Estevan, introduced with Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, is a success story for transfer students. Estevan benefits from highly personalized support (including advice on course selection and financial aid programs), which helped him identify a clear path to transfer to choose his major. This personalized support helped Estevan thrive and become the Dean’s list after the transfer.
Estevan’s story is one of many inspiring success stories about the transfer students we hear every day, even if the odds seem to be tied to them. For example, we know that 80% of community college students nationwide intend to complete a bachelor’s degree, but only 31% move to a four-year institution within six years of entry. When they successfully transfer, transfer students often outperform their peers, and they start and stay in the same institution. However, it is not easy for us to transfer. On the one hand, learners face a confusing set of changing rules that vary from institution to organization, so it is difficult to know which courses are transferable and apply to their intended learning plan.
Beyond that, we know that life is unpredictable, and even the best plan for learners can be derailed by a lost job, a sick family member, or an unexpected change in financial aid. Can institutions better succumb to where they meet with learners when unpredictable happens?
These signs point to yes, if you look at examples of incredible institutional flexibility in responding to recent growth in agency closures and mergers. As reported Internal Advanced EDNearly 100 institutions were closed in the last school year alone due to a decline in enrollment and financial pressure. When an institution is closed, certified people and their member institutions support students through a process called Teach-Out. Teaching policies, while different from certified people, are often designed to help other institutions to flexibly accept and apply their students’ coursework to degrees or certificates to help affected students complete their studies in a timely manner. In this arrangement, the clear goal is to apply the rules in a way that helps bring students into and effectively exclude them.
Teaching policies are precisely the type of thoughtful guidance to deal with students. But, as we have already described, institution closures are not the only reason for student transfers, and it is not the only crisis students face. So, this leads us to ask whether institutions can be flexible when faced with one student transfer, and can they be equally flexible in other transfer programs?
We are pleased to share our opportunity to ask members of the Chinese Higher Education Commission (one of which authors, Heather Perfetti, served as president). In the fall of 2024, MSCHE, WASC Advanced College and University Committees, and Southern College and School Committees worked with the Advisory Committee on Transfer Policy and Sova to design and implement investigations on transfer and learning mobility to its institution members. The survey attempts to identify members’ perceptions of student transfer and learning mobility and to identify the role of the acknowledgement in these processes through institutional lenses.
Among the most compelling findings, half of the MSCHE responded to the institution said they believed the institution should adopt similar flexibility for students who transferred and/or previously studied, similar to those who did the students in teaching situations (138 institutions responded to the survey with a response rate of 30%). Members of the PAB shared this finding at the MSCHE annual meeting in December 2024, and MSCHE members expressed strong reflections: “When we want to close one of our plans, we have always played a role in our own self-interest in this way.”
We share these findings, instead of opening the door to academic rigor and quality, we ask the field to pause and reflect on why credit transfer policies are strict and know the obstacles they may pose for students. We recognize the claim that strict credit transfer policies protect students’ preparation and program cohesion. If this is true, what data are used to prove that students are not taking the course in a linear sequence and are not fully prepared? What evidence is used to understand and control program cohesion? If not, then what is the real reason, and we can discuss them publicly so that we can better serve our students? If we are dishonest about the actual problem, we will not be able to determine the real solution.
From the MSCHE perspective, this investigation finds like calling for pauses, reflecting and inspiring us to take action. MSCHE is proud of its existing transfer policy, which is designed to support the mobility of students and their learning. However, MSCHE is also willing to revisit its policies and certification activities through the way in which teaching-related principles (such as closed) during crisis, which can inform transfers more generally.
Through the Regional Accreditation Board Committee in partnership with WSCUC and SACSCOC, we will discuss with peer accreditors, as well as key issues for accreditors, and how accreditors should and should respond:
- hiring boards and member institutions regarding the importance of transfer and learning mobility;
- Use self-study as a moment for institutions to review and modify policies;
- Celebrate through institutions their support for stronger transfer policies and ways of granting credit;
- Remind voters that endorses want to see and support institutional innovations to better serve students;
- Promote what the certification policy actually needs and destroy myths around statements such as “the acknowledgeer won’t let me do it” (frankly, these statements are rarely true);
- Improve student complaints and third-party commentary procedures how students use students to bring institutional transfer policies, procedures and decisions to the attention of their authoritatives; and
- Very simple: always student-centered.
We hope this article gives you food to think about. Through our partnerships and alliance efforts, such as learning assessment and recognition of the Next Generation Commission (led by Sova and the American Association of University Registrar and Admissions Personnel, MSCHE, WSCUC and SACSCOC are all on which all), we will seek to support students in this field to achieve additional thinking about credit assessment and transfers for student residency. At the same time, we will leave you this question: How do you play a role for your students?
