Publications

Students now have more opportunities to earn college credit at more points in their educational journey than ever before. But moving that earned credit into and between institutions of higher education so that the earned credit applies to a program of study has proven a persistent and stubborn challenge for many students. Studies have concluded that students who lose significant amounts of earned college credit when moving to a new institution have lower chances of graduation and that students report…

CUNY Transfer Explorer (CUNY T-Rex) was developed to simplify the transfer of credits and represents an at-scale technology tool solution that provides transparent and up-to-date information about transfer credit equivalencies to students, faculty, and advisors. We undertook a mixed-methods evaluation to understand the process, conditions, and business requirements that were involved in the launch and proliferation of CUNY T-Rex, as well as to understand the behaviors, uses, and implementation of CUNY T-Rex at individual institutions and system wide.

This report provides findings from the evaluation of the pilot year of the Ohio College Comeback Compact, an institutional debt cancellation program being implemented at eight public institutions in northeast Ohio. Administrative holds preventing re-enrollment leave students unable to realize the benefits of a postsecondary credential. Fortunately, a number of initiatives and policies, including the Ohio College Comeback Compact, have sought to alleviate this barrier for students.

While the rise of institution-specific debt forgiveness programs and state-level policies limiting transcript withholding is encouraging, a regional or national approach could benefit returning students on a wider scale. In response, Ithaka S+R developed a regional solution, the Ohio College Comeback Compact, which launched in August 2022, to address the problems posed by institutional debts and provide stopped-out students with an opportunity to complete their credential and have their debt forgiven.

As of 2023, 43.6 million borrowers owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. The burden of debt negatively impacts borrowers' ability to provide for their families, purchase a car, or buy a home. However, there is another, often overlooked, institutional debt that students may owe their former institutions after stopping out. It is estimated that 6.6 million students owe $15 billion in unpaid balances to their institutions.

Since June 2019, the Articulation of Credit Transfer project (ACT) has focused on streamlining the information, advising, and administrative processes concerning how credits from one City University of New York (CUNY) institution transfer to another CUNY institution. This work addresses a critical challenge at CUNY, and indeed, across American higher education. When students transfer from one college to another, they frequently are unable to count their previously earned credits toward degree requirements at their new institution, jeopardizing their ability to…