Home Careers Solutions Recruitment & Admissions Credential Evaluations & Pathways Academic Operations State Systems Platform DocSight Transcript OCR Inbound Insight Prospective Degree Audits Services Data Services Consulting Services Resources Podcast News & Articles Higher Ed Research Case Studies On-Demand Webinars Free DegreeSight Services TFA – Transfer Friendliness Assessment About Us Our Team Advisory Board Solutions Recruitment & Admissions Credential Evaluations & Pathways Academic Operations State Systems Platform DocSight Transcript OCR Inbound Insight Prospective Degree Audits Services Data Services Consulting Services Resources Podcast News & Articles Higher Ed Research Case Studies On-Demand Webinars Free DegreeSight Services TFA – Transfer Friendliness Assessment About Us Our Team Advisory Board Contact Us Contact Us How students can maximize their transfer credits August 16, 2021 Share This Article By: John Mullane, President, College Transfer Solutions, sponsored by DegreeSight
Whether you are currently attending college and looking to transfer to a new school or a former college student looking to return and complete a degree, one of the most important questions to ask before enrolling in a new school is, “How many of my credits will transfer and apply to my degree?”
While the cost of college is always a concern, that final cost ultimately depends on how many credits will successfully transfer and how long it will then take to complete a bachelor’s degree.
This will take some extra effort, but in the end it can save you lots of time and money and make a bachelor’s degree more affordable and accessible.
The largest barrier to a transfer student completing a bachelor’s degree is losing credits when transferring to a four-year institution. The more credits they lose, the less likely they are to be able to complete their degree. When schools reject credits, they force students to pay twice to retake courses. This not only costs students more time and more money, but it also drives up the overall cost of a degree.
There are several steps that can be taken to get those rejected credits to transfer. This will take some extra effort, but in the end it can save you lots of time and money and make a bachelor’s degree more affordable and accessible.
The average transfer student loses more than 40 percent of their credits. My previous research, as well as data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Government Accountability Office, suggests that the average community college student who transfers to a public four-year institution, the most common transfer path, loses an average of 20 percent of their credits. This loss of credits is equivalent to almost an entire semester of coursework and can delay a student’s time to graduate.
One of the major reasons schools give for rejecting credits is that they claim the transfer courses are not comparable or as rigorous as the ones offered at their institution. They also say that if students don’t retake those courses, they won’t be academically prepared for upper-division classes. However, this excuse is simply not true. My previous research has shown that the more credits a student can successfully transfer to a school, the better they do academically and the more likely they are to graduate from that institution.
My research has also shown that tuition cost is not the biggest factor when students decide where to transfer. How many credits a student can successfully transfer and whether or not they can graduate on time appear to be far more important. In some cases, a private college that accepts all of your credits may be more affordable in the long run than a state university that rejects your credits and delays your graduation. Another factor to consider is the lost wages of spending an extra semester or year in school.
While the number of students enrolled in college has been declining, the percentage of students transferring has been increasing. Colleges that do the best job serving transfer students will be the ones to thrive over the next several years. With the coronavirus pandemic creating so much uncertainty about the future and the economy, I expect many students will look to transfer schools to take courses closer to home and save money.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 38 percent of all college students will transfer at least once before completing a bachelor’s degree. The vast majority of students transfer either into or out of a community college. Inefficient transfer-credit systems cause many community college students to transfer before finishing their associate’s degree. For those who start at a community college, only 5.6 percent of students transfer after earning an associate’s degree at their starting institution.
Currently, there are over 36 million American adults who have attended college, earned credits, and dropped out without earning a degree. Community college transfer students represent 49 percent of all students who complete bachelor’s degrees in the United States.
A report from the NSC Research Center shows that the more colleges a student attends, the longer it takes to get a degree. This is a major reason why many students do not graduate on time. Most students take 5.1 years to get a bachelor’s degree. At public four-year colleges, it takes 5.2 years; at public two-year colleges, it takes 3.4 years to earn an associate’s degree.
In order to graduate on time, it is crucial to ensure that your credits transfer. There are specific steps you can take to have rejected credits transfer and apply to your degree: