This session at the SHEEO Higher Education Policy Conference will draw on the work of the national Holistic Credit Mobility Acceleration Cohort, a year-long community of practice developed in partnership between Ithaka S+R and Complete College America with support from Ascendium Education Group, to examine what it actually takes to move from fragmentation to momentum at scale. Grounded in the Holistic Credit Mobility Framework first published by Ithaka S+R in 2022 and advanced through a 2025 case study report on six states and institutions, the cohort has brought together twelve higher education organizations representing systems, state agencies, and institutions across the country to test, refine, and share strategies for improving credit mobility outcomes.

In the session, panelists from two distinct cohort contexts will share their experiences: Team Pennsylvania, a cross-sector collaboration spanning PASSHE, community colleges, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which launched a redesigned statewide transfer platform, achieved near-universal transfer credit acceptance rates employing a user-friendly transfer dashboard, and convened the state’s largest gathering on credit mobility in over five years; and Shasta College and the North State Together Consortium, a rural California partnership leveraging AI-assisted tools including ATAIN and state aligned strategies to expand Credit for Prior Learning capacity across institutions navigating complex multi-system policy environments that disproportionately affect rural and adult learners.

Together, these cases illuminate a central insight: holistic credit mobility requires not just the right tools or policies, but the right relationships across institutions, sectors, and systems. CCA and Ithaka S+R will frame both stories within the broader national landscape, drawing on cohort-wide findings to identify the conditions that enable cross-sector buy-in, the policy levers that accelerate or impede progress, and the lessons most transferable to other states. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for assessing their own state’s readiness to accelerate holistic credit mobility, along with concrete examples of what progress looks like at different stages.