well be in the process); they may not have the same level of publishing and research requirements, but that actually make it’s easier for them to devote more time to their students. Not to say that this improves the quality of education, but transfer student tend to state they miss the personal attention recieved at the community college in comparison to the 4 year institution.
The other aspect is that those working admissions, registrar and student affairs fields are trained in these areas. Understanding the student transition, transfer process, and enrollment management is there expertise.
But, this does not mean faculty should not be involved in the process. It just means everyone needs to be conscious of who we are serving, namely the students, and ensuring that agreements are made in the best interest of the students and based on concrete knowledge, not just preconcieved notions about the subject.
LP, at 9:55 am EST on February 19, 2008
Faculty involved?
Speaking as a faculty member, I am constantly amazed at how often faculty will complain about not getting to have input, but when given the opportunity, won’t get involved or state that it’s not part of their job. At my college, faculty are consulted before allowing transfer credit. But it’s been that way for 40 years. If it were new, they’d scream bloody murder over the additional work.
TR, at 9:55 am EST on February 19, 2008
It’s wonderful to see that Barmack and AACRO have finally recognized that credit tranfers are a big issue and a major problem for students. Having listened to Barmack testify on this matter before Congress, I had concluded that he was probably the only person in higher education who did not realize that transfer of credits was a big issue. It’s gratifying to read that he has seen the light. It’s always welcoming to see a Washington-based higher education group beginning to understand the issues that students and institutions beyond the beltway have to deal with every day. Maybe the One Dupont Circle crowd is finally getting it.
Richard Jerue, at 10:30 am EST on February 19, 2008
Just the beginning
Take a deep breath.
Here’s an example of the wave of courses from 9th grade to 12th grade that students are expecting to be able to transfer when they graduate high school.
http://www.bayschools.com/bhs/ACT_Now/sample_plan.php
Without adequate quality control measures, registrars are right to be leary of having to accept college credits from doubtful sources such as these. Out-of-field teacher assignments for these classes run as high as 50%, we have found.
Accreditors are failing to acknowledge the problem, and state bureaucrats are mired in turf battles with CCs and local school districts.
Compounding these problems, the regional accrediting association for the South, SACS, has been officially moving away from enforcing faculty standards since 2002, which apply to courses and course credits awarded by community colleges. This has left much confusion in its wake.
At this time, it is still unclear what additional measures will be needed to fill the vacuum created by SACS’ backing away from faculty standards, thereby leaving it up to the individual institutions themselves to decide who can teach college-level courses. The diversity for which the South is famous makes this problematic, especially with the spotlight now on standards and quality control in higher education.
Glen S. McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 10:30 am EST on February 19, 2008
Yes, faculty should be involved but it look a legislative mandate to bring the parties together in Florida. Unfortunate but it created a system that works for, not against, students while maintaining faculty involvement.
It’s a model that should be looked at by other states.
BB, at 10:30 am EST on February 19, 2008
Well, and let’s not forget that you don’t need an advanced degree to be an admissions officer or a registrar.
Sandy, at 2:00 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Transfer Credit Malay!
More than a decade ago the State of Minnesota embarked upon this same issue of transfer credits among IHEs. Like Florida, it took a legislative mandate to bring about a remedy. The remedy was all encompassing however in that all three state higher education systems (community colleges, technical colleges and state institutions; more than 82 institutions) merged into a single higher education system, in which to make the efforts seamless.
The lawmakers took a very proactive approach in which to implement the mandate by establishing a very stringent time line for its occurrence (3 years) from the time of the instituted rule. IT HAPPENED without fanfare and is working exceeding well.
Transfer students no longer have to retake courses that were reviewed by the receiving institution and deemed incompatible. As a facilitator of this process, I can honestly say, it was truly a collaborative effort by many (faculty, administrators, system office personnel, business and industry community partners and most importantly STUDENTS).
Some States have the lesson perfected, perhaps others could benefit from the notes!
JAEC, Academic Administration
JEC, at 2:00 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Graduation Rate
I agree, transfer students who must complete X number of credits for graduation should be counted in a graduation rate of that institution. Institutions which they come from should be able to count the student in successful transfer rate, showing that the institution is a good milestone point for students in their education career.
Any student who starts a degree program should be able to be counted when he or she is awarded a degree.
Chris G. Sellers, Lead Internet Engineer at NITLE, at 2:45 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Transfers, Attrition, Diversity, and Social Justice
We should not overlook the fact that creating a pipeline of students from 2-year to 4-year institutions that can have two very beneficial effects. First, these transfers can help to smooth enrollment management by taking the places of student attrition in freshman and sophomore classes. Second, since community colleges often have far greater ethnic and economic diversity than four-year institutions, creating these pipelines through appropriate articulation agreements can help to diversify the four-year institutions. I agree that faculty should become involved, but deans need to educate faculty about the important roles that transfer students play in the health of their institutions. We must keep in mind the social justice angle of transfer agreements: if 2-year colleges are providing access to post-secondary education to students who would otherwise not attend college, this access ends with an associate degree unless the 4-year institutions step up and open their doors to transfers. If faculty perceive that community colleges are not offering academically rigorous courses, they should become involved in improving the community colleges until they do.
JW, at 2:45 pm EST on February 19, 2008
So What’s a Graduation Rate?
It is my understanding that the official Federal Department of Education definition of a four-year institution’s “graduation rate” is the proportion of new freshmen who have received a baccalaureate degree six years later. In this era of growing emphasis on institutional accountability, a lot of attention is being focused on graduation rates. But, when more than half of an institution’s new students come by transfer, and when many of its students transfer to and become successful in other institutions, what possible meaning can that definition have.
Don Langenberg, Chancellor Emeritus at University System of Maryland, at 2:55 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Graduation Rate
Don,
Personally, I am not married to the Graduation Rate per se. But just as an example, the receiving college can assign academic level to the receiving student based on the number of credits transfered — be it be accepted as freshmen or as sophomore and go from there. For sending institutions, there already have a transfer rate defined in IPEDS.
But again, the point is to include the transfer students as part of the measure of success. Whatever measure deemed appropriate.
Personally, I always wonder if a degree mill could simply report 100% graduation rate just for the sake of attracting students.
Duncan, at 4:45 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Dual credit, online courses
There are many other factors that universities use in deciding whether courses transfer or not. Unfortunately many of them have established policies that discourage, instead of encourage, high-achieving high school students from taking college classes (e.g. some do not accept dual credit courses; some do not accept any college courses that high school students take prior to graduating from high school, etc.). Many states on one hand encourage dual/concurrent enrollment, while some universities establish policies that require high school students with many college credits to apply as freshmen. There are also universities that choose not to accept credits earned through online courses. Method of delivery alone, should not be a deciding factor.
In reality it all boils down to dollars/economics. Universities want the students to take the courses from them. Even if it means forcing students to re-take courses they have already attended at other accredited colleges or universities.
Erika, at 5:40 pm EST on February 19, 2008
JW: “If faculty perceive that community colleges are not offering academically rigorous courses, they should become involved in improving the community colleges until they do.”
So, 4 year college/university faculty are supposed to fix the high schools and now the CC’s too??!!
How about instead CC’s have to refund tuition (and tax support) when their students cannot pass placement tests given by the universities? CC ’s do a good job in some areas and not in others. Even if the instruction is good the grading standards are too low and the homework load may be minimal. Many CC transfer students are shocked at the level of work expected at a university. This is a big problem with students transferring math courses. Perhaps CC students should have to take the SAT or ACT for admissions and AP exams for transfer credits. But wait...we need their money. Nevermind!
JW, you social justice types (who could be against social justice?) have unwittingly formed an unholy alliance with right-wing budget cutting state bean counters. (Let’s fund education with gambling!) Quality education (academic or vocational) is not cheap or easy. Too often people are looking for the cheap & easy path to social justice. You are being hoodwinked, side tracked. Go to the mall and ask the nice sales clerks what they got their college degrees in.
Math Prof, at 9:20 pm EST on February 19, 2008
Transfers too Bureacratically linked to School Profit
I have served as an Army Education Director and have seen the ridiculous limitations on soldiers seeking to transfer their credits without taking a bunch of useless course that some new College Department may require. This leads me to believe that such limitations exist there to “sell” more courses than one would be lead to believe. Those colleges don’t stick around long on most military bases since there are reputable institutions that do have liberal transfer options. I urge all students to boycott such schools that have such restrictions placed on transfer credit and go to somewhere else where their education counts- not to where just what one college requires. There ought to be a consumer grading policy of universities on accepting transfer credits so that students may realize that they need to spend an extra year earning a bachelor’s degree.
Jim Savage, at 5:45 am EST on February 20, 2008
Whoaaaaaa!
I did transfer evals at a senior university in the South Carolina system for 20 plus years and I’ll tell you one thing, academics NEVER wanted to take part in any discussions where transfers were concerned. Often, deans and chairs wanted nothing more than to have the courses posted to the student information system, completete with equivalents, and that had to be done by me and no one else. Students were repeatedly sent to my office for direction and even advisement not just on courses taken elsewhere, but for courses that were to be taken either as exchange students or summer school work. I will say this for those at institutions who do have to do this work, you hold a vast amount of power at your school and you should learn as much as possible and use that knowledge to your advantage. Start looking at management positions and see how much weight that carries when you go for an interview.
Martin, at 9:35 am EST on February 20, 2008
Few thoughts
I agree with Math Prof in couple of points.
I taught at community college for a while and I can say that the level required of my students is not as high as I would expected for 4 year college students which, as I said before, could very well caused by students’ quality — I can’t flunk all my students can I? I do have few students that is independent and is capable of handling high level demands. But quite few of them don’t have the adequate reading skill to handle a higher level text book. So. I would say it is important for community colleges to promote students’ basic skill and their independence if their students are going to 4 year colleges.
On the other hand, I also agree with points raised by Erika and Jim. My thought on that is that we need more options for students which include new kind of institutions that have different missions.
At this point in time, traditional 4 year colleges are the favorites. People and business seems to give weights on their graduates. However, I believe the trend can change. For IT, with the number of certificates tests available, some business are using them to measure the skill. The difficulty, of cause, is to find measures for other hiring criteria.
Duncan, at 9:35 am EST on February 20, 2008
Transfer and Accountability
Should transfer be inextricably linked to quality control of the institution? Shouldn’t a credit at any regionally accredited institution be accepted at any other regionally accredited institution (assuming the student is admitted), at least for the 100 and 200 level classes?
Anon, at 10:00 am EST on February 20, 2008
Transfer of Credit – Times are Changing
I agree that there are many forces contributing to putting the transfer credit issue in the spot light, including the increasing cost of education, reduced state budgets for education and the rising transient nature of Americas’ workforce. This tells us that our customer’s (students) needs have changed in the past two or more decades and that we need to realign our thinking—okay and our processes too. I see that there must be a blended solution. With that said, my school tries to meet student requests for acceptance of their credits from other colleges and universities by asking several simple questions. If we can get the answers, it makes the process fair, equitable and defensible.
Is the school accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education? Was it accredited when the courses were taken? Notice I don’t ask regional or national. Accrediting agencies, in recent years, have begun policing their schools to ensure that they are offering a quality product that meets higher standards. We leave school accreditation determination to them. We have enough to worry about.
Next, what are the particulars of the course? Length, contact hours, rigor, and content? Did the student pass the course? Does the course match any of our specific degree requirements? If not, is it appropriate for general elective credit? Etc. If we have any other questions, we look to the sending school’s catalog for answers. If doubt persists, we request details from the student if we have concerns—we review course descriptions/syllabus and even ask which text books were used. Armed with this information we can generally make a determination.
If its transfer of military credits, we do the same.
Sound like a lot of work? Perhaps. But we view it as customer service—something that seems to be lacking in our society nowadays. We pride our selves on giving excellent customer service. The majority of our students are transfer students. We appreciate that they want to attend our school. No, we don’t give them credit for courses not worth credit. But we do understand that in today’s transient world, it is getting rarer to see a student that enters as a freshman and four years later graduates from the same school. Statistics show that nearly forty percent of people receiving a bachelor degree attended two or more schools along the way. Registrars need to understand that they should be doing everything they can to meet society’s needs not simply being the roadblock or bottleneck in the process. Why do some schools resist the obvious changes in America’s education landscape? Old ways die hard. Instead of resisting the change, why not lead in adapting to where the world is? I am afraid that if they don’t they are setting America up for not meeting the global challenge for educating the youth. That is a future I don’t want to see.
Talking with other schools, I find that the registrar’s office is generally under staffed and overworked. Yet, if properly staffed, they could perhaps be a major source of new students. I say this at a time when some schools are seeing fewer and fewer students each year.
The changes in the American landscape are a much stronger force than the few registrars and schools who are trying to hold back the floodwaters. The change will come. Schools that recognize the writing on the wall can be part of the solution and make transfer of credit fair and equitable.
Don Burton, President at International Import-Export Institute at Dunlap-Stone University, at 1:05 pm EST on February 20, 2008
Transfer and Accountability
Anon,
Well. It is just an idea for solving the problem. Personally, I do think all entities are responsible for the society and, therefore, should be regulated by government. However, I don’t think it’s government’s job to get deep control of entities. So the proposal is to address the question raised without heavy regulations.
The question at hand is the protection of students’ right — regardless where students obtained their credits. There could be other ways to resolve this problem including heavy hand regulations from government, which I really don’t like.
As to the credit transfer within regionally accredited institutions, as far as I know, it seems to be less of a problem than other kind of credit transfer. But even then, there are questions raised by Math Prof.
Like I said before, not all students from the same class of the same community college are equal. The only way I can see fair is to evaluate each of them separately.
As you can see, it will take truck loads of regulations to ensure each student is evaluated separately and fairly.
By the way, I am open to ideas and I am not married to to this accountability thing. It just seems to me that it’s a good idea for the problem.
Duncan, at 1:35 pm EST on February 20, 2008
And Don’t Forget Graduate/Professional Programs
Why should we not forget graduate/professional programs in these discussions? Because there exists an unspoken prejudice on the part of medical schools against students taking their science courses at two-year schools. The medical schools fear that the quality of instruction in the sciences is too variable. In sum, all articulation discussions ought to involve graduate and professional programs. After all, many of these transfer students are simply trying save money in what they expect will be a long time in higher education. — TL
Tim Lacy, Pre-Health Professions Advisor, at 3:15 pm EST on February 20, 2008
Of course faculty should be involved. I evaluate approximately 600 transcripts a year and always involve faculty when it comes to controversial and/or upper-level courses. That being said, a lot of courses are very easy to determine and do not require the imput of faculty (I know this first hand, as when I first began my position five years ago, I involved them too much, and they resented it), especially since so many of our students transfer in from colleges and universities that I’m familar with in our regional area.
Jessica, Academic Advisor, at 10:55 am EST on February 21, 2008
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Where are the faculty in all this?
Shouldn’t faculty be front and center in this discussion? Why do we have to leave it up to admissions officers and registrars to make these kinds of academic decisions?
BF, at 8:05 am EST on February 19, 2008