A nonprofit tool will give more than 400,000 Ohio students an authoritative, public view of how their prior learning will apply to a degree, so they can plan their educational journey and save time and money.

More than one third of first-time college students transfer at least once during their academic journey. In fact, today’s modern learner accrues credits from multiple institutions—45.6 percent of associate’s degree holders and 67 percent of bachelor’s degree holders have transcripts from multiple institutions. But students seldom know how the credits they have earned along the way will count toward their degree. And too often, those credits don’t count at all, costing students time, momentum, and money. New federal rules aim to minimize the uncertainty of lost credits and will soon require accreditors to hold colleges to a clear standard. Starting in July, colleges must provide a written reason for every denied credit before students financially commit.

Transfer Explorer gives students that clarity from the start of their search. A nonprofit data service and publicly accessible website, the platform closes the information gap by showing students how prior learning will transfer and apply to the requirements for a specific degree program, while they are planning and before they decide to enroll.

Now, ITHAKA will be working with the Ohio Articulation & Transfer Network (OATN) within the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) to implement Transfer Explorer at 28 of Ohio’s public universities and community colleges through 2028. This significant milestone is the platform’s most recent expansion, bringing 73 total institutions from five states to the database and website.

Ohio is the right place to show what access to vital information can do at scale: the state has guaranteed credit transfer among public institutions since 1990 and has continued to build policies that improve student mobility and maximize the acceptance and application of college-level learning. By adopting Transfer Explorer, Ohio is amplifying its commitment to higher education.

What is Transfer Explorer?

Transfer Explorer allows students to explore how credits transfer and apply to degrees before they choose to attend a new school. Launched by ITHAKA in February 2025 and building on ITHAKA’s groundbreaking work with the City University of New York to create CUNY T-Rex, the tool also gives institutions and systems a platform to improve and enhance their transfer data and processes.

The information comes straight from institutions’ own systems. A regular data feed is refreshed automatically, displaying evaluated course equivalencies, course catalog information, and program requirements, so students see accurate, up-to-date information they can trust. With that clarity, students can take charge of their own path, choosing where to go and what to take with confidence. For institutions, the benefit lies in the information staying current without manual data loads, reducing staff time and burden.

Evidence from Transfer Explorer’s precursor, CUNY T-Rex, shows that use is associated with a 1.5 credit improvement in courses counting towards major, minor, and general education requirements, thereby increasing the utility of credits, reducing credit loss, and reducing time to degree. This translates to an average direct savings of $300-450 per student.

Today, Transfer Explorer includes more than 3.8 million transfer equivalencies and more than 2,400 explorable academic programs from 45 colleges and universities.

Anyone can use it to:

  • Create a personal record of courses they have taken or plan to take at one or more schools;
  • Explore how those courses transfer and apply to degree requirements at another school;
  • Research different schools and degrees;
  • Connect directly with colleges and universities to start the transfer conversation; and
  • Learn about Transfer Explorer destination schools.

Why this matters for Ohio students

Ohio brings a well-established policy foundation to this collaboration, shaped by over three decades of work to improve credit mobility. What began with the Ohio Transfer 36, a guarantee that general education courses transfer among public institutions, has grown into a statewide ecosystem that recognizes learning wherever it happens, including pre-major and career-technical coursework, military training, industry-recognized credentials, and recognized exams.

Building on this work, the state recently participated in Ithaka S+R’s Holistic Credit Mobility Acceleration Cohort, a national network helping states and systems align on credit mobility practices through technology, policy, data, collaboration, and advising. Ohio’s engagement with the network encouraged them to showcase and improve their strong groundwork, ensuring the state’s progress is visible and impactful for students.

With Transfer Explorer, Ohio students will have one public, up-to-date site to explore how their earned credits are applied across different colleges, both in-state and out-of-state. For nearly 400,000 undergraduate and dual-enrollment students across the 28 participating institutions, that means fewer surprises, shorter paths to a degree, and more confidence in the choices they make.

That’s especially valuable for the community college transfer students, adult learners, military-connected students, and career-technical students moving between secondary and postsecondary programs who are central to Ohio’s broader credit mobility and completion initiatives.

“The way credit transfer has historically operated is a leap of faith. A student enrolls and then simply hopes the credits actually count. Transfer Explorer solves this problem by flipping the script – students will finally find out upfront, before enrolling, which credits will be recognized. Ohio is excited to work with Ithaka S+R to implement Transfer Explorer across the state.”

– Mike Duffey, Chancellor, Ohio Department of Higher Education

“Improving students’ ability to count prior learning toward a degree ensures that their time, effort, and money—and state and federal investments in their education—don’t go to waste. Ohio is a national leader in statewide policy to streamline the recognition of prior learning as students move between colleges, or from the military or the workplace to college. Transfer Explorer bolsters that excellent work by making authoritative, real-time information about how prior learning applies to degree requirements visible and usable by anyone. ITHAKA is thrilled to continue its collaboration with Ohio and its public colleges and universities—which has included innovative work on transfer policy and adult learner comeback—by implementing Transfer Explorer.”

–  Martin Kurzweil, Managing Director, Ithaka S+R

What’s coming next

As Transfer Explorer grows to meet the needs of students and institutions, planned new features include:

  • Personal accounts for students to save their plans and return to them over time across multiple devices.
  • Transcript upload so students can see how the courses they’ve already taken will transfer, without re-entering them by hand.
  • Side-by-side destination comparison for students to weigh which school gets them to a degree fastest.
  • Analytics dashboards for institutions and systems to assess and understand where students are looking, where transfer breaks down, and where to improve policies and processes.

These enhancements will enable both students and administrators to explore pathways and equivalencies more easily and have access to data that can improve transfer processes and policies.

If you’re interested in learning more, contact us at transferexplorer@ithaka.org.