Topic: Credit mobility
Upcoming Event
June 10, 2026
Collaborative Strategies to Support Adult Learner Re-enrollment and Affordability
More than 36 million adults in the United States have some college experience but no credential. Many adult learners who consider returning encounter persistent affordability challenges that slow or prevent re-enrollment and completion.In a plenary session at the MHEC College Affordability Summit: FAFSA & Beyond, Elizabeth Looker, Joanna Dressel, and Toni-Anne Richards will explore the complex financial and structural barriers that shape adult learners’ educational journeys. Grounded in national and regional data, we will examine trends in adult…
Upcoming Event
June 10, 2026
Improving Transfer Outcomes
Tools & Strategies that Support Student Success
Transfer pathways are a common journey for many students, but too often, students lose credits, time, money, and momentum along the way. The good news? There are emerging tools and advising practices that can help change that. Join this webinar on June 10 at 2:00-3:00pm ET to explore how practitioners can better support transfer students through stronger advising and smarter use of tools. Presenters from Ithaka S+R will introduce their Holistic Credit Mobility Framework, which helps institutions and partners…
Upcoming Event
August 3, 2026
Different Contexts, Same Challenge
Building Momentum for Holistic Credit Mobility
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…
Upcoming Event
June 10, 2026
Holistic Transfer and Credit Mobility in Action
At the University System of Georgia’s Adult Learner and Military Connected Convening on June 10, 2026, Ithaka S+R’s Pooja Patel will give a presentation framing the national landscape surrounding holistic credit mobility and providing context for the work that Ithaka S+R has supported across states and systems.
Past Event
May 21, 2026
Transfer Explorer Learning Network
Reverse Transfer and Why It Matters
Join us on May 21, 2026 at 3pm ET for the next Transfer Explorer Learning Network session. This quarter, we are talking about reverse transfer and how it can be an important pathway to degree completion for students. The session will feature an overview of reverse transfer, why it matters, and the challenges that students and institutions may encounter. Then, we will hear from guest speaker Dr. David Yancey of Coastal Carolina University, who will share insights from the real…
Blog Post
April 14, 2026
Making Credit Count
How Transparency Can Improve Transfer Outcomes
A new report from Ithaka S+R, Academic Momentum and Credit Mobility: Examining the Role of CUNY’s Transfer Explorer, explores how improving transparency around credit transfer can shape student outcomes. Drawing on administrative data from nearly 30,000 students across the CUNY system, the study offers new evidence on what it takes to support meaningful academic progress after transfer.
Research Report
April 14, 2026
Academic Momentum and Credit Mobility
Examining the Role of CUNY’s Transfer Explorer
This report examines whether using T-REX is associated with improved early transfer outcomes for CUNY students who move from a CUNY community college to a CUNY bachelor’s-degree-granting college. Using administrative data for first-time vertical transfer students initiating transfer between Fall 2020 and Spring 2025, we compare outcomes for students who logged in to T-REX before or during the year they transferred and students who did not. We focus on two outcomes measured at the bachelor’s-degree-granting college: (1) the total number…
Blog Post
April 8, 2026
From Cohort to Catalyst
At a Final Convening, the Holistic Credit Mobility Acceleration Cohort Celebrates Innovation, Accomplishments, and Connection
Earlier this year, Ithaka S+R hosted 40 members of the holistic credit mobility acceleration cohort in New York City for a final convening. Throughout 2025, cohort members worked with Ithaka S+R and Complete College America to identify and implement strategies to enhance credit mobility, creating a seamless path for students to transfer earned credits and ultimately achieve their educational goals.
Blog Post
December 11, 2025
Transfer Explorer Is Growing
Credit Mobility Website Is Poised to Add New States and Functionality in 2026
Today’s students are more mobile than ever before. A striking 45 percent of Associate degree holders and 67 percent of Bachelor degree holders have transcripts with learning from multiple institutions. Transfer student enrollment has increased by 8 percent since 2020, largely fueled by students who previously earned college credits and are now returning to higher education after a break to complete their degrees or credentials. To help ensure all those credits count toward a credential, we launched…
Past Event
November 14, 2025
Decoding the Path to a College Degree with Transparent and Actionable Credit Mobility Data
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning Conference
Far too often students returning to higher education or moving between higher education institutions encounter significant barriers in transferring course credits and receiving recognition for prior learning. Part of this struggle is the siloed and opaque nature of information about how prior learning will be accepted and applied toward a credential upon transfer to a new institution. This session at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) Conference will share insights on Transfer Explorer and CUNY Transfer Explorer, with…
Past Event
July 11, 2025
Holistic Solutions for Mobile Postsecondary Students
At the Education Commission of the States National Forum on Education Policy, Ithaka S+R’s Martin Kurzweil will participate in a moderated panel discussion on holistic solutions for mobile postsecondary students. The panel will use a framework for holistic credit mobility to guide a conversation with speakers from Ohio and South Carolina, both of which are part of a new community of practice on credit mobility and/or were featured in a recent research case study highlighting promising policy, practices, and…
Past Event
May 20, 2025
Providing Credit Transfer Visibility to Improve Credit Mobility
In a Tuesday Session with DXtera Institute, Emily Tichenor and Chris Buonocore from Ithaka S+R/JSTOR Labs will discuss the Transfer Explorer project. This spring ITHAKA launched a new, public, non-profit, national credit mobility website to help address the many challenges college students face when they move between institutions or attempt to transfer credits they earned in high school or elsewhere. Currently in its beta release, Transfer Explorer will expand in 2025 to contain data from a growing number of…
Blog Post
March 20, 2025
Highlights from SXSW EDU 2025
The Growing Role of AI in Education, Learning Styles, the Value of Higher Education, and Student Belonging Take Center Stage
Earlier this month, I attended the SXSW EDU Conference in Austin, Texas, where I led a panel session about Ithaka S+R’s credit mobility work. The conference featured wide-ranging sessions covering key topics in the K-12, higher education, and education technology sectors. I wanted to highlight a number of sessions that stood out to me, focused on the growing role of artificial intelligence in education, leadership in challenging times, student mental health and learning styles, and building cultures that…
Past Event
April 8, 2025
Modernizing Credit Mobility in Support of Postsecondary Access & Achievement
As students navigate increasingly complex educational journeys, retaining the value of their credits and credentials remains a persistent challenge. Lost credits and inefficient pathways can derail student progress and drive up costs. However, new technologies, data-driven solutions, and AI-powered tools are changing the way institutions approach evaluating and recognizing credit for prior learning, and the information and resources that students can use to plan their route to a degree through multiple institutions. At the ASU-GSV Summit on April 8…
Past Event
March 15, 2025
Using Lasso Regression to Examine Vertical Transfer Paths and Predict Student Success
At the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) 50th Anniversary Conference, Martin Kurzweil, Lexa Logue, David Wutchiett, and Colin Chellman will give a presentation of research using lasso regression to address multicollinearity and interaction effects in estimating graduation and academic outcomes for students transferring from community colleges to bachelor’s colleges. The session will be held on March 15 at 1:45-3:15pm ET.
Blog Post
March 5, 2025
New Lessons for Improving Community College Transfer to Independent Institutions
Updates to the Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
While nearly four out of every five community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, only 16 percent do so within six years. One oft-overlooked method to increase bachelor’s degree attainment among community college students is to strengthen transfer pathways between two-year and independent (i.e., private, not-for-profit) four-year institutions. Independent institutions often provide flexible degree options, personalized supports, and greater efficiency in credit transfer, all of which can help community college students complete a four-year degree.
Playbook
March 5, 2025
Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
How to Design and Implement Statewide Pathways from Community Colleges to Independent Colleges
One way to achieve bachelor's degree attainment for community college transfer students at scale is through state- and region-level initiatives dedicated to supporting transfer from community colleges to independent colleges and universities. The Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative aimed to create such pathways. This playbook draws on the experiences of grantees building pathways in 14 states.
Case Study
February 27, 2025
Holistic Credit Mobility Strategies in Action
A Case Study Report on State, System, and Institutional Efforts to Smooth the Path to a College Degree for Mobile Students
To understand the complex nature of learning recognition and credit transfer in American postsecondary education and examine the systemic barriers to entry many students face as they navigate its institutions, Ithaka S+R conducted a series of qualitative interviews in fall 2024 with state and system-level leaders in Idaho, Illinois, Ohio, and the University of North Carolina System, and representatives from Charter Oak State College and Florida International University.
Blog Post
December 18, 2024
How Dual Enrollment and Articulation Agreements Help Students Earn Degrees Faster in Georgia
This blog post is based on reports prepared for the TIAA Institute by George Spencer, Alex Monday, and Renni Turpin,[1] as well as an article in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.[2] Dual enrollment programs, which allow high school students to take college-level courses, have rapidly expanded in the United States over the past two decades. These programs are praised for increasing access to higher education, reducing costs, and accelerating degree completion (found in prior…
Blog Post
December 17, 2024
Higher Education at a Crossroads
Reflecting on the 2024 Complete College America Annual Convening
Complete College America’s (CCA) 2024 Annual Convening, hosted in Indianapolis this past month and framed around going “All In” on college attainment, brought together an array of postsecondary practitioners, leaders, and researchers focusing on student mobility and outcomes. At the conference, Martin Kurzweil and I led a strategy showcase focused on the Holistic Credit Mobility project, a cornerstone of our continuing efforts to support increasingly mobile students. In collaboration with CCA, Ithaka S+R is in the final stages of…