We need to improve credit portability. Here’s how

Many baccalaureate-aspiring students in the US begin higher education at a community college – public two-year colleges that offer sub-baccalaureate credentials, along with the potential to transfer to a baccalaureate-granting university. Yet many transfer-intending community college students do not transfer to a university or complete a bachelor’s degree. 

In our new book, Discredited: Power, Privilege, and Community College Transfer, we explore the tension between the promise of community colleges to broaden post-secondary access and the low rates of transfer. Although most transfer reforms focus on community colleges, we illustrate that faculty, staff and administrators at destination universities play a substantial role in shaping the transparency and ease of post-secondary transfer. 

University personnel maintain discretion over how credits apply at their institution after transfer. They sometimes thwart broader policies that could smooth and streamline transfer for students, typically because of pressures to preserve institutional (and programme) prestige. So, what can universities do to transform and improve – rather than thwart – post-secondary transfer? Here are four key actions that universities can take to improve the process of institutional transfer for students: 

Provide advising opportunities for prospective students: strong advising is an excellent way to supplement existing sources of transfer information. Under the right conditions, it can help students’ paths to transfer success. We found that advising was most helpful to our students when it connected them to university resources. It is important that transfer-intending students connect with university staff (not just community college staff) before transferring to understand transfer and major requirements. We therefore recommend that both sending and receiving institutions expand opportunities for students to connect with university representatives, including transfer fairs or other events. 

Transfer fairs hosted by community colleges can be instrumental in connecting students with their target universities, providing an opportunity for students to meet with university staff in person. Similar to a career fair, a transfer fair represents an opportunity to meet with representatives of prospective destination institutions, with booths or tables where students can get additional information and speak to university staff in person. To offer students the best opportunities for success, university representatives should provide documents that clearly outline the resources available and be ready to provide contact information that the students can use to follow up with specific questions after they review materials.

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Train recruiters to do degree audits: at the most transfer-receptive universities, recruiters are prepared to offer prospective students pre-transfer degree audits to enable them to determine in advance how credits from the sending institutions would apply to their desired degree at the university. Universities can train their recruiters to conduct degree audits for all prospective transfer students to ensure they are transparent about which coursework will transfer and apply. 

In conducting a degree audit, a university representative performs a formal evaluation of students’ academic coursework to date, and an analysis of what degree requirements they would still need to complete to graduate in their preferred major and programme. Ideally, the student should leave the process with clear documentation of how courses they’ve taken apply toward the degree programme and a list of remaining courses they can use to map out their subsequent course requirements. This would allow students to make informed decisions and not face any costly surprises upon transferring.

Build alliances with common ‘sending institutions’: transfer-receptive universities solidify transfer pathways with their partner institutions by creating both formal and informal agreements about how credits will transfer between programmes. Beyond building transfer agreements, they build a network of peers (recruiters and advisers) between regional post-secondary institutions which ensures that advisors at the sending institutions will be more likely to be informed about changes to requirements and recommended course sequences at destination universities, which minimises the risk that advisers will offer incorrect information to transfer-intending students.

Streamline transfer information, update it regularly and communicate it broadly: if a university has a transfer agreement with a partner institution, it should be translated into a student-facing document that makes it clear which courses will apply at the destination institution and how many (and which) courses students would need following transfer. 

Ideally, all transfer guides would be hosted on one webpage maintained by the university. This must be a stable webpage – the URL should not change over time! – so that as the information is updated, community colleges that link to that page do not lead students down dead ends. As programmes of study change, these documents and materials will need to be updated. Staff at the university must share those changes and new materials with common sending institutions to ensure they have accurate information when guiding transfer-intending students. In addition to updating the webpage materials, universities should reach out to inform their most common feeder colleges that there have been updates, so advisers can review and understand those changes.

The recommendations we outline will not immediately transform students’ transfer outcomes, but they will gradually improve the support and transparency of transfer pathways. Improving transfer from community colleges and other broad-access institutions, which serve higher rates of low-income students and students of colour, may also help universities maintain a diverse student body and improve graduation outcomes for transfer students. Such efforts would require an investment from universities into support staff to offer advice and update information regularly, but such investments are necessary to ensure that we can build effective transfer pathways between post-secondary institutions.

Lauren Schudde is associate professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Huriya Jabbar is associate professor of education at the University of Southern California. This article draws on findings from their new book, Discredited: Power, Privilege, and Community College Transfer, from Harvard Education Press.

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