A recent two-part “Beyond Transfer” column in Inside Higher Ed asked readers to confront what the authors called a “transfer credit myth.” Drawing on a single recent study, they assert that it’s a myth that credits earned at one institution are frequently “lost” in the transfer process and attribute graduates’ excess credits to a host of other factors.
While those columns rightly emphasize that how credits apply to degree requirements matters more than whether they transfer, those columns rely too heavily on one limited study. As a result, they overstate the idea that transfer-related credit problems are a myth.
In this piece, we add nuance to their point about credit applicability, explain why the evidence doesn’t fully support the columns’ broader claim and describe the information, policies and tools that can help students—transfer and nontransfer alike—apply more of their credits toward their degrees.
Applicability, Not Transferability
Research by Ithaka S+R and others shows that credit applicability—how credits apply to degree requirements—is more important than transferability. Even when prior academic credit is accepted, it may be treated as a general elective rather than satisfying a general education or major requirement, leaving students with more elective credits than their degree program allows. The result is excess credits that students have paid for and worked for but that do not help them progress toward the degree they seek.
The “Transfer Credit Myth” authors are right to highlight that many nontransfer students also accrue excess credits through major changes, scheduling issues or institutional policies. But their conclusion that transfer doesn’t matter rests too heavily on one study that has some limitations.
One Study Doesn’t Prove Challenges Are a Myth
To prove their point that transfer of credit is not a driver of excess credits, the authors cite a recent study by Tushar Ojha and Don Hush, which found that, among bachelor’s degree recipients at a single university, the numbers and types of excess credits were similar for those who had transferred from a community college and those who started as freshmen at the university.
While Ojha and Hush’s study adds evidence to the study of excess credits, it does not, on its own, prove that the special challenges of transferring credit are a myth. There are three main reasons why this claim by the columns is overstated:
- The study includes only graduates. The study sample excludes students who transferred but didn’t earn a bachelor’s degree and community college students who planned to transfer but did not do so. Transfer students at bachelor’s institutions are less likely to earn a degree than similarly situated nontransfer students. And although 80 percent of community college students report a goal of earning a bachelor’s degree, only about a third transfer to a bachelor’s program. Lack of credit applicability for transferred credits is a frequently reported reason for those outcomes. Excluding students who did not graduate leaves a blind spot that may hide important transfer-related credit challenges.
- It’s from a single university. The sending colleges, the university’s policies and the broader state policy context are not discussed. In other words, there is not enough information to know how representative or generalizable the results are.
- It doesn’t rule out transfer-related causes. Transfer students face a variety of credit-applicability challenges that nontransfer students do not face. These include misalignment of curriculum between community college and universities, hidden prerequisite courses, course-level discrepancies, last-choice course registration and university residency requirements that a minimum number of courses in the major or over all be taken at the university. The transfer graduates’ excess credits may be “because of transfer” even if they have the same number of excess credits as nontransfer students (who accumulate them for other reasons).
How to Help Students Avoid Excess Credits
Regardless of the reason, or reasons, for excess credits, they are costing people time and money and generally should be avoided. How can we do that?
Since 2019, Ithaka and the City University of New York have collaborated on the Articulation of Credit Transfer project, which has yielded CUNY Transfer Explorer and Ithaka’s national Transfer Explorer, open-access tools that allow any user to see how completed or planned courses would transfer and apply toward a degree at the participating institutions, as well as yielding the CUNY DegreeWorks Archive, which captures data about how courses applied toward students’ degree programs right before and after transfer.
Below we share insights from this work and recommend strategies to reduce excess credits.
Make Information Open and Accessible to All
Students and advisers need accurate data about how learning transfers and applies to degree requirements. Too often transfer students do not learn how transfer credits will apply until after admission at a new institution. Even for nontransfer students, degree-planning information is limited.
The second column in the “Beyond Transfer” series points to academic advisers as a critical ingredient in averting excess credits, and they are. But community college academic advisers also struggle to access accurate versions of the huge amount of information about transfer-credit applicability.
A tool like Transfer Explorer mitigates these problems by providing up-to-date, authoritative information about transferability and degree applicability, to any user, in a format that is dynamically navigable. Research on CUNY T-Rex shows that use of the website is positively associated with the selection of courses that apply towards degree requirements, and not electives, upon transfer.
Promote Transfer and Degree Planning at All Stages
Students are moving academic credit into and out of sectors of higher education at a higher rate than ever before. It is critical that institutions educate students about credit applicability and transfer throughout their journey, beginning with high school dual enrollment and onward to college graduation.
Community colleges should consider strategies like asking students in the application process whether they intend to pursue a bachelor’s degree, implementing a transfer survey for students to share their plans with their current college and intended transfer institution, and providing joint advising at the community college and university.
Review Residency Policies
Residency rules—requirements that students complete a certain number of credits at their final institution—can restrict how many transferred credits apply. In some states students must complete 60 credit hours of a 120-credit degree at their destination, effectively limiting the applicability of transfer credits, regardless of their relevance.
CUNY T-Rex’s residency-requirements leaderboard highlights these variations for the CUNY colleges: Some require 15 credit hours in residence, others 45. Making this information public can encourage institutions to reassess restrictive policies.
Simplify and Clarify Requirements
In building the national version of Transfer Explorer, Ithaka has so far worked closely with program requirements from over 40 colleges and universities in four states. In some cases, program requirements had so many caveats and exceptions that institutions struggled with how to display them in Transfer Explorer in a way that made sense.
Institutions should review whether complicated requirements are truly necessary or simply legacy practices.
In Conclusion
Are lost transfer credits a myth? Not quite. Excess credits stem from many causes, but the credit-transfer process remains opaque, inconsistent and costly. Credits may transfer but not apply, applicability may change before graduation and both transfer and nontransfer students face barriers to efficient completion.
To reduce excess credits, institutions must provide early, transparent information about credit applicability, support proactive degree planning and simplify rules that hinder transfer. These steps can ensure that students’ hard-earned credits count toward the degrees they pursue.
